Mass rating tool

=Introduction= The mass rating tool allows you to rate up to 100 sites at the same time, leaving each site the same rating and comment. This is useful when rating a large number of sites with the same owner, for example. You should always act responsibly when using the mass rating tool. Using it is a privilege, which will be taken away from users suspected of spamming or abuse.

The mass rating tool was introduced to the WOT Community back in September of 2008 and was originally offered to users who had obtained the Gold level or higher Platinum level activity score. Credit is given to WOT user Lordpake for the original suggestion of a mass submission tool.

Availability
On December 28, 2009 an announcement was made informing the WOT Community that access to the mass rating tool has changed to Platinum level users; while current Gold level members who already have access to the mass rating tool will retain that access. However, new Gold level members will have to reach Platinum level before they are awarded the privilege. This change came as a result of members abusing the use of the tool by rating published blacklists and host files without verifying the validity of the source and for not checking these list entries for accuracy. Sometimes innocent sites are mistakenly added to these lists, known as a false positive, or sites are added temporarily because they were compromised, in neither case should these sites Reputation suffer long term effects within WOT from this misuse.

Privileges
The mass rating tool (MRT) is a privilege which may be awarded to members reaching Platinum activity level, assuming that their rating history is not suspicious. If there is detection of misuse or abuse the MRT shall be removed from the abusing member, with no guarantee of reinstatement.

Special considerations
WOT Staff reserves the right to offer the mass rating tool to any member regardless of their current activity level. In many incidents, these members which are new to WOT have already established trust throughout the spam / scam fighting community.

User profile location
When a member has reached the Platinum level activity score, they will notice in their User Profile a new menu tab labeled Mass rating. Simply open your profile and you can see if you have the mass rating tool available. The URL should be: https://www.mywot.com/user/00000/massrate where 00000 is your user ID number.

Mass Rating Tool Page Preview
If you have access to the mass-rating tool, this is what you will see when clicking on the menu tab in your WOT account profile. The components are discussed in detail following this thumbnail.



=Mass rating tool components=
 * 1) Domain entry box
 * 2) Category selection
 * 3) Reputation rating
 * 4) Comment section
 * 5) Replacement option
 * 6) Mass delete
 * 7) Submit

Domain entry box
This is where you may place IP numbers or domain names that you are going to rate and comment as a group. The mass rating tool will rate up to one hundred entries per submission, however, you may place any amount of entries into the box and if over 100, you will receive a message stating the quantity of entries that remain for which you need to click the Submit button repeatedly until all are submitted. If you make an entry error, you will be informed with a " failed to rate: domain name " message. These information messages only display for a short time, so you will need to pay attention as you use the mass rating tool. The IP or domain entries may be placed in URL form, simple name comma separated value (CSV), or simple name linear.

Examples:

"Important! Currently the mass rating tool does not support possibility to rate Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), without prior conversion to Punycode."

Category selection
When mass rating domain entries, you must include a comment and select the category that best describes the comments you are making. This component displays a drop-down list of currently available comment categories to choose from. For more information, please refer to the Scorecard Comment article.

Reputation rating
All domain entries that are mass rated will be given the same reputation rating that you select in this section of the mass rating tool. It is exactly the same as making selections on either the Scorecard or within the Rating window.

Comment section
When mass rating websites, you are required to leave a comment. This is something that should be given careful consideration since all entries you chose to rate are going to be rated equally and given the same rating category. Your comments should be precise as to why these domains are being rated in a likewise manner. If you have a linkable source that can either verify or show justification for your ratings, it is preferred that you include it. Be descriptive and authoritative when entering your comments, as well as polite.

Multiple comments
The mass-rating tool allows up to three comment postings per scorecard per user, including sites marked as controversial which overrides the standard scorecard comment entry of only one posting per user. It is recommended to leave only one comment per rating per domain, however you may find that a domain you previously rated for spam and commented using the Spam category, you are now rating it as a Phishing domain and included the Phishing or other scams category, both comments will appear on the scorecard. Anyone who is caught misusing the mass-rating tool by trying to spam multiple comments will have their mass-rating privilege removed.

see also: Replacement option

Comment variable
To enable your comments to be more precise or to appear more "personal" a variable has been introduced for use in the comment section. The implementation of this feature was announced on the Forum by Timo on 12 January, 2010. Credit for introducing template-style variables is given to G7W. !domain !domain is simply replaced with each of the entries being rated that are listed in the domain entry box, whether they are IP numbers, or domain names.

Click Submit to process your ratings.

You can verify the desired output of the comments by reviewing your list of entries in your profile by clicking on the "My Ratings" tab or view them directly by visiting the domain's Scorecard.

More !domain examples
More examples of using !domain in reference URL's

Comment identifier
With major modifications to the Scorecard, a new icon has been introduced, April 2011, to identify comments posted using the mass rating tool.



Replacement option
The mass rating tool allows you to rate a group of domains in a selected category and leave a comment. You can re-rate these domains and enter a different comment. By default if you have previously rated a domain your new comment replaces the previous one. If you tick the check mark box for this component, WOT will retain your previous comment and append your new one as well.

note: This only works if the newly selected comment category is different from any previously recorded ratings. You cannot have two or more comments of the same category for the same domain.

example: You rate 10 domains that are associated to each other in some way and which you have had a good customer experience with. You may wish to leave a "Good site" comment and then re-rate them to also leave a "Good customer experience" comment. If the check mark box is not checked, your "Good site" will be written over with the "Good customer experience" comment, ticking the check mark box will include both comments on each scorecard of the domains rated.

alternative example: You have a small list of domains that have high reputations for Trustworthiness, Vendor Reliability, and Privacy, yet these domains contain content of a mature nature. You've rated these sites high, excluding the Child Safety reputation which you've lowered to unsatisfactory, poor, or very poor and left a positive comment. You may also wish to leave a warning for parents that the site's content is not suitable for young children. You can leave your ratings as is and rate the domains a second time offering an Adult cautionary comment.

Mass delete
Each Scorecard has the ability for a user to remove their comments and to delete their ratings for a website. The mass rating tool also provides this ability to work with more than one domain at a time. This is useful if you have rated compromised websites that are no longer compromised and wish to remove you comments and ratings from them. Simply enter the list of domains into the domain entry box, check mark this component's option and click Submit. Your previous ratings will be deleted and your comments removed.

Submit
The submit button processes ratings for one to one hundred entries. If you have more than one hundred entries for rating, the remainder will be displayed and you are required to Submit them again. This process continues until your entries have been depleted. If you Submit with no entries left in the domain list box, it will appear in red and a error message is displayed stating that you have no entries to process.

Submit limitation
Submits are limited to 100 per 10 minutes. With each submission allowing up to 100 domains, you are limited to 10,000 domains per 10 minutes. This limitation is in place to stop a malfunctioning add-on or a bot from causing excessive server load.

Submit notification
Displayed above the domain list input box, after the Submit button has been clicked, showing which entries are "newly rated" versus those entries you may have rated previously. Example: Thanks, 87 new comments added and 12 comments updated and 99 ratings updated/added. Failed to rate: 178.19.101.212.in-addr.arpa. Your list contains 566 more ratings to be processed Note: If you tick the Don't replace my earlier comments check-mark box, the resulting notification will display as: Thanks, 87 new comments added and 0 comments updated and 99 ratings updated/added. Failed to rate: 178.19.101.212.in-addr.arpa. Your list contains 566 more ratings to be processed

The Failed to rate: domain name error is returned when an improper domain name is referenced. 178.19.101.212.in-addr.arpa is not a valid domain name, it is the reverse address (IPv4) for IP: 212.101.19.178 reference: Reverse DNS lookup Entering 212.101.19.178 in the domain list entry box will result with a recorded MRT rating.

=Profile privacy settings=

User board
As a Platinum Level Member of WOT and having access to the mass-rating tool you are expected to allow open communication from other users who may disagree in how you've rated/commented on a website. Previously, some mass-rating members had disabled receiving messages from other users registered on the Forums by editing Profile -> Edit -> Privacy Settings and turning "Off" their Boards.

A discussion was created on the Forums to disable this feature, in effect forcing mass-rating members to maintain some form of responsibility for their ratings. It was announced on 13 January, 2010 by Timo that this restriction has been implemented. Basically, if a Platinum user has their Board messages set to "Off" they shall still receive private message from other users; naturally if the board is set to "On" there is no change.

Rating / post count
You have the choice to publicly display or hide the Ratings / Posts Counts. To change this setting, edit your profile settings in the Privacy settings block look for: Hide my rating and post counts

allows other users viewing your profile to see your count totals. hides count totals from public view, text is formatted to the color blue so you'll always be able to see your daily counts. Remember to scroll down and click Submit when making any changes to your profile settings.
 * Not checked (default)
 * Checked

This ability was added to the User Profile: Fri 11 Jan 2013

=Whitelist= Currently there is no facility to maintain an exclusion filter or whitelist via the MRT.

There are certain IP's and host names which should not earn reputation or comment.

MRT whitelist

=Caveat= You have been given this tool because you have rated many domains to achieve the Platinum level status. Be careful as to how you use it, mass rating is a privilege that can be easily taken away.


 * Do not attempt to use this for the sake of increasing your activity score, you might be surprised and discover you no longer have access.
 * Do not attempt to manipulate website [scorecard] reputations, you will lose access to the MRT as well as have your previous ratings and comments deleted.

Rating a website's reputation is a serious matter. Rating websites is not a game, there is no "race" to see who can rate more. Please be accurate and at the same time be responsible.