I’ve reinstalled “gravatars”, which allow you to have an avatar on your comments. Right now any comments by people who haven’t registered a gravatar (Globally recognized avatar) will bear the default Coyote Crossing icon, which is cool enough. But if you want your own, go register one here.

1. 
   Sherwood 2009 10 19 at 3:27:42 pm

   Speaking of blog design, why do you include the “rate this entry” gadget?

2. 
   Chris Clarke 2009 10 19 at 5:38:53 pm

   Partly to give people a way to give me the occasional pat on the back without having to figure out something to say in comments, but mainly to gather data for use in a possible future “most popular posts” functionality.

3. 
   sherwood 2009 10 20 at 11:59:02 pm

   Hm.

   “Most popular posts among those who feel qualified to rate the posts on a one-dimensional scale” probably would be a bit awkward, wouldn’t it?

   Srsly, as the kids say, I always look at that gadget with a figurative raised eyebrow.  Not only do I not feel qualified in any way to grade your posts, but what impact some of them have on me changes so much as time goes on that doing the one-to-five thing would have to be done repeatedly if at all, and I’m not really up to that.

4. 
   Chris Clarke 2009 10 21 at 12:18:36 am

   Your assessment makes sense. I’ve been wondering about scrapping it and just substituting a straight “thumbs-up” or “not” thing, like the favorites function on Metafilter.

   The alternatives would be:

   Don’t have a “greatest hits” list, which is certainly feasible but doesn’t fulfill that “getting more people to read more of my stuff” function, and

   have ME select the recommended posts, which is what CRN’s policy was, and which is likely the least reliable method of all.

5. 
   Jym Dyer 2009 10 21 at 7:14:35 pm

   =v= I prefer the “Thumbs Up” approach, but I realize that that’s anthrocentric of me.