I have turned on a new Haloscan feature that allows you to rate the blog episodes here. Honestly I don’t know if such a feature makes sense in this context, but I thought we could give it a try together. I have a feeling that most episodes (like this one) won’t really inspire readers to give it a score, and I’m pretty sure that I won’t want ratings on the fiction episodes and the like.
But what the heck. It’s free.
Edited to Add: I voted, then when I reloaded the page, it showed no ratings again. If anyone loads the page and sees a rating, could you mention that in the comments? Thanks!
Also note that the ratings thingies are the very last thing on the page to load. That might take a while on a slow connection.
Edited again to add: I have tried to put the ratings thingie in manually, rather than depending on the automatic implementation by Haloscan. We will see if it can remember votes now, and this way I can also control where the ratings show up a little better.
Well, it’s pretty obvious that the automatic implementation leaves a bit to be desired. Ratings everywhere! Holy smoke!
One cool thing about the service is that I can then have the “favorite episodes” section automatically update based on viewer ratings. While it might cause some of the old favorites to be pushed off the list, it might be interesting to see what turns up instead…
Another question: Is allowing readers to rate the guest poems a good idea?
So ….where are you?
a haiku:
went to your website
looked for your novel writer
shit the site is down
Yo man, I was going to give it an 8, but could only vote five. I voted anyway. It said thanks, and tells me there has been one vote, and a five start rating!
Way to go! Quality all the way!
8ster
Even though the Eightster might have posted a rating, I get five pale outlines of stars and the legend “Unrated.”
At least things are indeed coming through on my slow connection — the ratings thingie didn’t slow the connection in any noticeable way. My current problem is that iTunes and Vista are having serious issues with each other (something on the order of irreconcilable personality differences), which has nothing to do with this website.
It looks like, for whatever reason, the default implementation of the ratings thingie through Haloscan doesn’t work. When I get the chance I’ll turn that feature off and try implementing the ratings thingie manually, with code straight from the actual service provider.
I was able to vote! (Using the Mac!)
FWIW, turns out it wasn’t iTunes’ fault at all. Since we can’t afford a new HDTV right now, I bought an HDTV tuner to plug into the computer, and the software that came with the tuner is full of bugs.
In the end, all my efforts to get the ratings thingie to remember votes were fruitless. I might ask the js-kit boys (the actual providers of the service) for guidance, but that will have to wait for another day.
ratings? we donee no schtinking ratings.
CA, they are features. Not bugs. Features. Features that you are not yet prepared to use.
Ah, features. I’m going to have to figure out how to use the one that causes the computer to crash whenever the HDTV program is on (or comes on to record a program) and some other program wants to make a sound.