Tech Note: Comment Ratings

Science | Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 3:20:56 pm PST

One feature readers have requested for our comment ratings is the ability to simply cancel a rating (aka, a “ding”) and remove a vote. The method that we’ve been using only allowed you to reverse your ding — in other words, you could only change your rating from plus to minus. Once you threw your hat in the ring, it stayed there.

But now, comment ratings behave differently; if you reverse your rating, it removes it entirely and adds/subtracts one from the overall rating, and your name vanishes from the ding list (which you see by clicking the rating number itself).

This puts you back to square one, so to speak, and you can then rate the comment either up or down again — both the plus and minus buttons will be clickable.