The Idea of Chowk

Re: # 52

chowk staff gets a score of three? why not five? so cute...

i don`t like this scheme.
it means we have to interact only to please chowk staff.

so i failed in test i accept.

Chowk-staff,

I would appreciate if you can also do something about the pics uploaded in interacts. For people like me who use dial-up connetion, the loading of page takes much longer due to pics. If someone must post images as part of interacts, they are welcome to put that in their personal space and put a link in the interacts.

124, yes, tahmed32....burns is nice ...a similar sentiment here....

And surely ye`ll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I`ll be mine,

I think staff should remove abusive and ojectionabe post but not banned them.
individual should have intellectual and emotional liberty for the full flowering of his genius.
please don`t behave like our society.and not snatch the right of self-expression.

rsridhar #85 In response to your post, let me repeat the poem by John Burns:

O wad some Pow`r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An` foolish notion

You may think that Romair or Urstruly dont deserve a 3 or a 4, but the referee does not. And I am prepared to accept the referee`s decision on chowk like I would on the cricket field - one has to be a better sport about it and have the humility to appreciate what Robert Burns is talking about above.

I think what overrides any perceived incorrect ratings is the fact that Chowk Moderators are providing some incentive to write more maturely (not start off with abuse and referring to other posters one does not agree with as ``dogs``, for example, as echoboom does) and intelligently. And I just love the fact that arjun gets a 0, which is exactly where he stands in my view. Perhaps the rating system will lead to some posters leaving chowk (and good riddance, as far as I am concerned), or better yet lead them to do some introspection (and thus improve the quality of their posts) - and also encourage the truly fun, intelligent posters to come to chowk. Bottom line - chowk could well increase its ``user base`` as a result over time.

One make make constructive suggestions to make the ratings system more objective over time. But let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

See post 120 to see what I mean!

urstruly see it from the chowk staff POV. They need to do two things simultaneously-

(a) reduce their current overheads
(b) increase hits

They have to do this without the abusive, racist, bigoted and plain boned-headed content increasing (purely from a commercial PoV). And so far 120 posts tell me that it has not as yet happened. Even UP is silent. Tell me which other methods would a better job. They have hit upon a very good scheme.

My pont is how long before the whole thing collapses under the weight of its contradictions. As other have pointed out you are going to get groups form who will hunt to tgether to generate the posts and scheme to get their ratings up. This is bound to happen withing the next month or so. My prediction is before long (just as it has happened to the ignore function - where everyone was monitoring everyone) everyone will set the level in the filter to -1.0 - just to see the fun.

To all those wanting to leave, I guess you are on the same level as those who wish to ``improve`` their interaction quality to improve their rating.You are choosing to get affected by the rating system. Besides, I would stil give chowk-staff about a week to see what they make out of this. Not that I would leave after that, but maybe this system may make more sense or it maybe shelved . I certainly hope for the latter.
One more thing, chowk-staff, please dont try to change interactors for something as facetious as a chowk-rating.If somebody starts posting differently because of this, they probably do not believe in what they write and dont belong to such a forum.
Cut out explicit personal abuses, but I cant think of anything else that should be stifled or rated for.

Re: # 116

Chowk Staff,

Unfortunately I can still read dotty`s and urs`s posts. And since I`ve become the cyber version of a rubbernecker, I cannot help but witness their lethal doses of personality as I scroll by. Please do something about this, thanks!

This is the biggest cop-out since the allies tried appease the nazis. The way I see it is

(a) chowk staff found banning almost impossible
(b) chowk staff found that filtering poststhemselves lead to long time delays - which at times was not acpetable
(c) there was not enough managedcontroversy on chowk to generate the heat and interest.

So they came up with this little trick. Give the punters the ownership by having a filter - this way they can see what they want to see - at the same time reduce their overheads and also at the same time generate the desired managed controversy.

They have managed to do all of this with one sleight of hand. Bravo brains behind this. You guys are amazing. You have done all of this through the filter, and ensure that there will controversy by the ratings mechanism. Now people will

(a) talk to kingdom come here and on UP about this ratings business and who is doing what
(b) Generate more immediate interest - esp after the banning episodes and interact ignore lists did not generate sufficient interest.

I must commend you whiz-kids for this wheeze. Bravo. Bravo.

Now just one more request please add some smilies (emoticons here as well please).

I feel embarassed by my score. Any system which gives a `1` to hamidm and a `4` to yours truly is patently absurd; that the chowk staff says that hamidm rocks just confirms the absurdity of the system instead of proving its fairness.

Re: # 116

I would rather use my scroll key. The current method stifles debate.

115, URSTRULY I agree with your sentiments here.

however, note that there is freedom for the user to select the posts he/she wants to read.All you need to do is to set the level in the filter. To see all the posts just set the level to the last level and viola yousee all the posts. I found seting it at a high value just demeans the whole experience of sitting on the neighbourhood chowk.

That way I see it , chowk, is like the local road intersection, and I am sitting in the chai-shop at the junction watchingthe world go by and occasioanlly interesting things happen. If I dont like what is there I turn my back and face the kitchen to see what is happening there (in this case UP).

The reallly serious censorship was when the chowk staff at the behest of a few liberal arts mafia started banning all and sundry at a mere whim. That was bad. Now this lame mafia doesnot have much to complain about. Ofcourse they are going get involved in the ratings - but so what - the posts are there and it up to us to read them or not.

Chowk Staff

This morning when I turned the PC on, I was shocked to see that this scoring system is still in effect. I thought it was just a bad joke that will go away overnight but......

What in God`s good name you people are doing. They way you are muzzling people, is is unacceptable. I would appeal to your good conscience in the name of humanity that you must dismantle this system of gagging people. Please re-instate all interactor`s account and allow them to interact. You may keep the scoring system as a tool for peer evaluation but do not use it to stifle us. We have come from countries where we have seen times where ``bhonknaiN ki azadi bhi nahiN thi`` as the Quratulain Haider once said. please do not let those dreadful days come back. Why it has become our second nature to re-invent wheel for every little thing we do.

Please re-instate all interlocutors` accounts.

Thank you