Forum Structure

[Angrypuffin]

Tonight I was bothered to find that a forum member, who has over 1000 posts, had the title "Professional". I do not think that this member has earned the title; I do not think that this member is a good representative of our community.

/This thread is not about that forum member./

Other websites have somewhat more nuanced rank-giving systems. I have heard references to an "infractions" system on the Elitist Jerks forum: I'm not sure how that system works. Also, Voldemort's forum* has a system where members can give each other "reputation" if they think a good post has been made: the more reputation you have, the more reputation you can give. This helps the community stay more personally involved in ranking each other.

Would it be worth reworking the forum to have a better ranking system? Does anyone besides me care?

Please be very judicious about your use of names here. I would prefer this to be as impersonal as possible- better for the thread to die an untimely death because nobody were interested than to become another flamefield.

*Not really Voldemort's. Just a website-that-must-not-be-named.

[Zub]

to be honest, i don't really pay attention to the 'titles' people have. It's more of an e-peen stroking thing i think really, same as the stars.
A high number of posts in no way relates to their quality or the value they add to the forum/community.

A rating/ranking system would be good, but would mean alot of work on the forum owners/mods' behalf, and probably not really worth it as people (in my experience) don't know how to click two buttons and prefer to ask the mods to do something.

After reading a couple hundred posts you should quickly get a feel of who is childish, who is professional, who is sarcastic, who has tourettes etc :-)

some actually fit all 4 examples above ;)
-Zub

[Zub]

ow damn, you're only a "beginner"... yuk!
not sure why i answered your post.



ow Damn, i just did it again >.<

;-p

[Seraphaw]

True story. If you aint a professional you need to GET OUT!





Wait....

;(

[neux]

Ah sometimes I wish WoW had in game system like Voldemort', but a bit more complex, then just giving rep to next guy just cuz he gave you rep...

I personally like what youtube and wowhead have.
most worthless (by majority) post gets rated down and out of view,
and all good and informative get to stand out in crowd :thumbup:




PS:
your first sentence gives you away. . .
honestly IMO this all thing doesn't warrant such a major change, but maybe it does (two moders are gone now :( )
but I still rather be on netrual ground :whistling:

[neux]

WOOT!

<<<< 100th POST

and it is also worthless one :thumbdown:
but proves Seraphaw ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=User&userID=11618')'s and Zub ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=User&userID=9479')'s point :P

[Otlecs]

Titles and reputation bother me about as much as the level of the character people use to post on the WoW Forums - not at all.

HOWEVER... I absolutely love the system used over at EJ - the majority of people will generally only conduct themselves properly if there are consequences for not doing so 8o

[Moorea]

slashdot type ranking (and community moderation) should work ? I agree having some collaborative filtering could be nice - though it could turn into popularity contests but... better than nothing ? (and yes the "pro" stuff is a bit offensive)

[Angrypuffin]

Heh- I have no pretensions about my standing here!

Elitist Jerks's forums have a description of the infraction system at the bottom of their posting guidelines: EJ ('http://elitistjerks.com/misc.php?do=cfrules')
And this seems to be the most relevant part of Slashdot's FAQ about moderation: /. ('http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml#cm600')

Edit: Formatting.

[KvdM]

The problem with these rank giving systems is that they only work for large communities. In a smaller community (like the db community) individual votes weigh too heavy to calculate an objective user/post rating.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I favor a voting system whereby other forum members judge you like they have at FOH:

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/members/list/?order=DESC&sort=reputation&pp=30

[jinx08]

We all know exactly who the OP is referring to when starting this thread. I for one am sick of all the flaming threads that are going on at the moment.
This is a nice community but recently it is looking more and more like the Wow official forums.
Seriously, there is no need to start a trolling thread, which I believe you intended it to be.
I for one pay no attention to people's 'rank', but more the informative information that they can bring to the community as a whole.
/rant off :)

[Frosty]

How about instead of voting for ranks..we just have a list of labels you can stick on people.
And the more people choose the same label for someone decides what label they get.

1. Posts Useful Info
2. Makes Funny Comments
3. Should Be Skipped Over
4. Is Girl IRL

Ok, kidding aside.. I guess it depends on the forum if a rating system would be good or bad.
Would anyone really get any value from it? Would someone new to the boards do a search for info and only request returns by high ranked posters?
Would someone new to the boards even use the search?

In our case here, I have a feeling the rating system would be used more as a tool for punishment than anything. ;)

[railz]

I like professionals...

http://www.voccoquan.com/tiny%20pics/frist%20prostitute.JPG

Craigslist FTW!

[railz]

On a more serious note, I'm one of about 100 mods on one of the largest sports forums on the net today (450,000+ members, around 1 million posts per month) and we allow people to set their own titles and completely remove any post-count reward system from the forum. It just creates problems.

[Svpernova09]

I completely understand where you're coming from. Personally, I'm very anti-post count. I'm also very anti-account creation date. Judging someone based on either simply isn't fair. People shouldn't be judged by how long or how often they've posted, but rather be judged by post quality. I'm also very anti user rating systems. I've seen them in action and I've seen them easily abused by ganging up on people. I do like the reputation systems that only allow reputation increases, this removes the element of someone getting their feelings hurt and being malicious to another user. This isn't EJ. We're new people friendly, we don't mind people asking the same questions over and over. Sure it gets old, but everyone was new at some point.

You shouldn't judge someone just based on their title, or post count. I don't have an insanely high post count, but like to think I'm supportive and helpful. I guess what I'm saying, is judge people on what they say, not how many times they say it, or how long they've been saying it. Judging someone by their post count / rank in an online forum is very similar to judging someone by the color of their hair, or the style of clothes they wear. It's just not accurate.

Quality over quantity.

[zanthor]

Post count is indicative of only one thing - how much free time someone has to inflate it and how much they can find to ramble on about.

Member since is only indicative of how long someones been a member, you could be a member for years and never contribute to the community.

Each member of a community this size simply needs to self police and things go much better. If someone trolls, don't feed them. If someone is ignorant, try to enlighten them, if they prove to be beyond enlightenment, don't try to set them on fire, simply move on. People need to learn when they've said the same thing enough times that anyone with a reasonable chance of understanding already would have understood - and that goes a long ways towards clearing up any of the recent issues we've seen here.

[badashh]

oooh you know what would be great...

/ignore

that would save me from falling into the same trolling traps.

[Gurblash]

Or a 'rep' meter. After enough bad rep users posts are automatically hidden, to reveal you have to click the actual post in the thread by that user.

[Catamer]

what are you hoping to get of the ranking system?
I really don't care what anyones rank is ( except for maybe moderator )

I've never assumed a trainie can't give good advice and I've never assumed an professional always has good advice.
I take everyones advice with a grain of salt i.e. use at my own risk.

I guess if we had a REALLY good ranking system I wouldn't have to think for myself.

[Skuggomann]

Mmm puffins, they taist good.

[Talamarr]

How about instead of voting for ranks..we just have a list of labels you can stick on people.
And the more people choose the same label for someone decides what label they get.

1. Posts Useful Info
2. Makes Funny Comments
3. Should Be Skipped Over
4. Is Girl IR


oooo, I want label, Posts Photos of Hot Women. I'll begin my campaign:

http://cdn.chickipedia.com/www/images/8/8c/Susan_Ward_3_822.jpgSusan_Ward_3_822_thumb_3200x0. jpg

[kadaan]

I'm with the "remove titles/ranks" completely crowd.

Then again, I never look at titles/ranks and the only time I look at post count is when someone posts a link that I think is spam and want to make sure they're not a new user who created the account just to spam us.

[Oatboat]

I think if we just made a decision to either A. Post when we had something to contribute or B. Not post something that isnt helpful. In example

Nub A asks. Why wont my toons stay on follow?
Veteran responds : Dont you freaking read the stickies... gah i hope you die in a fire.
Someone who actually cares says. Check your do not pass list and make sure your walk commands arent being sent to slaves.

If we could just avoid that 2 second temptation to roast a new guy... we'd be a better community.. If you dont like the post dont respond.

Then again this is just my thoughts.... This is not how it works.

[Dotalot]

well .. i cant say it bothers me ... i know i wont ever make it to a high "rank" on these forums just cos i do not post much .. i read a lot of the post's and have done for quite some time .. i do think some kinda karma / vote based ranking would be a good idea but this would also have it's down sides (people voting bad to people they do not like with nothing to do with the post content) but ya sounds like a better idea than forum spamers getting high ranks... then wtf dose it matter what i think im just a Beginner ;)

[Iceorbz]

Titles and reputation bother me about as much as the level of the character people use to post on the WoW Forums - not at all.

HOWEVER... I absolutely love the system used over at EJ - the majority of people will generally only conduct themselves properly if there are consequences for not doing so 8oI love EJ forums, I enjoy going there because bs in serious threads gets you muted or kicked out. Becomes really hard to find information if the threads are all sorts of random junk lol.

[Khatovar]

I don't give any creedence to post made by someone without an avatar. Nor do I read posts by people with cats in their avatars. I also ignore everyone with signatures. And vowels in thier handles. I also report posts with the use of emoticons and send the e-mail addresses of people who can't spell to spam lists.

Beyond that, /agree with Catamer 100%.

[Angrypuffin]

I guess if we had a REALLY good ranking system I wouldn't have to think for myself.
A forum ranking system will never replace critical thinking, surely. A total nobody can still be right, and a forum vet can still be wrong. Obviously the ideas have to stand on their own.

I think it's a subtle thing, really. Forum rankings are a way for the community to define itself (what we as a community do and do not accept), to reward people (giving a concrete representation of our esteem for people who are valuable), and perhaps affect the behavior of other members a little bit (people tend to do what they're encouraged to do a little more than if they weren't encouraged to do it).

I haven't seen many ranking systems at all, and I haven't ever seen one get abused, so I don't about the risks, really.

Also, I think we have the power to define ourselves as being newbie-friendly. I'd prefer that myself- not giving people an excuse to be lazy, but welcoming them and helping them pass through their ignorance and leave it behind.