The idea of thought police makes me abit nervous.

There's a tall order for a handful of database developers and web designers.  Come up with software that makes people more thoughtful, articulate and engaging to other readers.  I know in the real world there exists such a tool, it's called alcohol.

Truthfully though, RIA is like sex and pizza, even when its bad, its good.

Reviewers are responsible for the comments quality. Administration may not replace the users in efforts to build the nice site. Definitely, all the comments that promote hatred, illegal activities, racial intolerance, etc., should be moderated. But, it does not mean, that all comments should be moderated to make them better. Or, that administration should hire some licensed journalists to make high-quality comments on the site.

"I'se doin' the bes' I can, bawse..."

Well this is our job, and unless people put more effort in or a bunch of higher-calibre reviewers step in, there's not much we can do about it. Unless Lawrence fancies standing on the sidelines with a whip?
And as BustinDustin said, quality is subjective.

I heard the ghost of Mark Twain just joined for this very purpose...seriously, it is what it is...

Why, certainly. But how ?!

I think that "quality" is a subjective word. So realistically, this really can't be done.

We already got them and quality reviewers as well.

I agree with Vudija. RIA can't possibly screen the types of people who sign up, nor control the quality of the reviews they leave. At best it can only delete very offensive language or slurs, but even that requires way too much manpower/womanpower/peoplepower and time. So reviews are mostly self-policing through comments the rest of us send to the screwups, though most of the time these sorts are not only unaffected by peer pressure, they revel in the attention.

This can (and should) be done to a certain extent, and I believe it can be done without eliminating some of the silly stuff which is often amusing. For example, eliminate any review which consists of "he sucks, she sucks, or it sucks." In the past we had one reviewer who went down the list of who should be in the rock and roll hall of fame and for anyone he did not like, he simply wrote the word "no." (I'll bet you he lost a lot of sleep thinking that one up) Also, one word reviews which consist of just name calling like "idiot, dork, asshole, etc.," should be deleted. This should go for positive comments as well such as "great, the best, etc.," If a person can't give a reason why they like or dislike a subject then let them leave only a star rating and stop wasting our time and bandwidth. This would also help keep certain fan clubs in check which invade RIA every once in a while to promote their favorite at the expense of other reviewers who have spent the time and effort writing well thought out comments on either side of an issue.

Nah, that would mean getting rid of me...

Yes!!!

A subjective idea, to be sure. . .one person's 'quality' is another person's trash (or Dan Quayle quote). . .

If reviewers already made sure that ther opinions were well-thought out, ths would have never been added to the list. This isn't something that anyone, other than the reviewer themselves, can control. Why is this on the list anyway? It's not like RIA can control the quality of a comment, unless it manages to break the rules.

Increasing the over-all quality of comments....doesn't that depend on the person making the comment? The only way to do that is to ask yourself...is this really what you want to say. Yes, that is all I wanted to say.

Redoedo, you sound like another internet elitest. People may not think my opinions are "top quality" but I'd rather share my honest opinion instead of degrade other users by saying that their opinions aren't important.

Sounds good. Unfortunately 80% of the reviewers on this site would have to be weeded out in order for this to happen.

How are you going to do that?! Quality is all too often in the eye of the beholder.Who would decide such ambiguous values?If you clean up someones grammar or spelling-you are,in effect,making them seem other than they truly are.I like the fact that real people are communicating however they can and will on this site.Don't get too hung up on spelling-even Einstein was dyslexic! If you are an intellectual snob and don't like a comment-you don't have to read it.

This is not a big deal for me. I enjoy reading some tripe now and again.

This would be nice, but how could it be done? If people want to post short, unhelpful reviews, then they have the right to. Like DickDirk said, the only plausible way is to set a good example.

Yes I think we all would like to increase the overall quality of the comments on the site, as there is always room for improvement. But as other reviewers pointed out it sure would be nice to increase the overall IQ of the total population. However we shouldn't censor opinions just because we don't like them or feel that their logic doesn't match up to your own. That would be just downright arbitrary and unfair. This is connected to the recent downturn of the civility level on the site. I know that righteous anger many times is a good thing and I will admit it makes for interesting reading, but we can't make these things personal. That makes the quality of the site go down. The quality of any comment is really in the eye of the beholder. Many people hold opinions that are very different than mine yet I find them to be substantive, interesting and funny, Some are dull and monotonous, a solid majority have redeeming qualities. The bottom line is that we sholdn't censor any of these views with the purpose of increasing the quality of the site.

No thanks. Censorship plays a big enough part in the RIA community.

Anyone wondering where the good, high quality comments are should take a gander at my user page. Now that's a great reviewer! I agree with everything he says!

There is no way to do this without imposing an arbitrary subjectivity on the process. Yes, it would be wonderful to find a magical filter to eliminate the "XXX SUCK" kind of posts, but wouldn't it also be wonderful to raise the average IQ of the population, eliminate slow drivers, and get rid of those inconvenient protestors holding cardboard signs in front of the supermarket? The cure is worse than the disease. Living with the inconvenience of stupid "free speech" is a compromise we have to make in any democratic institution. Anyone can leave opinions here. No one has control over other people's stupidity; it helps to learn to be amused by it. Regarding cheaters, it would be possible to set up an automated routine that looks for voting patterns (e.g. ten different log-ons that go and give helpful votes to the same list of posts) and then sends warning e-mail to the duplicate log-ons. That's tempting, don't you think?

Here's a suggestion: when someone cheats, using multiple identities to give themselves hundreds of votes in a day, REMOVE THEM. A complete phony recently took over first place on the Top 100 list. I've written management about it several times, and they have not responded at all. It doesn't hurt us any. But it does damage the integrity of their web site and it seems like they would care.

OK, what I think is that all comments should have to be approved by RateItAll's staff before being posted. And there would be certain guidelines. First of all, comments in ALL CAPS would not be allowed. Secondly, the comments should make sense, have decent grammar, and be at least a full sentence long, and they shouldn't stray too far from what they're supposed to be talking about Also, I've noticed that some people like to give low ratings to people/products/chains/etc. that they've never heard of. Comments like "Never heard of it" and "Who?" should not be accepted.

It'd be nice, but that's not really up to the website to get more informed/intelligent comments--that's all dependent on the users, and there really isn't much that RIA can do to eliminate that (other than go through and root out all the ones that say "It sucks"). It's up to the reader to decide what's a "quality" comment and what isn't, and if someone doesn't like it, they can skip over the comment or disregard it.

How are you gonna do that? Force people to pass an IQ test before they can write stuff on here?

I've seen many comments with obscene language (I don't necessarily mean 4 letter words) that should be cleaned up. There are a lot of kids on this site, and even if there weren't, I don't want to read that stuff either.

I feel that this is censorship, which is something that I am strongly against. Besides, what one person may view as quality, another person may view as stupid. We all have the right to freedom of speech and expression, no matter what our differences are. The only comments that I can do without are the ones that attack other reviewers.

I would love to give this a 5 because there really is no question about the necessity of quality comments here on Rate It All - and if you DO have any doubts, simply observe ANY comment left by Marc Chatow or any of his/her/their myriad stupidonyms. I think many can agree it would really be nice to look over the comments here without the usual, idiotic sentence fragments written in ALL CAPS which desperately struggle to be relevant to the item being rated. But I have to give this an average rating simply because I recognize the impossibility of effectively regulating comment quality without charging certain individual(s) with the task of filtering out "less than quality" comments. But then there would be the issue of now subjecting one opinion to the bias of whomever might be in charge of the approval process. So any efforts at quality control might just create more problems than they solve.

Good or Bad. Intelect or Idiot. Opinions are just that opinions. You don't find my comments helpfull, intelegent and just crammed full of info? Then read on, keep reading until you find the perfect comment for you, click YES you did find this comment helpfull and move on. As for me? Sorry I could'nt help you. But to say my comments quality was lacking because you did not find it helpfull is about as intelegent as stating, I don't like you because you have a 70's style haircut. Right or wrong opinions are what you make of them.

I'm not really sure what "quality" means. As others have pointed out, some leave a few insightful sentences, others will write yardage of prose. That said, I do sometimes ask myself just how helpful a comment such as "he's a pig" (seen it!) about an album really is... and what it says about the legitimacy of the site. But then again, I'm not in favor of censorship, or the idea that the site owners take on the role of "thought police." I think a POSSIBLE way to address some of the stupid/inflammatory comments issue would be to have the "not helpful" count subtract from the "helpful" count when comments are ranked for a given item.... and someone with 5 "not helpfuls" would be ranked at -5, not at zero. Eventually the most inane comments would sink to the bottom of the page. But other than that, I'd say don't mess with what people can say.

Look, there are stupid comments left on almost every rating. There is also the comments that people make on this website (and you know who you are) that cannot be supported with a rational thought, proof, or any intelligence. However, this is an eye of the beholder issue. What one person may see as thought provoking, another may see it as stupid or unintelligent...and vice versa. In those situations, who are we to judge? By eliminating some of the so called stupid comments, we could also at the same time wipe out a correct, and/or intelligent though out answer.

Well....I'm not sure what exactly is meant by "quality", but I think it would be great if the profane language could be reduced-big time! I'm all for seeing people's adament opinions, but I feel that some boundaries should be set on how vulgar the comments can be.

Excellent idea because there are plenty of dumb statements on this site. However, what I think is dumb, someone else might think is genius, and vice versa. It would be very hard to carry out the idea.

It depends on what one defines as a "quality" comment. I think a huge majority of the posters here write nice, interesting reviews, whether I agree with them or not. Everybody's writing styles are different. Some people like to express themselves with a few simple sentences while others prefer to take the time and write out long, thoughtful comments. I think everyone who posts here regularly has something interesting to say. I could do without the comments that attack other posters for their views though. I always rate them as "not helpful" no matter how well-written and well thought out they are.

Of course,i'm all for a higher quality of comments-who isn't?But i don't see how this can easily be achieved without some form of censorship or exclusivity.And who would be the judge?.The helpful/unhelpful markings serve a purpose.That isn't to say i don't get frustrated when i see a whole page of seemingly gratuitous one-liner comments with no explanation.I'm also disappointed when there seems to be a sudden "invasion" of the site by some particular interest or fan group,to alter the overall ratings in their favour.But it's an open forum.I'm always glad to see thoughtful and instructive comments;fortunately there are many valuable contributors.I'm sure we all prefer some depth to the remarks but i don't think there should be a minimum number of words set;some pithy remarks can be more meaningful than a whole page of waffle,and many readers are deterred by length-no doubt mine could be shorter!

How can we do this without annihilating some of the comments already on the site? And whose going to decide just what passes for quality and what passes for schlock? I may not like what everyone says and I may not express myself in quite the same way as another person, but I still think everyone has a right to do so in their own way and their own words – as long as they don’t lapse into really offensive language, threats, and racial/ethnic slurs. In other words, as long as everyone sticks to the subject and keeps it a nice clean place to visit I have no problem.

NO CENSORING!!!!! I REFUSE to have my comments censored because they contain swear words, and I know that "increase overall quality" is always a code for "censor objectionable content"! That is not why I come to this site. I come here to express my views the way I want to, and that means no one is allowed to interfere except me! I would hate it, knowing that someone somewhere was allowed to manipulate my comments anyway they want to. Take care, everyone!

It seems the only way to do that would be to limit what peolpe can say. I don't think that's a good idea.

I think this a pretty big deal. The quality of comments can always be improved.

I agree that more quality comments woul improve the site, but I feel this will only be achieved witht he passage of time. Good comments are left everyday, and you have to take the ad, idiotic comments with the good. If comments are ranked witht the comments rated as "most useful" atop the apropriate pages it will e easy to ignore the ones of lesser value to the user. Putting arriers in place in an attempt to improve the quality of the comments will only distract users and shy people away from leaving comments.

This is critical. There are too many idiots posting idiotic statements on this site. Anything that can be done to raise the bar a little bit should be of utmost importance.

This is key. Quality comments are the backbone of this Web site. RateItAll should do everything it can to encourage its users to leave long, quality comments.