Getting the most out of DevCentral: Voting and Star Ratings

Let’s be honest…you love all the content on DevCentral, but admittedly you probably love some things a little more than others.  We understand.  And we want you to help us all know when you really appreciate a certain piece of content by voting for it.  You have probably noticed the voting feature on DevCentral since we introduced it several months ago.  It’s pretty simple and straightforward…when you see something you like, you hit the “upvote” button; when you see something you don’t like, you hit the “downvote” button. 

Upvoting and downvoting is available on our Answers page as well as our Videos page.  On the Videos page, you can vote for the video itself as well as any comments the video has received.  On the Answers page, you can vote on answers, comments, and the question itself. 

The screenshot below shows an example of a question that has received 6 upvotes.  Note that the number of votes shown is the net combined result of upvotes and downvotes together.  Another important point to note is that, if you want to “undo” a vote, you click on the same button you initially clicked to vote.  I’ve seen some people try to vote for something they really, seriously love by clicking the upvote button like 10 times…every other time they hit that upvote button, they undo their vote.  Unfortunately (unlike our Chicago Politician friends), we only allow one vote per person per item.

Another new content voting feature is our star rating.  Star Ratings are available for Downloads, Codeshare, and Articles.  The star rating is based on a 5-star scale where 5 stars means you really, really love the content.  In order to rate the item, you have to click into the item itself and then click on the number of stars you want to give it (you can’t rate it directly from the page listing). 

The screenshot below shows a listing of articles, and notice that the average rating is shown for each article.  If you have already rated a certain piece of content, then your specific rating is shown (in darker colored stars) as well as the average rating for that item.  If you have not rated a piece of content, the average rating is shown along with the number of members who have rated it. 

The voting and star ratings help all of us know what content is resonating well with the community, so please help us all by voting for the content you see.  And, for the love of all things DevCentral, give this article a 5-star rating!!