TechRepublic FAQ video: Voting
February 4, 2011, 8:15am PST | Length: 00:02:32
One of the changes of TechRepublic's 2011 upgrade is the ability to vote on individual comments in both the Discussions and Questions forums. Here's a quick look at TechRepublic’s voting system and how you can use it benefit the TR community.
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Transcript
Hello, I’m Sonja Thompson, aSenior Editor for TechRepublic, and this is the first of hopefully manyinformational videos that highlight some of the changes on the site that arepart of our 2011 upgrade.
One of the very cool things thatwe added is the ability to vote. Back in the old days, only the person whoasked a question in the Questions forum could give the respondents a Thumbs Up,but now everyone can vote on the individual comments in both the Discussionsand Questions forums.
The overall goal of voting is tohelp you all quickly find the good stuff (those are the comments that receivethe most plus or positive votes) … and ignore the stuff that’s not so good (thecomments that receive the most minus or negative votes).
So, don’t be scared - Vote up the“good stuff,” and that doesn’t just mean the comments you agree with. In fact,we discourage voting down comments just because the opinions differ from yourown. Instead, we’d love it if you Voted up comments that had a lot of thoughtput into them or were well presented, even if you don’t share the same views.
On the other hand, don’t be afraidto Vote down comments that you think are either biased or unfair, or containpersonal attacks or foul language. By default, after a comment has received 5votes down, it gets hidden. Everyone can still read what that person said, butit takes an extra click.
You can also easily change yourdefault setting by clicking Community Preferences at the top of any Question orDiscussion or by going to My Account at the top right of any page and selectingPreferences. Here, in the Threshold section, you can alter your default ratingfor hiding comments if, for example, you’d like to change your threshold sothat comments are hidden after being voted down just 3 times.
Of course, if you run across acomment that’s really nasty – not just foul language but inappropriate personalattacks and name calling – please Flag it, select the Cause of the Report,enter a brief explanation (this part is optional), and then click Submit. Wewon’t just hide these kinds of comments, we’ll completely remove them from thesite. TechRepublic is committed to creating a respectful and professionalatmosphere for IT pros to exchange ideas. So remember: attack ideas, notpeople.
Well, that’s our quick look atTechRepublic’s voting system. We hope this video has been helpful, and we’vegot a lot of other new features that we’re excited about, so please keep youreyes peeled for more FAQ videos in the near future. Until then, take care andthanks so much for being a member of TechRepublic’s online community.
