Rating or updating
I was in a conversation earlier today, where we talked about the familiar rating tools that you find in Amazon and frequently on internal website (rate this article). There are some big differences in rating services on a public website, like Amazon, and internal websites.
On Amazon, the review is something that you can reasonably assume other people will see and use to help decide whether to buy the book. There are millions of Amazon users, and even books that are way out on the long tail might get reviews. The review does not have any bearing on the content of the book for the next people to buy it. Reviewers have vested their time and energy in reading and responding to the book, much more so than they would for an article or report on the corporate website.
For an internal website, the biggest draw to the content is that there is a shared context of all the people visiting the content: People in the company generally have a desire to see the company do well and understand the culture. As such, while articles on corporate sites don't generally require time and energy to read, the value for the users of having the right information in them is much higher. The rating system should allow for direct feedback on the content so that it can be improved and republished. The other aspect is the shear scale. Most articles on internal sites get very few ratings; most of the ratings are 4 or 5 out of 5; and there is very little commentary. (I think this applies to external-facing website too. I don't know what would make me want to "rate this article" at a company website.)
The summary was: don't compare internal rating services to Amazon reviews. Rating systems should be used for continuous improvement of the content (and design) offered to the users.
2 Comment(s)
Speaking about ratings...
As Internet user you, probably, have already tried to find ratings on some things which you consider to buy, use or get more information on. It may be services (hosting, design or movie rentals), public figures, consumer goods, articles or books, news, movies, beer, hotels, websites and much more.
You have, perhaps, seen thousands of fragmented websites, discussion forums, which force you to dig for the information even more.
With Ratingo you got one-stop shop, where you can find what people think (and why) about all you have been searching for before.
In thinking about this some more (and conversing offline), there are some points to be made / modified above.
Corporate documents are generally non-fiction (one hopes) and not necessarily written to be consumed by a mass audience. As such, they are less subject to opinion and rating in the traditional sense of liked / disliked. I should also clarify that there are plenty of LONG internal documents, which require expertise and effort to understand and read.
Not only should the corporate rating be used to improve the content, but it should be part of a FAST cycle of improvement. One could do that with wikis or with other processes that require the author (owner) to be involved in ongoing upkeep.