Dropping SezWho
As you can see by the icon on the right, I am a member of Entrecard. Recently, Entrecard partnered up with the SezWho comment social site. I joined SezWho during the early start up of this site, but lost interest very quickly. After Entrecard’s promo, I decided to give SezWho another try. After only a few days of use, I am removing SezWho from my site again.
Here are some of my reasons:
1. Reading the threads and replies in Entrecard’s forum regarding SezWho, vwhen visiting sites and commenting on sites who has SezWho, it appears that a lot of people are not interested and will not comment on a site that uses SezWho. So, even if you do get some new commenters, you are also possibly losing old as well as some new commenters.
2. If you have a rating of less than 3, how much will that affect your reader’s perception of your articles, especially readers? People have a tendency to put a lot of value on a “rating system.” SezWho had me listed with a 2.5 rating even without actively participating.
3. I was having a problem with the icon on my site and went to the SezWho forum to see if anyone else was having the same issue. I replied to a post from a person who had a similar problem. SezWho, (not any member), rated my reply as a “1.6.” This 1.6 rating, despite my getting “3’s” from commenters and comments/ratings that I gave, dropped my rating score down to a “2.” I felt a little offended that I seemed to have been penalized for adding to a thread dealing with the same problem I was having regarding my SezWho.
So, if participating in SezWho could possibly turn readers/commenters away as well as encourage comments from some readers, are you really getting ahead in any way? And how much will any low “ratings” affect future visits and comments?
Personally, I don’t feel its a good trade off.
So, goodbye SezWho plugin and hello WP Comment Luv plugin. If a commenter happens to have a blog, the Comment Luv plugin will show a link to their last blog post within their comment. I feel this will be a good way to show my appreciation to those who take the time and are sincere with their comments.
What do you think about SezWho or using Comment Luv?
whereIstand
@Lea50:
Indus from SezWho here. I’m sorry that we could not live upto your expectations. Is there anything I could do to make your day?
Here are some thoughts:
The rating is there to allow participation and engagement and disallow comments which may not make any meaning. If people like it they definitely give a thumbs up. In the case of default — we keep it at 2.5 which is neutral and then people build their reputation from there. Which means if you have been participating for sometime your default may be higher (or lower) depending on how people have rated your contributions in the past. The better your contributions are the better your overall “karma”. We’re trying to build this around quality and not just plain volumen of content.
Moreover, we are all about engagement and building a community for you.
In the last 3-4 days we have had a lot of queries from the community and we have been trying really hard to thiughtfully answer every one of them.
We woud love to see you back!
Regards,
Indus Khaitan
SezWho
twitter:1ndus
PS>That 1.6 may be inadverent as people have been experimenting with out system with a great zeal and someone may have voted your contribution down.
Indus Khaitans last blog post..Twitter should count out @replies and @user from status text
Hi Indus
Wow! I’m surprised! I understand the SezWho concept, but felt it wasn’t quite reaching its goal. At least not for me at this time.
As far as the 1.6 rating I got from the forum, I didn’t feel it was from other members, as it said I hadn’t been rated yet. If it is from another member, then I feel that was an abuse of privileges, since my reply to the post only stated that I also was having a problem with my icon. It was topic related. Other than that it wasn’t anything special. So I don’t know why anyone would feel the need to down rate it or rate it at all for that matter.
Thank you for stopping by and sharing your vision for SezWho. I’m also glad to see that the Comment Luv plugin is working as well.
You are not the only one bothered by the SezWho system–particularly the rating aspect. I have visited a few sites that have activated the SezWho commenting system and I was incredibly intimidated by the stars attached to the comments. Truthfully, I almost did not post a comment because the stars or lack of stars on the rating system seem to glaringly identify you and your comment. I would rather have the emphasis on the topic of the comment and the topic of the original post. With SezWho the emphasis seems to be more on the rating of the commenter. I find this distracting. I signed up for SezWho but have not yet implemented it on my blog. Remember, the system is voluntary and if you feel your blog will be better and you will be happier without it, I would do just as you are doing now.
Patricias last blog post..Can We Be More Creative Thinkers?
Hello Patricia
That was one of my major concerns. Possibly because whenever I would see a site with “rate this” or “rate me” that had low or no ratings, it made me wonder if the readers didn’t bother because the site wasn’t interesting or if visitors just don’t want to be bothered. Either way, I felt it didn’t help with public relations of the site.
Thank you for coming by and sharing your views on this Patricia. Many blessings.
Hi Lea,
There is one thing we all need to understand about SezWho. They operate by a very good concept but have lots of fault. We should believe in them, that they are many improvements and the system will sooner or later be what we want. I am their greatest fan, but if you visit my blog, and you will be very surprised by how I criticise them.
The greatest problem with SezWho right now is not even the site or its functionality, but the users. If we do our best to rate everyone and rate them justly or genuinely, then SezWho will be a very good service.
Please don’t let the experience of the 1.6 rating stuff cloud your mind. That was the action of one person, and I hope you will not use it to judge the whole community. I really don’t care if I am rated well or not, for the moment. I strongly believe that with time, users will give SezWho the importance it deserves and develop ethical principles with regards to posting, rating and commenting.
Before I go, I will just want t let you knw I am a fan of yours. I have advertised on your blog a few times and i had good results. I have even linked to you on my sidebar using your entrecard badge photo.
Hope to see you at my Blog.
AZ Bloggings last blog post..Uncle Che Receives the Blogging Friends Forever (BFF) Award
Hi Uncle Che
Glad to see you again. I agree, the potential for SezWho is there, but there are also people who don’t like the idea of their comments being rated or being followed throughout the internet and so will not comment on sites that has it installed. I do not know what the ratio is between those who like it and those who don’t.
For me, I felt it was counter productive to what I desire for this site. Which is to make this a place where everyone and anyone (except spammers or rude people) can voice their experiences, views, and so on, without feeling they are being judged in any way. If you know your comments can and might be rated, then in a way your being judged. So my thoughts are that such a concept is counter productive for this sites goals.
I am glad that its working out for your site though and I wish you continued success with it. I’m sure sezWho works for some sites, while maybe not so well for others, like me.
Thank you so much Uncle Che, for sharing your views and experiences with SezWho. I always enjoy visiting your site AZ Blogging. You always have some good topics full of good advice.
I just removed sezwho as well when my commentluv stop working after using it. Until now I cannot figure out how to get my last post to appear on commentluv… sezwho sucks…
you can see that my last post will not appear here depite enabling xommentluv…. do you have the same problem?
Hello Kisah,
When I read your comment on my “Dropping SezWho,” the only thing I could think that might help your CommentLuv situation is for you to try to disable CommentLuv and then activate it again. If that doesn’t work, you might need to re-download the plugin. I wasn’t using CommentLuv with SezWho, I only started using it after I deleted the SezWho plugin. I hope this helps, but if it doesn’t, it might help to post the problem in the Wordpress forums. Good luck.