Will You Please Listen When I Talk About Ratings?

I see several problems with the rating system.  The one you raise is one of them.  I also don't feel comfortable rating certain kinds of answers because the question asks for an opinion.  So if I rate the answer, I am rating an individual's opinion, which I don't feel is right.

Sometimes I think there are too many answers rated as excellent.

I don't like the ratings system as it is because it is open to abuse and can and does cause hurt feelings.  I know that a lot of people enjoy rating answers and are proud of their standing on their own ratings, but sometimes I wish the ratings weren't there.

I often run out of questions I know the answer to so I rate a bunch of answers even if I didn't answer the question myself or ask it. I try to rate all the answers to my questions, but sometimes I don't get to it.

I wasn't even aware up until I read this, that you could rate answers to another person's questions.  I'm confused as to the reason behind it.  I would think that just the person that asks the question would have the privilege of rating the answers they get.  Or am I not getting this right??  I get so confused in my old age!  LOL!
Moe

Yes! Dear! You are right, not only the user who asked the question can rate the answers, but anyone on blurtit can rate others' answers. We shouldn't judge a book just by its cover. Not all questioners will rate the answers, others can also do that!

I am reading your question my friend loll, yeah i can understand what you are saying, frankly speaking i rate all the answers to the questions, which i see, not only mine others questions too

I do rate other blurter's answers but sometimes I do feel like what Nanny mentioned. It feels like you're judging and it can hurt others feelings. Though I believe that's what this site is all about.

I personally would like to see the rating system go away.  Like Nanny said, sometimes you'd be rating someone's opinion or giving someone a low rating just because you don't like their answer (I now know of a pretty well known blurter who has given low ratings just because she doesn't agree with what was said).

If it comes to opinions, if I remember to rate, I always rates opinions high since they took the time to respond to an answer, but a lot of times, I don't even think to rate.

Also, someone who gives an absolutely wrong answer could get a high rating for an answer, and someone who gives a correct answer gets no or a low rating on it.  This, too, happened to me--where the person who answered the question apparently was not rating, but had left comments.  The comment they left on the other person's answer was thanking them for answering the question, but it didn't really answer what they were asking.  It got three excellent ratings.  So I answered it the way the person asked it, got the comment from them that I did answer the question to her satisfaction, but yet no one rated it at all.  Not that I'm disappointed--the comment from the person was enough to know that I had helped that person out.

But since the rating system is completely arbitrary and does not really demonstrate how helpful or good answers are, I would really like to see the rating system go away.

In your answer leave a note that says(please leave a rating for my answer)

Maybe people should leave a note if they rate an answer to someone else's question.. I try to.. If its worth rating its worth a comment.  when I ask a question I give all honest decent answers 5 stars..I just think that's fair .. But a really bad answer like yes or no or I don't have a clue.. I don't rate

I don't know, that is what I thought at first until someone told me that wasn't so.

I answered a question on punctuation marks and so did another blurter. The other blurter was an English teacher. Someone came along and gave me a good rating and the teacher, a bad rating. I saw that later and feared that the teacher might think that I gave her the bad rating, so I asked some of my friends to go over and rate her question to bring her rating up.
Some blurters give a bad rating on an answer and never bother to answer the question themselves. I know it is true because I have checked the question posters' profile and seen that they had not been back on since the question was answered. This is just not right. If someone gives a bad rating, then they should at the very least, have enough guts to try to answer the question themselves.
  If I see an answer that I know for sure is wrong, then I just leave another answer, unless, of course, someone has left a mean or very rude answer. That is a different story and I flag them.

Not all ratings left are by the ones who answered the question. The only good thing about this is if a friend catches it they can up your rating usually. Maybe the Blurtit team should be the ones to give ratings but they are very busy doing so much for the site already. People that give really low ratings must have a high opinion of themselves or really don't like the answer. We should all get along. Maybe someday we will just get rid of the rating system. Peace

I do not know why people make that assumption.  I rate many answers where I did not even answer the question myself much less ask the question, but I always give the answer an excellent rating because it was either correct or it was a well thought out or entertaining opinion.  In the former case, I think my answer would only be redundant but it would help the person asking the question to know an answer is correct if I rate it high.  In the latter case, I want to encourage the person to continue to voice their opinion because it makes me think even when I do not yet have an opinion of my own.  I wish other people would take this approach as well.

When I first started on Blurtit, I also rated some answers low.  Those were to questions that had answers that were either right or wrong, such as a math question, and the answers were clearly wrong.  In those cases, I always provided the correct answer, or I rated the correct answer high if it was already provided by someone else.  However, after getting to know some of the regulars on Blurtit, and being invited into “their” community so to speak, I decided this was not the best approach.  Some people do get offended when their answers are rated low, some are discouraged, and some can even be vengeful.  Now if I see a wrong answer, I do not rate it all, but I will still rate a correct answer high if provided or provide the correct answer myself, and opinions that make me think or entertain me will always get a high rating from me.

I do my best to rate and leave a comment on the answers  I get
I also rate others too! But I feel funny as was mentioned before because most leave an opinion not an answer,and its hard to rate an opinion,so when I see an opinion I don't rate,but if its an answer I will and nine times out of ten,depending on how its answered and who answered it could rate an excellent

I also leave ratings to the questions I answer, if I see an answer was well thought out and they took a lot of time, then I will give wows, I try not to look at names though when I am rating, if I see that someone is saying something negative to someone, like why ask this type of question, or this question doesn't deserve an answer, they get low. I very rarely give out ratings below 3 stars, I think if a person tries, they don't deserve a 1 star, and it makes me not want to answer questions when I see someone has come along and given me low ratings since I have always tried to answer to the best of my ability.

That is a great way to put it!! Sometimes others get there to rate them before the person that answered the question gets to rate them first!! Way to go tigg!!

I don't understand how someone can rate a question you posed,especially when it is a opinion question,I have noticed friends rating one anthers answer but neither was the person that asked the question,I had inquired about this and was told oh yes anyone can rate the answers,does,and make sense to me but I was informed those are the rules,no that is not how I see it and wish that there can and will be changes made to that rule. I have gotten a notice that my question has a answer and it is already rated. I think there are some people on blurtit that just rate questions.

Yes you're right, the person who answers your question DOES deserve some appreciation, by rating the answer, but usually people are in a hurry and forget to leave ratings. But still if your answer is rated it gives the impression that the person who asked left it , because you want that person to like the answer you gave. So whenever i get a rating on my answer, in my mind i go: Hurrah they liked it! They liked it! Maybe the one who rates an answer should be able to right their name so no more mix-ups happen.

I am listening! I'm making an effort to rate peoples answers!

I've had people with two or three names jump on me before so I'm in the 87% thing! Due to these low life's that got kicked off for being low life's!

I will always listen to you no mater what you are talking about.

Yes i will listen,thats true i think we deserve ratings for all our good answers.