How to improve forum content / moderation?

[Just_a_fan]

Also hand out suspensions for member who persistently fail to add anything to a conversation. I'm talking of the inane posts that say "the boss is going to nail it this race". Some people can't even get the name right, let alone make any objective comment using the facts to hand.

Richard's first point (which I did not include for clarity) may be a bit over the top. However, I totally support his second point (quoted above). And I continue to believe our moderators have a terribly difficult job and handle it extremely well. Finally, I hope the moderators will focus on the fact that some of our best members have left because (IMO) of the low quality of some threads. I'd rather read and learn from threads too complex for me to contribute to rather than have no technical threads because our technical members have left.

Hear hear. There is some total fan boy rubbish on this site (which I must admit to contributing to occasionally). The site's changed even in the short time I've been a member and it's changed for the worse. The technical side has reduced and the fan boy stuff increased and the site is poorer for it.

I think suspensions of repeat offenders should be welcomed. Also, I wonder if a new member should have to get their first few threads (not comments, just new threads) moderated before they're allowed on to the thread list. That way we might stop people who join the site and immediately start a "Driver X is a dick" type thread.

[dave kumar]

I think the possibility to rate posts and maybe even threads is potentially a good thing ...

No it wont, people will abuse this.

For example, if we are in a discussion and there comes a moron arround, that kind of thinks he is right with everything and you tell him he is wrong he will simply just thumb down all of these posts of the discussion, just because he wants to be right.

I'm interested in how such a system is abused by disgruntled members. Is each member given unlimited number of thumbs up/down? In that case I could see a problem developing.

If you want to avoid abuses like that then you could
a) only allow positive ratings of threads and comments - this gives an effect referred to as stigmergy in the Swarm Intelligence community. A thread that has received a few good ratings, attracts more views and (if it is indeed a good thread) will attract more good ratings - positive feedback. Negative feedback is more problematic to prevent people from abusing it.
b) restricting the number of times a member can vote - for example rationing each member to one vote per thread

[wesley123]

on that forum the people just started randomly giving thumb ups and downs, not based on anything. If anything ws posted they did not like they gave a thumbs down.

The system will be used as how much fun a post is, not how useful.

For example one of Ciro's posts where he is sarcastic or w/e will get more likely a thumbs up then one of his uber long posts which are an explosion of information, and that is not the point of the system.

[dave kumar]

Wesley123,

The idea of allowing users to rate posts is for the express purpose of getting feedback on what those same users like. Let's forget about the thumbs down for a minute, as I said previously, negative feedback is more problematic than only allowing people to say what they like.

So for example if YOU like a particular post because it is funny then there is nothing wrong with giving that post your vote. That is an expression of what YOU consider worthy of attention on the forum. If the majority of members of the forum agree with you, then they too will give this or similar posts the thumbs up. This will then become an expression of what is valued by the forum as a whole - according to the techniques used, this thread or post will become more visible to other members.

Anybody can then visit the forum and get a sense of what the forum is about - they will be getting a sense of the collective interest. Not what interests me or you, because one member's vote is not sufficient to make a thread more visible. Collective agreement on what is 'good' is necessary for that to happen. You should have a quick read up on stigmergy if you want to understand the power of Swarm Intelligence (sometimes referred to as Self Organising systems). Nature has employed it for quite effectively for some time now...

How Bees, Ants and other animals avoid dumb collective decisions
http://www.oregon.gov/DAS/HR/LO/docs/Sw ... y.pdf?ga=t

I cannot predict what the collective interest of this forum will be. That is what makes it a worthwhile exercise. From what you posted above, you guess that funny/throwaway posts will receive more votes than technical ones. Shall we try it and see?

Regards,
David

[wesley123]

Imo that isnt the idea about it.

The point of the rating system is that useful posts gets rated up and not useful post rated down.
A post that is funny or so shouldnt be rated better compared to an useful post.

I am laughing my back off sometimes of these fanboy comments, should i rate these up then? In your case I should, but wasnt the whole point of this to stop fanboy comments, not promoting it?

[donskar]

I occasionally take part in another forum (literary; nothing to do with cars or racing -- no, X, nothing to do with mistresses, either ). It uses a system through which highly rated users can give positive fedbacks on posts, feedback which gives you a "reputation" score. Would it be possible to allow more veteran users (Masters only? Masters and Champions? to perform the same function?

Just a thought after 12.5 hours at work.

[dave kumar]

Imo that isnt the idea about it. The point of the rating system is that useful posts gets rated up and not useful post rated down. A post that is funny or so shouldnt be rated better compared to an useful post...

Well Wesley123, it depends on who you want to go to, to get your definition of a 'good' post. I agree there is a risk that if you rely on the consensus of the whole forum for what is 'interesting' or 'useful' or 'good' then we may be surprised by the results. Equally it is quite probable that, if what we as members value on the site is good technical discussion, then overall these are the sort of posts that will receive the highest ratings.

Donskar's proposal would create a second tier, below the moderators, that had the ability to rate posts on some criteria - for example adding to the sum of technical knowledge on the site.

Let us assume that this second tier of 'assessors' are appointed by the moderators. The moderators select individuals they believe will uphold the values that Tomba wants to see reflected in the site content. The result is a structure similar to a corporate one, where we have senior and middle managers etc. This is tried and tested in that context and as long as people are 'promoted' on the correct criteria, then Tomba can be sure that the culture of the forum will be a reflection of what he wants it to be. There is a danger in such a structure - cronyism or jobs for the boys as we like to call it over here. This can corrupt the culture of an organisation.

Regards,
David

[Steven]

The idea at the moment is to scrap the visibility of post counts everywhere from the website. It's a useless measure that doesn't say anything about the member, except that he has got the time.

At the moment here is the basic idea:
Instead, we will start with reputation points. Everybody will start at 0, and reputation will be earned by people voting your posts up. Each user will get a certain amount of votes he can do every day.

People dropping too low in reputation could face repercussions, but all that is still to be discussed.

[Richard]

That's interesting Tomba - Looking forward to it

[dave kumar]

Tomba,

A good proposal I think. You may want to consider a way to give people an incentive to vote.

I'll be honest, I can't think of an elegant way to give an incentive. Let's consider the question, if we have given somebody's comment a thumbs up, we have implicitly said that we value the content of the post. It follows from this that we want other people to read this post - 'it was informative - I think the rest of the forum would benefit from reading it'.

We could therefore have a threshold. If your reputation is below the threshold, and you post a comment or start a new thread, the thread you have contributed to will not appear on the front page... until somebody with sufficient reputation comments on the same thread. Members with a reputation above the threshold would be treated normally and have threads they commented on added to the front page in chronological order as we do now.

The problem then becomes, what is the threshold. It could be an aggregate score of all the member's reputations for example.

EDIT----
It may be that a threshold is too hard a rule. Very annoying if you are just below it! A fairer way is to rank threads on the front page according to how recently they were updated and the reputation of the last contributor so that more weight is given to a contribution from a well reputed member and their posts will appear nearer the top of the front page than contributions by other members made soon afterwards

[Dragonfly]

IMHO I am afraid you are thinking about repairing something which does work.
This forum is OK.
I've seen those forms of ranking posts, threads, users, etc. bring nothing but confusion. And precious contributing posters ending with negative rating.
Based on my experience with forums I take part in and one where I am actively engaged with moderation and administration, it's a kind of a trend forums to seem to lose the focus and forum owners/administration trying all those funny additions supplied by forum platform developers, but which IMO are sucked out of their fingers in the strive to supply something new and are not based on real application results. Things, that maybe would work in an ideal world, which is not the case with internet and its jungle.
I think it is down to change in generations and newcoming people having different attitudes, different mindsets and (don't beat me hard for being an old and conservative) lack of deep interest, especially in the technical matters in their majority.
I may be absolutely wrong on the above, but I am dead certain this forum does not need any kind of tinkering ATM.

[donskar]

The idea at the moment is to scrap the visibility of post counts everywhere from the website. It's a useless measure that doesn't say anything about the member, except that he has got the time.

At the moment here is the basic idea:
Instead, we will start with reputation points. Everybody will start at 0, and reputation will be earned by people voting your posts up. Each user will get a certain amount of votes he can do every day.

People dropping too low in reputation could face repercussions, but all that is still to be discussed.

WAIT! You aren't following MY suggestion!? That way lies MADNESS!

[wesley123]

The idea at the moment is to scrap the visibility of post counts everywhere from the website. It's a useless measure that doesn't say anything about the member, except that he has got the time.

Dont you know about the 'the higher your postcount the bigger your penis' saying?

At the moment here is the basic idea:
Instead, we will start with reputation points. Everybody will start at 0, and reputation will be earned by people voting your posts up. Each user will get a certain amount of votes he can do every day.

People dropping too low in reputation could face repercussions, but all that is still to be discussed.

I am in on the idea, although this idea requires a lot more moderating to happen, one cant simply just use the ban bat because an member got a rating of -10(of course one can do so, but that sint exactly good moderating).

Also what bothers me more is that guys keep asking to get their post rated up, making things worst. This doesnt really make much difference compared to a regular postcount, one wanting his bigger penis will still post whatever they can and if there isnt a post count they will just beg for a higher rating, this was the biggest problem of the forum where it was tried, members begging to get their posts rated up, members started crewlicking like it was just invented by giving thumbs up to the moderating team, even if they just posted 'poop'.

I am in to try it, give it 3 months, discuss it and after those three months evaluate it, although I am sceptical we cannot expect to turn this all around in one day, it takes time.

[N12ck]

I think the voting could work, but you would have to say ask for your post to be voted well and the post gets deleted/ get a warning, that would stop requests for posts to be voted up

[wesley123]

I think the voting could work, but you would have to say ask for your post to be voted well and the post gets deleted/ get a warning, that would stop requests for posts to be voted up

Just like it does with the fanboy posts now.