47 replies to this topic

[Servant of the Lord]

It's annoying that each time I "follow" a thread, the thread creator gets +5 points.
Very rarely when following a thread, does the OP deserve those +5.

Here's an example where the OP double posted, and I have to follow both threads (netting him +10), because I don't know which will be deleted:


But more frequently, I have to manually follow a thread (because occasionally when I reply to a thread it doesn't automatically 'follow'). So a beginner posts a thread like "What language should I use?", and though the thread isn't particularly noteworthy, I have to manually 'follow' and he gets +5, otherwise I won't remember to check back to see other responses (and replies to me that don't explicitly quote my text).

I'm all for removing the +5 for follows, and instead add a '+/-' to the entire thread which goes to the OP. Or, even simple text that says, "If this thread is valuable, rate up the original post".

This has been bothering me for awhile. I don't want to implicitly rate people, only explicitly.

[swiftcoder]

I don't want to implicitly rate people, only explicitly.

QFT.

I auto-follow every thread I post to, but still one needs to follow threads on occasion. In particular, I sometimes follow threads that I am worried will descend into flame wars, and in this case I definitely do not wish to give a rating boost.

[brx]

I never follow threads, to be honest. I either post in them (and then I can access them through my profile) or (if I am too stupid to contribute but am still interested in the topic) I bookmark them. But this just doesn't seem right. Following a topic is not equal to giving credits to a topic. But then again... logging in is not a real achievment either (this coming from me, who got most of his points from logging in...).

By the way: although I don't agree with the reputation being thrown around, which ipboard plugin is used for the reputation system? Or is it a custom development?

[Michael Tanczos]

I like the idea of explicitly rating people but the problem is that people don't always take the time to explicitly rate others. The original idea was that if someone follows a particular topic that *may* be an indicator that there was some worth to the topic (whether it was good / bad / controversial) The thinking is that there is some value to a community when an OP can create something of interest or that spurns good discussion. Perhaps +5 is just too much of a boost though... I'm going to drop it to +3 for now.

I think a lot of the argument is going to come down to *how* you use follows.. whether it is because the topic has value or because you want to check up on it for moderation reasons. I would think that the most common use is because the topic has value.

Edited by Michael Tanczos, 12 November 2012 - 05:36 PM.

[Michael Tanczos]

By the way: although I don't agree with the reputation being thrown around, which ipboard plugin is used for the reputation system? Or is it a custom development?

It's a custom development for this site.

[Sik_the_hedgehog]

I'm all for removing the +5 for follows, and instead add a '+/-' to the entire thread which goes to the OP. Or, even simple text that says, "If this thread is valuable, rate up the original post".

Fun you mention rating threads, I was thinking about that the other day. I ended up getting +7 of reputation in a couple of minutes for upvoting most posts in this thread, when probably it may have been a better idea if I could have upvoted the entire thread instead. Though I must say those posts that got upvoted deserved it anyway.

[L. Spiro]

I think those +5’s are only temporary (or this may just be a bug).
Hodgman once watched one of my topics and the +5 was there.
Within an hour it was gone (rating dropped back 5 points) and there was no record of him having watched my topic.

Either:
#1: They go away when the topic is unwatched.
#2: It was a bug that it went away.
#3: He did something tricky as a moderator.


L. Spiro

[Michael Tanczos]

I think those +5’s are only temporary (or this may just be a bug).
Hodgman once watched one of my topics and the +5 was there.
Within an hour it was gone (rating dropped back 5 points) and there was no record of him having watched my topic.

Either:
#1: They go away when the topic is unwatched.
#2: It was a bug that it went away.
#3: He did something tricky as a moderator.


L. Spiro

They do go away if the topic is unwatched.. this is correct.

[Servant of the Lord]

The thinking is that there is some value to a community when an OP can create something of interest or that spurns good discussion.

Under that reasoning, why don't Journal Posts get you a +5 (only once per week)? 'course you get about +12 anyway from everyone rating up your journal entry.

Any thread that has real value, usually I'm already participating in it, either voicing my opinion, helping the user, or asking questions. My posting automatically follows the thread, and so the really valuable threads don't get +5 from me (but I upvote very regularly helpful, polite, and knowledgeable posts).
Many times when I do manually follow threads it's because it looks like it might later be valuable once discussion actually picks up, but currently is not valuable.

If you had a big "Mark thread as valuable" button next to "Quote", "Post", etc... I think some people would click it - if it's visible enough. I like how visible the upvoting/downvoting is for individual posts, by the way. You guys did excellent with that - large and visible, but not bright and obnoxious.

You also have a large block of whitespace next to the "Reply to this topic" button at the top of the thread - why not use that to remind people to vote?

[MrDaaark]

On a sidenote, the rating page used to link me to threads where I got upvoted, and now they all have bad links in the last few days, they all go to gamedev.net/sm/whatever

[Michael Tanczos]

On a sidenote, the rating page used to link me to threads where I got upvoted, and now they all have bad links in the last few days, they all go to gamedev.net/sm/whatever

Fixed..

Edited by Michael Tanczos, 12 November 2012 - 09:37 PM.

[jbadams]

I would think that the most common use is because the topic has value.

Perhaps we should run a poll and see if we can get some data on that? It's a nice idea, but unless we're hearing from a vocal minority it seems like this might be a flawed assumption. I know I personally don't follow a topic because it's valuable -- I use browser bookmarks for that so that I can refer to them from off-site, and I up-vote individual posts to show my appreciation.

[Bacterius]

I almost never follow threads. What I do instead is bookmark the "My Content" page for my account. This way I can load that page from time to time, and every thread I've participated in shows up in a list, highlighted if there are new replies. Lately I've been experimenting with e-mail notifications instead, but it doesn't work too well for me and tends to flood my mailbox every morning, so I think I'll disable it soon.

Perhaps you could try this Servant Of The Lord?

[Olof Hedman]

Had no idea following gave +rep.
I follow threads for all kinds of reasons, but it's rarely because its particularly valuable... If posts are valuable I +rep those.

I think I will have to stop using the explicit follow function for now, because +rep:ing when doing it is not my intention.
Too bad, I thought it was a nice feature to be able to easily watch threads for replies for whatever reason.

Am I correct in assuming that auto-following on reply does not give the +rep?
If it does, I will have to stop using that functionality all together

[jbadams]

FYI, I've started a poll topic (HERE, pinned in The Lounge) to collect some stats on how the feature is being used. Please vote in the other topic and leave us any feedback so we can make a properly informed decision on this.

Thanks guys!

Am I correct in assuming that auto-following on reply does not give the +rep?

I don't believe auto-following gives a rep bonus, but Mike should be able to confirm.

[rip-off]

It would be interesting to look a the database for the number of users automatically following topics. If they're anything like me, it is not a useful way to keep track of valuable content because there is just too much of it; I have 48 pages of followed content.

I don't know if the forum software has any features distinct from following that would make more sense for marking valuable content - such as starring? I guess that could compete with our rating system however, resulting in confusion.

[jbadams]

We do have "star rating" functionality for topics, but it's currently disabled for consistency with the rest of the site and because it seemed confusing given the per-post reputation system and "mark as answer" functionality (which doesn't get used much) already existing.

[MrDaaark]

Maybe a topic can be rated based on the average of the posts inside it? A topic with lots of +posts is rated good or better. A topic with lots of -posts is rated negative, and anything else is normal.

[Michael Tanczos]

We do have "star rating" functionality for topics, but it's currently disabled for consistency with the rest of the site and because it seemed confusing given the per-post reputation system and "mark as answer" functionality (which doesn't get used much) already existing.

I think the "mark as answer" is going to get removed from the software because of the hackish nature of what I had to do to pull it off in this software.. it's just going to be a terribly awkward upgrade path to maintain that code (plus they added Q&A natively since I implemented it anyway).

I'm pretty sure auto-following doesn't give rep.. you have to press the button on the topic page to give rep.

[Michael Tanczos]

Maybe a topic can be rated based on the average of the posts inside it? A topic with lots of +posts is rated good or better. A topic with lots of -posts is rated negative, and anything else is normal.

This is actually one of the ways the frontpage ranks posts. Each topic is given a score based off of # of replies, # of views, WHO replied (rating impacts score), and the number of upvotes for the posts within that topic.. the resulting sorted list comes from topics in the forums you are most likely to participate in.

Edited by Michael Tanczos, 13 November 2012 - 05:58 AM.