In October 2011 I posted ‘Slaughter in the Suburbs’ where I protested at a tendency towards allowing ritual slaughter to take place in suburban areas. In years that followed I noticed that this was on my ‘most read’ list particularly in the months of April and May. It had 37 Rating Votes giving an average of 2,5 out of 5 stars, 17 ‘Likes’, and 32 comments of which one supported the custom.
On April 16, 2014, I added a post entitled ‘Ritual Slaughter as a Spectacle’. This had 17 Rating Votes, again averaging at 2,5 out of 5. There were 21 ‘Likes’, and 31 comments of which two supported the custom without any reasons, and one failed to follow up on my rejection of their rationale for support.
Both posts have had many thousands of views — close on 30,000 to date — by people who then fold their tents like the Arabs, and as silently steal away, as Longfellow had it.
During these periods I have noticed a tendency for unrelated, scattered and random posts of mine, during but not covering the April/May period, to develop one-star (Very Poor) ratings, or ratings where it is obvious that five star/s have been watered down with a one-star. A number of them have been Wordles, so I take it there may be someone who violently dislikes my abbreviated, rhyming, and sometimes hard-to-understand efforts. A nice anonymous way to make this known.
On the other hand, some of them, where a number of ‘Likes’ were in evidence and where I would say the content was, if not brilliant, at least entertaining, may be in disgruntled response to my condemnation of ritual slaughter?
At any rate, the rating/vote system would only work if people gave an honest assessment based on the criteria. One invariably sees fives (where a Like would have done the job) or a one, which can mean anything from disliking the post to disliking the blog or blogger or to suffering from a stomach-ache at that particular moment.
Pic – Wiki
Colonialist's Blog 
Oh dear, my power of observation must be bad because I didn’t notice the voting system on here!
I have now voted.
I wasn’t blogging when your posts about ritual slaughter were published but having read your comments today I totally agree with your opinions.
I play a game with myself in which I try to guess which type of articles will receive the most Likes. Unfortunately, people out there spoil my game when they forget to click LIKE 😅
Then there’s the other sort, those who click Like immediately after publication when there simply hasn’t been enough time to read the actual post!
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Well, at least some people give your posts Five Star ratings, me being one of them. I have never used the ratings system on my blog and don’t think it is available for my WordPress theme. Have a good weekend.
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It is good to know who some of those fives come from! Thanks!
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Ritual slaughter – it would depend on what, (or occasionally’who’) is being slaughtered, by whom (or ‘what’ on occasions) and for what reasons.
Blog Ratings – they’re fun if not taken too seriously, and can be used as a broad-spectrum antibiotic if one is in need of such treatment, but on the whole et vivere, reservate, I say. 🙂
On the other hand, those ‘very poor’-ists lack critical judgement faculties and ought to be consigned to the deepest pits of perdition poste haste.
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I would submit, M’lud, that there is no ‘Depend’. There is no occasion on which it is justified for any living creature to be killed in a ritual manner, because those ceremonies invariably involve abuse or prolonging of suffering and trauma. Religions and customs that demand it are serving a disgusting god or a barbaric custom.
The ‘one rating’ brigade are certainly deficient in mental activity — one is surprised that they retain sufficient to be able to blog.
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I’ve written a fair amount about “likes” and the rating options. These days, I don’t pay much attention to “likes” and I removed the rating option as few people used it.
If someone wants to engage me in the comments, fine, if not, I assume they loved everything I offered up . . . if they bothered to read it.
That’s also one of the flaws in the five-star rating system for books. And, even if people explain why they rated something a 1 or 2 stars, it usually boils down to personal preference.
There seems to be much more of focus on getting ratings for everything these days . . . I wrote about that as well; mostly, it’s annoying.
Companies will justify asking by saying it helps potential readers/buyers/etc but as I don’t trust ratings, I don’t think that’s the case in practice. Anyway . . . ritual slaughter, bad. Also, non-ritual slaughter, bad.
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As I indicate in my expanded version of this post, the ratings can be very subjective and have nothing to do with the quality of the post. Therefore the system merely offers a tool for being mean and nasty, anonymously. Or being over-effusive, ditto – and where does that get anyone?
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What’s the “expanded version”? I read the post on your blog; is there another version elsewhere?
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I added to it in an ‘Edit’ after first posting.
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Just don’t heed ratings, and read between the lines of comments when you have written a post that expresses thoughtful opinion. By “between the lines” I mean consider whether the comment is an engagement with you in conversational exchange, or just an excuse to air the commentator’s own opinion, for or against.
And btw, I like the wordles, but rating them seems to me like rating playfulness – quantitative ranking doesn’t apply.
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I don’t normally heed them, but just lately I have become irritated by the influx of ‘Very Poor’ indications. I believe they are unwarranted and petty.
Reasoned disagreement I welcome. I have had spirited debates with some bloggers where very frank views were exchanged, but we remain on perfectly cordial terms.
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