I think most ComicBookMovie.com ("CBM") patrons and veterans can agree that CBM's greatest strength can also be a glaring weakness -- its reliance on user contribution. Like many other dynamic websites developed during the Web 2.0 wave, CBM allows its users to submit content to be accessed and enjoyed by other users. This open access promotes a wide diversity of opinions and news coverage -- but it also opens up a vulnerability to diluted quality and over-saturation of content.
With so many articles streamed-in to the site every hour (or every minute), how can users decide which articles are worth reading, and which articles are not even worth a click?
I think CBM has already been heading in the right direction with the "thumbs-up" feature at the bottom of the articles. But here's an extra-step feature that can benefit the site, the editors, and the readers: the thumbs-up score should be displayed on the front page next to the article's headline.
This is not an innovative feature; YouTube recently implemented this feature into its interface by jettisoning the antiquated "average star rating" and replacing it with a simple -- but highly effective -- thumbs-up percentage. By displaying this score, users have access to more information than a mere description or tiny thumbnail image; the score instantaneously foretells quality (as perceived by other users, of course). If a video looks suspiciously bad, you simply don't click on it.
That's where I think CBM could greatly improve.
By displaying the score next to articles, users can decide whether to click on an article dubiously titled "My grandmother's bingo partner's son is a WB exec who knows Joseph Gordon Levitt's role in the Dark Knight Rises" with the ADDED information that it carries an 87% thumbs-up rating (perhaps the source was reliably verified, but the article suffered from the terrible title).
Conversely, users know to skip an article titled "My Avengers Interview with Joss Whedon!" if it displays an 8% thumbs-up rating because the "interview" was just a one-question, one-answer exchange between some fanboy and Whedon at an airport (e.g., "Hey Joss, is Hawkeye in the Avengers movie? Yes? Cool! [end of interview]").
Not only would such a feature give readers more information on whether to read an article, but it would also improve the quality of articles. If writers know that their scores are going to be displayed, then they will presumably devote more time to cleaning up their article and verifying their sources. The thumbs-up display would likely decrease the number of flimsy articles, and it would definitely weed-out all the hoax articles. Basically, it would deter writers from simply putting together a crude, half-effort article just to get advertising clicks, as low-quality articles would likely receive fewer clicks.
I love CBM and I think the site still has so much potential, and I think a simple display of articles' thumbs-up scores would go a long way to improving reader satisfaction and writer quality.