Notice anything wrong with this picture?
This is probably a petty complaint, but I’m annoyed with the Mormon Times and their rating system. You can only rate an article as “insightful,” “inspirational,” or “informative.” I’d ask that another option be “insipid.”
I know that Mormons are generally averse to a “spirit of contention,” but must everything be so sanitized and faith-promoting? Meh.
This is as petty as when people complain that you can’t “dislike” something on Facebook.
Ha ha. Fair enough. But I just don’t see the point of a rating system when you can only rate something as positive. It’s like Colbert asking, “George W. Bush: great president, or the greatest president?”
It probably wouldn’t annoy me were it not so consistent with what I perceive to be a Mormon obsession with the faith-promoting.
I definitely think it’s a symptom of the inane “if you can’t say anything nice…” adage multiplied by the Mormon faith-promoting/spirit of contention idiocy. It’s the same kind of mentality that leads the church leaders to say that no criticism of them is ever allowed, even if it’s true. NOTHING IS EVER WRONG, EVER! EVERYTHING IS PERFECT! *fingers in ears* LA LA LA LA I’M NOT LISTENING!!!11!
Unrestrained optimism at the expense of reality is a dangerous thing.
I don’t know if it’s petty to note this problem. For my own part I am often annoyed that no discussion whatsoever is permitted. Allowing comments on Mormon Times articles would create two problems the LDS Church wouldn’t want. Critics (fair and unfair), trolls and Evangelicals would no doubt offer unwanted comments. Also, discussion of LDS publications is not something the church has encouraged really, ever. Especially not since Correlation.
It would perhaps be better for them to remove the absurdly unhelpful voting options altogether, because only providing three options for saying the article was brilliant just draws attention to the fact that the LDS publication is not interested in real discussion of its stories as if they were legitimate news. Better to keep on publishing the insipid warm fuzzies without the pretense of reader involvement.
It doesn’t have to be petty. Just as petty as complaining about the lack of dislike buttons on facebook. (If neither is petty, well, then that’s that.)
That being said, the voting options aren’t “absurdly unhelpful.” They just have a different purpose than what you want them to have. For example, if you think the purpose is to express whether articles are good or bad, then these voting options are absurdly unhelpful.
However, if the purpose of these voting options is to distinguish between articles and writers that are seen as informative, educational, or spiritually powerful, then this kind of voting can be a good metric. If I’m a faithful LDS reader, I don’t really care if people who don’t fit that criteria think the articles suck or are incorrect. HOWEVER, even I may be discerning…one day, I might want to surf through articles that people think are “inspiring.” Other days I might just want insightful commentaries, and some days I might want informative articles.
The same analogy can be made for Facebook. The like system isn’t so much about saying “Who likes and who hates,” (so the absence of a dislike button is not a tragic that nullifies the purpose of a like button…) Rather, it’s just a way to gauge interest in general — which is especially useful for marketing purposes.
One thing that seems somewhat insipid to me is that to a faithful reader, “inspiring”, “insightful”, and “informative” can be pretty much synonymous. So even if you weren’t an outsider who sees this as a laughable attempt at fake reader dialog, it wouldn’t be incredibly helpful.
Perspective and attitude are very important parts of life. If it wasn’t faith promoting it wouldn’t be based in faith. The church lifts, inspires, warns and counsels all of which can add to a persons faith. Like Paul put it in Romans 1:17 “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”
Agree with James. I don’t understand how they chose those three options. If something is insightful to an LDS reader, then it is also likely to be inspiring and informative, and so on.
I just don’t get the point of voting with those particular options.