It is perhaps the case that Warblogging went off the air at least partially because of the rancorous debate the rating system proposed had caused.

The main reason given for trying a ranking system was to exclude or diminish: 1)trolls; 2)conservatives; 3)idiots and mere humans of all idiologies that took up bandwidth.

Perhaps the intent here is to try to exclude "conservatives of a different bent", anti-intellectuals, and liberals, and others, but I have seen nothing here that sets forth a clear and rational reason for a rating approach.

One reason to object to ratings is the obvious trend that would emerge to write to score a high rating, which has its upside and definitely its downside, i.e. writing for ratings, not the author's truth.

Michael has a valid point in that opposite poles of debate spark controversy and spirited commentaries, never mind the actual content.

I suggest that installing a rating system would diminish the value of the site.

(1) I tried yesterday to enter the system, but failed. The system failed to recognize my usual password (? Due to Caps, or old password), and failed to recognize my E-Mail address. It had no way to establish a “new” individual to comment.

(2) Never liked rating systems in this type of forum. They are easily manipulated. Keep in mind that the more partisan a person is, the more likely he / she is prone to rate.

(3) Nesting comments makes it difficult to address the comments of two or three participants at one time. This is a major problem if the discussion gets hot and heavy. (Time for another round on Health Care?)

(4) Your old posting system was a “darling” when it came to adding HTML tags to a post. In my view, the Preview function is essential. See sam ( April 3, 2009 | 04:46 am ).

(5) Do not know how hard it would be, but if you assign a number to each comment, it would be easier to reference another writer’s comments (see the way I reference sam, above).

Under no circumstances scrub “old comments” from your previous posts / threads. I suspect your readership and those who write a comment have stored their comments, especially if they display critical links.

Pssst: from the epicurious dictionary: Prized by gourmets throughout the world, sweetbreads…

Do you really see me as someone who is driven by ideology?

We're all driven by ideology, anjin-san. Some, like you and also Bithead, follow your own ideology instead of someone else's, but it's still an ideology.

I am a pretty strong Democrat now, but really just because the Bush family drove me to it. I voted for Reagan twice, and my first choice for President in 2008 was a Republican.

Did your reasons for picking candidates change, or did the candidates of your previous party simply not match your existing ideology?

Or maybe you just mean my posts make sense, as opposed to bit's :)

No, not at all what I meant.

Note that I singled out Anjin-san in the same sentence, who is ideologically opposite of Bithead.

Do you really see me as someone who is driven by ideology? I am a pretty strong Democrat now, but really just because the Bush family drove me to it. I voted for Reagan twice, and my first choice for President in 2008 was a Republican.

Or maybe you just mean my posts make sense, as opposed to bit's :)

the rest of the commentors with low ratings, whether their their comments were "useful" or not. (Note the singling out of Bit, for example, in a previous post.)

Note that I singled out Anjin-san in the same sentence, who is ideologically opposite of Bithead. I picked both because of the reactions they receive to their posts, not because of the positions they take.

In the end, you would have a small group highly rated by each other, and the rest of the commentors with low ratings, whether their their comments were "useful" or not. (Note the singling out of Bit, for example, in a previous post.)

Sounds quite cliquey and perhaps a bit intellectually arrogant to me.

Most of us have gotten pretty good at ignoring the trolls like Zeldorf. And really, there aren't enough of them to require moderation. I'd be more worried that people like Bithead and anjin-san will be modded down (by each other, mostly) simply because people disagree with what they're saying, not because they're being a troll. We certainly don't get so many comments that we need to have some automatically hidden from us.

Oh, and previewing comments is very helpful for proof-reading before posting. Especially long ones like this. I typically edit my long comments 3 or 4 times before posting. Many times I've canceled posting it all together when I wasn't happy with the quality of what i had written.

But it would be convenient to be able to address specific commenters without kicking the thread out of kilter.

For what it's worth, my final opinion is that this was a noble but failed experiment.

For what it's worth, my final opinion is that this was a noble but failed experiment.