Understanding rec.bicycle.tech ratings?

Anyone understand these ratings?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...ch/about?hl=en

-tom

In article ,
says...
Anyone understand these ratings?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...ch/about?hl=en

Google's "ratings" aren't actually part of usenet, most readers here
will never have seen them and will have no interest in what they say.

Google's description of r.b.t. doesn't quite fit with the charter of the
group or its actual contents, and their ratings of top posters don't
account for posters whose addresses have changed.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html

Tom Nakashima wrote:
Anyone understand these ratings?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...ch/about?hl=en

-tom


Come on Carl! You can take Jobst with a hundred posts or so.

On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:46:39 +0100, Zog The Undeniable wrote:

Tom Nakashima wrote:
Anyone understand these ratings?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...ch/about?hl=en

-tom


Come on Carl! You can take Jobst with a hundred posts or so.

It looks like Jobst appears twice on the list because he's used two
different email addresses in his posting history. If you combine the two,
Carl is behind by more than 7500.

On Apr 16, 6:35 am, "Tom Nakashima" wrote:
Anyone understand these ratings?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...ch/about?hl=en

-tom


Tom, Unless I'm missing something, I didn't see any ratings. The page
just showed activity statistics for the group in general as well as
participants. You can find that information for any newsgroup that is
carried by Google Groups.

Google Groups does do "ratings" (stars) for postings to newsgroups,
but I didn't see anything about that in the page you linked (again,
unless I'm missing something).

The star ratings are strictly a Google Groups thing - it is not a
usenet thing. It is only seen by people who access the usenet
newsgroups via Google Groups. It is not seen by the vast majority of
people who read the groups via their normal newsreader and ISP. Does
this make sense?

The Google Groups ratings are meaningless for the above reason. Also
they are even more meaningless because anyone can rate any topic any
time they want. It does not reflect any overall impression or
objective criteria. I have NO idea why they (Google Groups) does it.

On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:46:39 +0100, Zog The Undeniable
wrote:

Tom Nakashima wrote:
Anyone understand these ratings?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...ch/about?hl=en

-tom


Come on Carl! You can take Jobst with a hundred posts or so.

Dear Zog,

Er, Jobst is actually leading me by over 7,000 posts.

On fact, the two leading posters both appear twice on that list.

When I looked, Peter had 15,247 posts under one account, and 4,604
under another, for a total of 19,851 posts.

Jobst had only 8,263 plus 7,410, for a total of 15,773 posts.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

wrote in message
...
On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:46:39 +0100, Zog The Undeniable
wrote:

Tom Nakashima wrote:
Anyone understand these ratings?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...ch/about?hl=en

-tom


Come on Carl! You can take Jobst with a hundred posts or so.

Dear Zog,

Er, Jobst is actually leading me by over 7,000 posts.

On fact, the two leading posters both appear twice on that list.

When I looked, Peter had 15,247 posts under one account, and 4,604
under another, for a total of 19,851 posts.

Jobst had only 8,263 plus 7,410, for a total of 15,773 posts.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

I believe the Google records start in Aug 1992 to the present, but if
records were kept back in the VM days, I remember J. Brandt post
as far back as 1981.
-tom

On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 07:35:23 -0700, "Tom Nakashima"
wrote:

Anyone understand these ratings?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...ch/about?hl=en

-tom

Dear Tom,

If you mean the "Top Posters", those are top ten accounts according to
how many posts per month or since the newsgroup began.

Peter Chisholm is first with a combined total of over 19,000 posts,
while Jobst Brandt lags behind with two accounts that add up to over
15,000 posts.

Modesty (and an uneasy feeling that in some cases quantity is not the
same as quality) forbids any mention of third place.

But you probably mean the star ratings column he

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...h/topics?hl=en

Those are just hit-or-miss ratings for the thread as a whole as
submitted by anyone who takes the trouble to rate any individual post
in the thread.

You can click on each poster in the monthly top 10.

Compare the total number of ratings, which is near the top.

Then compare how many threads in which the poster has been rated (the
star column, mostly empty for most of the top 10).

One poster will stick out like a sore thumb.

Browsing a few of the poster's starred threads to see the posts that
were praised will suggest how silly the easily manipulated star rating
system is.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 13:16:45 -0700, "Tom Nakashima"
wrote:


wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:46:39 +0100, Zog The Undeniable
wrote:

Tom Nakashima wrote:
Anyone understand these ratings?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...ch/about?hl=en

-tom


Come on Carl! You can take Jobst with a hundred posts or so.

Dear Zog,

Er, Jobst is actually leading me by over 7,000 posts.

On fact, the two leading posters both appear twice on that list.

When I looked, Peter had 15,247 posts under one account, and 4,604
under another, for a total of 19,851 posts.

Jobst had only 8,263 plus 7,410, for a total of 15,773 posts.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

I believe the Google records start in Aug 1992 to the present, but if
records were kept back in the VM days, I remember J. Brandt post
as far back as 1981.
-tom

Dear Tom,

You may be able to go back a bit further.

Rec.bicycles exists only as an archive (no new posts).

It goes back to 1987, and features at least 928 posts from Jobst from
as far back as 1990:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles/about

Cheers,

Carl Fogel