A while back, Peter Caputa called me out for not talking about the star system of comment ratings that have popped up on Weblogs Inc blogs. I took notice and have been checking it out. Here is how Jason Calacanis describes it.
The Star System�??as we are calling it for now�??is simple. Our bloggers give readers a star for every good comment they put up. That is, a constructive comment that ads to the dialogue. The blogger doesn’t have to agree with what the commentator is saying, the star is simply the reward for creating a constructive post.
I struggle sometimes with the value of comments. It is not quantity, it quality and let’s face it, there are a lot of brain-dead commenters out there. I think a system like this is moving in the right direction. It gives the commenting community a way to know what is valuable and what behavior to emulate.
You can see the star ratings in action on these entries at TV Squad and Cinematical.com.