“Wait a minute - where did the ratings go?”

Yep. Gone. We’ve been watching MapSkip to learn what works and what doesn’t, and the ratings system just didn’t work out for the site. After all, the stories were never meant to be a contest, and the ratings may have put too much pressure on some of our users. And pressure means no fun, so out they go!

We’ve looked at how other sites deal with lots of content and how to let users participate in bubbling good content to the top, and there’s one thing we hadn’t tried yet on MapSkip: Favorites.

So we’ve removed the 5-star-bar in the top right corner of the story boxes and replaced it with a simple “Make This a Favorite” link.  We now use this to create our “Highest Rated” lists in the sidebars of the site.

So what happens to your favorites? Check out your Passport page and you will see that there is now a new tab with all the stories and photos you have picked as favorites. And if you had previously rated any story or photo as a 5-star item, it has been added to your new favorites list.

Also, if you check you own stories on the Passport page, you can now see how many users have picked your stories as favorites.