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ADDING RATING TYPES
Introducing the Rating Type
Rating types, or attributes, have been discussed previously in How To Create An Affiliate Review Site and How To Create A Graphic Artist Review Site. This section, and the following one, virtually duplicate the corresponding discussions found there on rating attributes. So it is merely in the interest of keeping this tutorial self-contained that the discussion of rating attributes is repeated here. In particular, it should be noted that there is really no distinction between rating attributes defined for items, members, or suppliers. In fact, an attribute is basically just a question, and because a suitably general question could be posed about either an item, a member, or a supplier, rating attributes are stored in a single table without reference to the type of thing to which they might be attached. Thus if you have already read the rating attribute discussion in the earlier tutorials, you can skip this one. Else read on...
A rating type, or attribute (the term is used interchangeably in this tutorial and the Review Foundry User Manual), consists basically of two parts: (1) a question, and (2) a numeric scale, which usually will consist the values 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 (though the scale can have as few as 2 and as many as 10 selections). If we want a member to rate an another member (in our particular case, on the merits of their dating performance) we place a rating type of one kind or another on the review form. If we want the member to rate several qualities associated with the other member in question, we place several of these attributes. Collectively, we call this set a "rating template".
In this section we will see how Kyla goes about defining the following rating template, which she intends to use specifically for the network First Dates > Beach Partiers. If displayed as it would appear on the review form, the intended rating template would look like this (click on the menu for each rating type to see the possible member responses):
We can see from this that Kyla has five rating attributes in mind: Punctuality, Photorealism, Personality, Soakability, and Dateworthiness. These she intends to apply to the network she has created named First Dates > Beach Partiers. Any number of attributes can be assigned to a team, though common sense suggests that users may look negatively on a review form that requests a rating for more than about 5 of these attributes. The 5 rating types chosen by Kyla for this network will be displayed with the submitted review once the review has been approved. On pages listing members, only the average of these 5 ratings will be displayed. So there is no need for Kyla to add an overall rating attribute (though when seeking reviews that carry a single rating attribute, an overall rating type may be exactly the one you want).
Creating a Rating Type
Before assigning a set of rating types to a team, each of the types must first be created. Here we consider the steps necessary to create the Photorealism rating type seen above in the second position of the rating template. The process is covered in more detail in the manual.
To create a rating type Kyla needs to click on the Database link in the middle of her admin navigation bar. The Database control panel allows the Review Foundry webmaster access to all of the editable tables in the application. In order for Kyla to add a new rating type, she needs to "edit" the RatingType table. To begin, she selects the table in the menu on the left of the page, and chooses Add for the database action. When she submits the request, the right side of the page loads the form used to add a new rating type. Here is what it looks like, with the appropriate fields filled in for the Photorealism attribute:
To understand the various form elements better, see the corresponding page on this subject in the manual on Creating a Rating Type. In short, Kyla chooses "Photorealism" as the short attribute descriptor, she adds the question that will be asked of one member rating another member on the accuracy of their photos, and she adds the 5 possible responses that the member may select from. The Rating Scale (here 5) must match the number of member responses she types in--the numbered choices--or Kyla will simply get an error message when she attempts to submit. She has chosen a Default Choice of "none" for this rating type to force a member to select a rating rather than have a default value filled in already when the form is presented on the review page. She has also provided a Level, or priority for the attribute. Level is used to order the rating attributes on the page. If Kyla wanted the Photorealism attribute to appear at the top he would have to ensure that the other 4 attributes she adds later each had a smaller Level than 10. Attributes without a Level are treated as though the they had a Level of zero.
Finally, Kyla has filled in the Rank DESC field which will appear in a menu which allows visitors to sort the reviews from highest to lowest Photographic Accuracy rating. Likewise the Rank ASC field is used to indicate the choice to sort reviews according to Photographic Accuracy rating, but in the reverse order--from lowest to highest rating.
IMPORTANT: Once Kyla starts collecting reviews that make use of a given rating type it is important that the meaning of that rating type does not change. Otherwise displayed ratings which depend on it, and display the Rating Question along with the numeric value, will convey the wrong interpretation of the data. If you decide you need a similiar rating type to an existing one, and are tempted to slighly modify the meaning of the existing rating type to cover the old and new meanings, you will almost always be better off simply creating a new rating type and using it in the new rating template that you have in mind. That way there is no possibility of "skewing" your existing ratings data.
Once the Photorealism rating attribute has been saved, it is ready for incorporation into a rating template, which will be covered next.
Next Section: CREATING RATING TEMPLATES
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