I am thinking about some sort of thread rating system that will allow users to give a thread some sort of general rating (ie, 1 to 5 stars). The purpose of this is to allow people to easily identify threads that have cool stuff in them without having to rely on it having heaps of comments. I tend to find a lot of threads that have a bunch of really interesting stuff in them, but not a lot of comments.

I'm thinking it would be cool to do prizes and stuff based on who generates the most 5 star (or whatever) threads in a given time period. The goal, obviously, is to try to encourage people to post more and better quality stuff.

Any comments?

You may end up with a bunch of circle jerk cliques going at it if prizes are involved but I like the idea of just being able to share something good with others, especially if it's something posted by someone who usually posts garbage.

The goal, obviously, is to try to encourage people to post more....

That's a dangerous phrase to be using round here.

I'd give this thread a 5.

Seriously though, I quite like the idea...As long as people don't vote like d*******s.

You may end up with a bunch of circle jerk cliques going at it if prizes are involved but I like the idea of just being able to share something good with others, especially if it's something posted by someone who usually posts garbage.

Yeh, that is a danger but I will try to think of some way around that. Maybe that could be part of the ranking system - someone who has a good 'user rating' will get more weight to their rating for a thread, or something.

What one person may find interesting another may not. People like myself, Kat and others get flamed no matter what we post, even if it is something interesting or important, so what chance would any of us have to earn these "alledged prizes"??
In the end it would turn into a popularity contest with those having the largest "posse" constantly winning.

I'm thinking it would be cool to do prizes and stuff based on who generates the most 5 star (or whatever) threads in a given time period. The goal, obviously, is to try to encourage people to post more and better quality stuff.

would it be possible to take action about posts at the other end of the spectrum, such as bannings those whos threads get constant 1s ? maybe we can finally get rid of kat

Just add a clause to the prize T&Cs that says must not be a s***bird.

would it be possible to take action about posts at the other end of the spectrum, such as bannings those whos threads get constant 1s ? maybe we can finally get rid of kat

See, my point made in the very next post!

so what chance would any of us have to earn these "alledged prizes"??

The people that constantly whine about that sort of stuff would probably not be able to rate posts. I've given enough warnings about people whining about threads and how to deal with them if they don't like them so I assume this would evolve itself out of being a problem.

obviously i would have the highest user rating, so just leave it to me to give the thread a or

Strex's judgement would be considered authoritative in most cases

So will it be a "Thread of the Day, Week or Month"? I can't see prizes being handed out every day, and its a rare thread indeed that can continue for a month and still hold interest. And maybe limiting people to only being able to vote once in a thread, or if it becomes a weekly or bi weekly event, limit the ability of voting to that period (once a week or fortnight) as to stop people constantly voting for their own or friends threads.

I make my own value judgement of the thread by merely looking at the thread creator.

I'm not sure about a thread rating as such but perhaps maybe if the thread gets enough low votes instead of a visible thread rating it could just get automatically locked. What you do with the ones with good votes is up to you, archive it, stick it in a special forum for all the good posts, whatever.

Obviously though auto-locking of threads could get dangerous if a certain person is disliked but still posts generally acceptable content all their threads will most likely end up locked.

Votes simple Thumbs up and Thumbs down buttons, forums with rating systems usualy just see threads with lots of FIVE ratings, and s*** threads with lots of one ratings.

Good idea I reckon. I'd vote this thread a 10++

Great addition for the forum software trogj0r and something that I think would be beneficial so we can see at a glance whats a s*** thread and whats not.

I think the problem with this is that it's subjective - everyone will have different opinions on what makes a 'good' thread. These kinds of community based systems also tend to weed out anyone of a differing opinion, the net result being not much actual useful conversation ever happening.

Fortunately QGL isn't like many other *utterly s***efully run* forums which insist on putting everything on even a remotely related topic into a single thread so you have to wade through 65 pages of comments just to find one one something in particular.

While I like that you're trying to innovate and do useful things trog, I think this one might be a bad idea, unless it's done on a per-user basis. Perhaps the ability to specify which other users opinions you trust would make it useful... but if you're going to use everyones as an average, forget it, it just degrades the whole experience.

Raven, yeh, I agree; I think it certainly needs more thought than I was hoping :)

would it be possible to take action about posts at the other end of the spectrum, such as bannings those whos threads get constant 1s ? maybe we can finally get rid of kat

This would be exactly the kind of example I'm talking about. I think we can all agree Kat's threads would get rated down constantly - regardless of the content. Unlike probaly 98% of people here, I have no problem with her whatsoever and most of the time think everyone else is just a complete and utter dick when it comes to related threads.

^^ agree, voted 5 for this post.

What about only allowing mods to vote, then while browsing for stuff to nuke/ban the mods could flag a particular thread as having interesting content, general discussion content, or content worthy of stealing paper from the office, printing the thread on it and using it to wipe your arse with.

People like myself, Kat and others get flamed no matter what we post,

actually didn't your flaming start when you wouldn't stop posting news.com.au content? although probably useful to some, those who really wanted to read it could just visit news.com.au or set up an rss reader to grab the stuff.

last edited by whoop at 21:04:16 18/Jul/06

I know this might sound ridiculous but how about a User rating/karma/aura system similar to say what Whirlpool or some other sites use, but taking it a bit further.

You would click on a person and decide whether they are a useful member of the community, a troll, informative (if they post regular game press releases or info) or whatever and it contributes to their reputation. Of course all of this would have to be normalised to counter the possibility that people use the 'demote' function more than promoting users with everyone on low reputation.

Then in your personal forums options you could choose to have posts by people with a Low reputation be modified for you own personal viewing. Example, the lower someone's reputation, the darker blue their posts become and eventually fade into QGL background blue so you don't notice the "noise" this person makes on the forum. Or to have their font size reduced or .. "Click here to read the rest of their post", etc .. to basically filter out people. I guess this could reduce some flamefests if people could choose not to see troublemakers' posts in this way.

Oh, and to add another flavour .. voting on someone's thread would affect their reputation too :)

Just ideas ...

trog - many of us like qgl for what it is...

Isn't it the user-base that determines the signal / noise ratio of topics & posts?

Why the push to become feature-heavy like the swarm of vBulletin forums out there?

trog wants to flex his programming muscles no doubt :P

Simple thumbs-up thumbs-down system would work for me.

*IF* something like this was implemented, id like to be able to say id have faith in the general community being able to be mature enough to vote properly for threads instead of saying "LOL I HATE SO AND SO, HE GETS A ONE"

but if thats not the case, then id probably say what was said earlier, mods have the ability to give threads star ratings, but overall id say probably thumbs down yo

I know this might sound ridiculous but how about a User rating/karma/aura system similar to say what Whirlpool or some other sites use, but taking it a bit further.

Because every community 'karma' system I've seen, well... sucks.

What's popular isn't necessarily what's right. You see way too many systems where just because 75% of people like one person, anyone who voices opposition to that person is wrong - regardless of how right they are. It's like democracy - it's just a danm well s*** system :)

Karma systems can only be implemented well when the only person rating users is you. I don't care what others think of a person - especially the people I don't think very highly of. A persons karma should vary for every person. If you can come up with a way to weigh the karma of people I rate highly much higher than those I despise and don't agree with, you end up with a much more accurate rating.

trog wants to flex his programming muscles no doubt :P

If trog goes and rewrites the AGN forums in flex, I think my brain could quite possibly explode.

but if thats not the case, then id probably say what was said earlier, mods have the ability to give threads star ratings, but overall id say probably thumbs down yo

As with everyhting.. Can i have a function to turn it off? K thx... Ps am i a mod yet?

I think it’s great that there is forward thought on producing positive changes for QGL and its community, however …

I am thinking about some sort of thread rating system that will allow users to give a thread some sort of general rating (ie, 1 to 5 stars). The purpose of this is to allow people to easily identify threads that have cool stuff in them without having to rely on it having heaps of comments. I tend to find a lot of threads that have a bunch of really interesting stuff in them, but not a lot of comments.

I don’t know trog, I don’t know if you have really thought out the long term implications of this change with the goals of QGL. I mean what is your goal with QGL/Ausgamers and their related forums? Do you want it to become a social networking news generation site like dig.com, or do you want it to be a forum for all users to communicate freely.

I'm thinking it would be cool to do prizes and stuff based on who generates the most 5 star (or whatever) threads in a given time period.

Look at the massive cock sucking people do to become an admin or a gameop, imagine the cock stroking that would be involved if people could get physical rewards?

It could just be bad and hard to moderate.

The goal, obviously, is to try to encourage people to post more and better quality stuff.

The declining post rate has become hand in hand with the declining numbers of new users and the lack of motivation for existing members to remain. The declining numbers of members is pretty much caused by a lack of reasons for this community existing, LANs. I don’t know if other Ausgamers LANs are happening around the country, but without QGL it isn’t surprising that Queensland’s Ausgamers input is pretty low.

i think this is a fantastic idea.

How about a LAN?

I would happily suck your balls.

Look at the massive cock sucking people do to become an admin or a gameop, imagine the cock stroking that would be involved if people could get physical rewards?

someone's cranky they lost their ops

i dont think its a good idea.. on the other hand why not have a 'times viewed' or 'viewed' coloum on the topic index like most other boards.

Agreed Scuzzy. Also prizes, wtf? Like a lower post-limiter?

lower post limiter?

im interested

someone's cranky they lost their ops

Maybe I could have been called cranky 4 years ago when I lost admin. Even then I wasn't really cranky at loosing admin, there was a lot of other reasons that you where not privy too that made me cry.

If you've never seen the cock sucking for admin/ops/gameops then you must be blind, or a cock sucker.

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Maybe in addition to a subject add keywords?

Actually, the digg.com idea isn't so awful. Essentially if you made qgl/asugamers blogs, individuals could report s*** that they find interesting. If other people agree that something is interesting it becomes a front page news artical and of course front page news articals become forum items.

That could add more interesting news articals to qgl/ausgamers and possibly more input into the community.

Of course, that assumes that qgl/ausgamers people are emo and blog :P

loosing

losing

also, dont be sad big guy

i like the way the threads are currently graded... ie: if they are really s***, sooner or later they just magically show as 'nuked by... some bloke' :D i used to think it'd be cool if the thread starter could have some delete/nuke powers just in thier own thread... but i can see how that could be exploited.

i used to think it'd be cool if the thread starter could have some delete/nuke powers just in thier own thread... but i can see how that could be exploited.

I'm thinking that would open up a whole new world of baiting and pointless thread starting. I like it!

The system would be abused.

why not have a 'times viewed' or 'viewed' coloum on the topic index like most other boards.

Problem solved.

used to think it'd be cool if the thread starter could have some delete/nuke powers just in thier own thread... but i can see how that could be exploited.

I've thought about this, and decided it would be awesome to have some powers in your own thread. Not nuking or deleting but maybe flagging posts for admins to come along and decide. For example, I post some random crap in spooks thread, spook comes along and flags it. Trog some how can view all the flagged posts and view each one and decide what should happen.

We have a 'post reporting' system that is lying around somewhere greazy, it is on my todo list.

Do the forums let me "save" my log in from a few different pc's yet ?

Not that I use that feature much anymore, but i found weird that far mroe secure sights were happy for me to log in from home and work and not automatically assume I want the other login disconnected.