ok, I agree, how about leaving the thumbs up/down for just your registered members.
That may imply slightly that the registered member understands the 'mechanics' behind GOTD & would follow thru with our end, ie: use/try recommend/buy etc; and maybe give more credence to a tally on the splash page.....
anyhow, just my thoughts- have a great weekend all !

how do you tell if it's thumb up or down? some time's it's hard to tell?

And I've seen it many times before - there are 50 or 100 thumb ratings - and there has been a problem with the download meaning nobody has been able to download the giveaway.

Or the ratings are in the first 60 seconds of a giveaway - enough time to download, install and evaluate? Perhaps they have used the program before - and are rating based on past experience? who knows....

To demonstrate how comment voting works (an example only)

There are a few regulars who post along the same lines I am thinking - which only shows they know what they are talking about... naturally I'll vote them up.

Users who disagree with what I think - will get voted down....

Users who say "It's free - don't complain - it must be good software-because it is free"... I will vote down.... or delete as an offensive comment (before my brain explodes).

So - as you can see the logic applied to voting and comment votes doesn't always follow rational rules - getting people to type in a message before they can vote will only mean there are more "empty useless" comments - that have go through moderation just so some of the monkeys in the peanut gallery can have their say.

Of course there are some users who stick out like in the song - "One of these things is not like the other, One of these things just doesn't belong". After a while you will get to know which users these are - and how much value their comments have - but only by trying the software and relating your experience to their words.

So true... some people just glance at software or a game and judge it on whether they even want to download it or not. It's not "how do you rate this," it's more like "do you want it." Though there are honest scorers who try the software/game first and then give it a thumb, it's certainly not accurate because of the other group. It would make more sense to have the thumb indicator after each post as a final yea or nay, but I'm sure that's programming GAOTD doesn't want to do. Because lets face it, people misuse rating systems all the time. Maybe if those buttons didn't become available until after you've signed in and posted, as freeme indicated. You can only "vote" once, so that's a good thing... but like triphammer, I like to try things out for myself anyway. Though I do pay attention to the remarks on whether unfamiliar software works well or not, and if there's something better out there. So yeah, I glance at the thumbs for an overall opinion, but the remarks often don't reflect that anyway. It's something you end up weighing yourself.

It's a system that has no relevance. The comments too. Good comments get bad ratings. Lousy info gets good ratings. It's best to look at the comments yourself and make your own judgement on whether it was valid info. Why rate it? The legitimate posters will stick out after a time and you can make better judgements as to the software based on ppl you know have a head on their shoulders. A better system would be to have posters registered and then rate the posters as to informative or not.

Ultimately, I don't trust what a bunch of clowns have to say when it comes to software on my computer. I'll always try it out and make my own determination as to whether the software was good or not... If I like it... then I'll be looking to buy it (eventually).

As you said... ppl vote simply on whether they thought it was a good giveaway or not. As an example... when screensavers come up.. there's always a majority of ppl voting with a thumbs down. Not because the screensaver stinks.. but because ppl came to the site and were only left with a screensaver to download. When I come to see what's there for the day... the thumbs up and down for the program only tell me whether the clowns were happy today or not.

Is there anyway to change this system so that a comment is necessary and before being able to thumb up or down?

I find it annoying that often there are more thumbs down than up, or about the same which makes me think the program stinks, but when I click on comments 90% are positive and the only negatives are whiners complaining that they don't like the category of program instead of rating the program itself.

Forcing a comment of at least 10 words (or so many characters) would also stop the quick thumbs down fold who don't download the program because it isn't the type of program they want. To me the thumbs up and thumbs down should indicate the quality of the program being offered, not anything else.

thanks for reading this