To me, that sort of feature isn't really necessary. Green/red is enough. It'd be nice if a green or red gave more information, but the reason the green/red thing works is that it requires so little effort.

I think the ratings used at Yelp.com (a site that posts reviews of restaurants and other businesses) might be a good model. Instead of rating someone else's review positive or negative, you can apply one or more adjectives (useful, funny, or cool) to the review. If two people rate the review funny, you'd see a (2) next to the funny button.

For FW I would definitely keep the existing +/- buttons, but add these additional buttons as an optional step. One of the additional buttons could be "thanks". Not sure what the other buttons would be, one could be "easy", another could be something like "big savings" if the deal is a really good one, etc.

The buttons would be especially valuable on individual posts, where "useful" and "funny" would come into play.

Product and store ratings should be elsewhere...perhaps auto-populated from Amazon and resellerratings, respectively.

I would like to see a rep system like SD. Or the thank you should add up in user profile to say how many times user has been thanked like techpowerup.com forums.

Is this what the Leaderboard and avatar/cup awards are for? See this thread.

Edit: fix typos and add link

This probably falls into the too difficult to implement category (or at least too difficult with sufficient benefit), but I want to point out an issue:

All too often (especially with the tshirt promos going on), people "neg" threads without leaving a comment. This is generally unhelpful - at best it leaves people wondering what the problems might be. I think the whole system would be much better if ratings were comment based. Two possible implementations:

1) Individuals can't rate thread without posting at least one comment. (Probably easier than #2, but more subject to abuse.)

2) Individuals can only rate the thread when posting a comment AND the thread's rating is based on number of positive/negative ratings of the comments (and their respective net effect on the thread). (Probably harder than #1, but subject to less abuse.) If this was as hard to explain as I think, the following example may help:
OP posts a thread. David doesn't like it, so he posts a comment about a problem with it. During the posting process he has the opportunity to rate the thread (negative). Thus far thread remains neutral. Some (e.g. 3) other users come along and agree with David's negative comments about the deal, so they give his comment a positive rating. Overall thread would now be -3. Bob comes along and likes the deal, posts his comment. Some (e.g. 2) other users agree with his comment, and give it green. Overall thread would now be -1 (3*-1 plus 2*1).

-cd

jayK said:canydavid said:All too often (especially with the tshirt promos going on), people "neg" threads without leaving a comment. This is generally unhelpful - at best it leaves people wondering what the problems might be. I think the whole system would be much better if ratings were comment based.The problem is that not all comments are related to how good or bad the thread is.Logically the buttons for rating the thread should become part of reply screen. People posting comments unrelated to the quality of the thread shouldn't rate the thread while posting.

I suppose ratings from people who post in the thread could be weighted more heavily, but that would just encourage people to post stuff like "give me green to give this thread more red".If you're suggesting the OPs would post replies to garner green, I think that those types of replies would quickly get red, and be ignored by the rating system.

I don't see what the big deal is about rating a thread negative without leaving a comment - the rater might just think it's not a good deal, it shouldn't be necessary to post an explanation. From what I've seen, a certain percentage of people who rate a thread negatively will explain why anyway. I find neg ratings helpful with or without comments, because they help filter out bad deals when using the ratings filter.Education! If the deal is bad, the OP and others reading the thread will want to know why. I know I do when it's either a thread I've posted or am interested in. Furthermore, this will only lead to better postings. OPs will learn what mistakes they're making.

The issue is that people neg for different reasons. Steve gave some examples, here's a bigger list:

Too YMMV
Price too high
Low Quality Product
Unreliable Store
Questionable Rebate
Not interested in the deal

Experienced FWers might infer the reason, but others won't have a clue. Imagine you jump on a deal that looks hot, and you finish checking out only to notice the thread is now red, with no explanations.

-cd

jayK said:canydavid said:If you're suggesting the OPs would post replies to garner green, I think that those types of replies would quickly get red, and be ignored by the rating system.And therein lies another problem...under your proposal, if someone rates a thread positively then creates a crappy post in that thread that gets a lot of red, the thread rating would be penalized.No. My point was that the rating system wouldn't count the "vote" of ANY replier whose comment was negged.

1. OP starts thread.
   
2. "Bob" posts a reply that it's a good deal, yada yada. He marks it green, but it currently has no impact.
   
3. Three other users come along and agree: 3 * +1 = +3
   
4. "John" posts a reply that the deal isn't good because last year he got it for a better price. He marks it red, but it currently has no impact.
   
5. Two other users agree with John, but 10 think he's silly for comparing the current price to a year old deal. His reply get a net score of -8. Since it's a negative score, it still doesn't affect the thread's rating.
   
6. "Michael" posts a reply that the deal isn't good because the item is currently for sale at half the price and posts a link to the thread that discusses it. He marks it red, but it currently has no impact.
   
7. 20 other users agree with Michael: 20 * -1 = -20
   
8. Overall thread rating is now (+3) + (0) + (-20) = -17
   

Sample threads are tricky, because posts change over time. I agree that eventually there's usually some explanation given, but not always. Current samples (results of a quick search):
Text
Text
Text
Text

The last one happens to be a deal I posted. I was well aware of the various Amazon dress shirt deals that exist(ed) over time, often as low as ~$5/shirt. But usually those shirts were either weird colors, weird sizes, or both. The point of my post was a warm deal on a normal shirt. Almost immediately the thread went red, yet the only comment for the first few hours was positive. When a negative post finally rolled in (following my prod for a reason by PM), it was irrelevant (and it's current red rating confirms it).
Being the curious guy that I am, I PMed the other neggers, and got a response from only one individual:

Me: Why the red without comment? http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/852668
Neg: "Recently Amazon has ck dress shirt for $12. so don't think this is a good deal."
Me: I understand that cheaper shirts exists - but not ones that are fitted, wrinkle free (and white)...
Neg: wrink free is not healthy. ck has white version on Amazon at least one week ago

-cd

Yet another example: http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/853670
-cd

jayK said:canydavid said:
Text
Text
Text
TextWhen I checked, the first two threads had a net -1 rating, the third thread was locked as a repost, and the fourth thread was net +1.

Seems like you have a solution in search of a problem. Rating my post negatively won't change that.

jayK said:...everyone in the community is entitled to their opinion of whether or not a post adds value to a thread...

Couldn't have said it better myself.
-cd