You may have noticed the row of stars and the report abuse link at the top of every post on Capitolhillseattle.com. On lots of sites, those kinds of tools are little more than eye candy and silly decoration.

But on CHS, the features actually do something so watch where you are pointing that thing!

• Report Abuse: This link gives you and the CHS community the ability to work together to keep the site content appropriate and the type of material you want to experience. If we get enough abuse reports on a post and other positive factors aren’t there to counterbalance the flags, the content is automagically removed from the site. This works for inappropriate comments, too. Please use your power with discretion — don’t want this place to become a one-note agree-athon but it’s good to know you have the tool when particularly distasteful material comes along. To date, btw, nothing has been automatically flagged of this site. I’d love it to stay that way.
• Rating Stars: This feature is a little less concrete in purpose. You can use it to quickly say “agree!” or “disagree!” with the premise of a post. Some people seem to use it rate the “type” of posts they like. Some people just like clicking on starts. What you should know is that the stars, in addition to being a visual encouragement for the content’s author, also are part of the counterbalance for the Report Abuse feature. Think of it as flagging insurance of sorts. So, don’t go star crazy now but definitely think about leaving a rating every now and then on the more interesting posts you find. Me? I tend toward the positive and pretty much only hand out stars when I see something really well written or with a great picture, etc.