possible change to forum ranking... looking for feedback

[keyclone]

i have seen a number of posts pinging the 'ranks' we receive in the forums. and i have a thought that might help improve the quality of the tags... here goes:

forget the tags given due to post counts.

maybe we can do a digg like concept where each member can 'digg' a poster up or down. this rating will allow users to gauge a users perception within the community. the same member could change their mind... but the up/down vote only counts as 1. if the member goes inactive for like 3-6 months, their votes go away (keeps the fake members from skewing the results too much... maybe also void their ability to thumb until they have 10 or so posts)

taking it one step further... we could have a couple of categories under the user's avatar, each one able to be given an thumb up or down by each member.
ie:

experience: --- (+/-)
mood: --- (+/-)
knowledgeable: --- (+/-)
troll: --- (+/-)

we could also make levels to each category.
ie:
experience: ultra noob, basic noob, L33t, godlike
knowledgeable: tool, no clue, noob, enlightened, supah smaht

i would put it on a sliding percentage scale and show the count.
ie:

Keyclone
[ pic ]
experience: godlike (+/-) (1,005)
mood: barely contained excitement (+/-) (1,005)
knowledgeable: supah smaht (+/-) (1,005)
troll: angelic (+/-) (1,005)

(and yes... i deliberately made that crap up)

thoughts? categories? levels for each?

[Smoooth]

I like but a troll category might have to be worded better. Do I give a thumbs up because yes, this guys is a troll or a thumbs up because he isn't one? The three other categories can be considered a good thing but troll is bad so I can see where there might be some confusion in rating that one.

[keyclone]

agreed. i didn't mean for those categories to be taken so literally or to be the basis for what we'd have. just some food for thought and i was hoping the community would chew on it a bit to come up with maybe 4 or 5 categories with 5 levels within each (3rd/middle level == nuetral with positive and negative going either way). maybe more levels would give a better idea of the person (2 levels negative or positive isn't much)

[mmcookies]

those categories sound a little too serious for my tastes

what if you used names that were a little more jocular

ie. troll => trollan

anyways, my point is they should be a bit more fun, kinda like the level names

and what's the reasoning for using levels instead of totals?
it's not like you'll be able to filter/hide posts by poster levels?
or is that under consideration?

[aboron]

Here's an idea for a raking system (assuming we are talking custom programming as a viable option):

For each post you make you gain a one rating action point, which doesn't affect your forum rank at all, but this keeps people who don't participate at all from getting votes.

Then with these earned points you can chose to act upon someone else's forum rating level Up or Down by one per person per day.

So if I always say useful/helpful things, more people will give me +1 rating points, esp. likely from the person who posted a question that I answered, since they got a rating point to give from creating their post already anyway.

And if I always flame or say dumb things, more people will -1 from my rating all the time and I'll end up going very negative.

Then just make up names for the scale from say -5000 to +5000 (weighted to more values in the proximity to 0 since most people probably won't go more than +/- 200 either direction.


And then give users the option to grey out replies from people below a negative value of their choosing between say -10 (no tolerance for any slips) and -infinity (the patience of Job).

[ElectronDF]

I don't mind rating people that have been here a while so you can tell who is helpful and who just posts 1,000 posts a day. But, I wouldn't want to vote on new people. Maybe after 20 posts or so. Imagine if you come in and ask a stupid question and everyone votes you down like 1000 times. I just want to give new people some leeway (word looks odd).

From what I see on here, I try to take 2-5 people's opinion and average them. That way, you don't accidentally listen to a hardcore PVPer that says, twitch as fast as you can. Or listen to a quest only, never fought an elite mob person that says, no need to control alts, just stand there and auto-attack, the mob will die. Sometimes, I am just looking for info on what other people did. Maybe they are screwed up and not even close to my playstyle, but they had a good idea that works for me.

I guess I am not worried about who to listen to or which people are idiots. I average them out of the equation anyway.

Two ideas that I would love. Let me see when any of the threads that I posted in have new comments in them. I have to go to my profile, select posts and then go to each one to see manually and it just takes time. The other is let me choose how many posts I see on the front page. I look at that about 100 times more than go to each forum. If there are 11 new posts, I miss one and am not likely to hunt it down. Maybe a scroll bar on the side that shows 10 normally, but if you scroll down, you can see 10 more or so.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Way I see it, there's only one way to do this. Have a plethora of post stats for everyone and just ignore rankings; leave it to people to make up their own mind what those stats mean. There's no way to have people "vote" on another person's rank without it becoming a tyranny of the (active) majority, especially when some folks have a correct but unpopular opinion. And I firmly detest pure democracies.

[Flekkie]

Here are some random ideas.

1.
Are you sure that you want to rate the user rather than their posts?
Rating posts has been proved to work very well on open 'comments' type forums.
I have no experience with rating users. However, can it be said that a troll never posts good info, or an expert never makes a mistake?

I guess this only matters if posts would be suppressed based on ratings. If it is pure stats, it wouldn't worry me I don't think.


2.
Instead of voting, could users emote at the author of each post? eg:

experience ------> /salute
mood -------------> /hug
knowledgeable --> /awe or /boggle or /listen?
troll --------------> /golfclap or /shoo or /bonk?

Then stats on how many of each emote in last 3 mths or lifetime or however else you do it can be provided.
**Should also give stats on emotes given as well as received.

Seems a bit less dry like that. Discourages constant /golfclaps since it will also reflect on the /golfclapper. Also, makes it clear that it is someone else's reaction to them, and not neccessarily fact. But it is a bit WoW oriented, don't know if that would be a problem.

[Zal]

knowledgeable: tool, no clue, noob, enlightened, supah smaht
i approve this awesome title

[Svpernova09]

I don't know the best way to handle this, but I don't think an intricate, overly complicated ranking / voting system is the answer. I hate reputation systems as they almost always turn into an elitist epeen contest, and frankly, if that's what you're into, you're in the wrong forum.

I'd be content hiding join dates / post counts from the general population. I don't have a high post count compared to others, but I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about content we discuss here. Post counts and Join Dates aren't always everything. Your credibility is about the only thing you have here, some have it, some don't. You're post history and your attitude goes a long, long way is the major factor in how people treat you. There's plenty of examples of this in locked threads.

Users should be allowed to make up their own mind about someone, but they should also be protected from the dangers that they may not be immediately aware of, and should be warned before taking any advice from someone who shouldn't be giving advice.

A lot of advice I see getting thrown around goes along with: Those who can, do. Those can't, Teach. It's kinda scary, but I usually let it go because people are trying to contribute and people should be encouraged to share info and experiment.

[HPB]

LInk forum name to main toon names and pull achievements.

I know this is only WoW specific, but it would weed out a lot of bullshit. Like - Haven't hit 80 yet? STFU about (current) max level topics. Haven't got the bare minium PvP achivements yet (like kill 100 players or something ridiculously easy) STFU about PvP. Haven't cleared a single dungeon? STFU about PvE. (max level dungeon?).

I'm not saying you're not allowed to ask questions on those topics - but if you're spewing advice... *cough*.. you shouldn't be.

Seriously - this would straight up stomp a ton of crap here.

This really wouldn't work for a few reasons:

Some people like to keep their toons private, including people that might post a lot.

Some people who used to play wow but have moved on to other MMO's might not have achievements on their inactive character sheets if they quit before 3.0.

There may be a few people on the forums that have never played WoW.

Speculation is half of the fun when considering what teams you are going to level/gear up. Some theory-crafting doesn't hurt anyone. Separating some good ideas from absurd ones can't be done too well by software.

[Moorea]

I like fur's proposal



LInk forum name to main toon names and pull achievements.

I know this is only WoW specific, but it would weed out a lot of bullshit. Like - Haven't hit 80 yet? STFU about (current) max level topics. Haven't got the bare minium PvP achivements yet (like kill 100 players or something ridiculously easy) STFU about PvP. Haven't cleared a single dungeon? STFU about PvE. (max level dungeon?).

I'm not saying you're not allowed to ask questions on those topics - but if you're spewing advice... *cough*.. you shouldn't be.

Seriously - this would straight up stomp a ton of crap here.


This really wouldn't work for a few reasons:

Some people like to keep their toons private, including people that might post a lot.

Like who ? if you're in mboxing community why would you hide your toons ? Even if for whatever reason you want to hide some, you can probably still find a lone level 80 to link in...



Some people who used to play wow but have moved on to other MMO's might not have achievements on their inactive character sheets if they quit before 3.0.

There may be a few people on the forums that have never played WoW.

yes that's true and a downside of the proposal - yet even with wow bias I think this would useful - obviously in the EVE subforums people shouldn't care too much about the WOW stats - also maybe there can be some other armory like for a few other major mmos


Speculation is half of the fun when considering what teams you are going to level/gear up. Some theory-crafting doesn't hurt anyone. Separating some good ideas from absurd ones can't be done too well by software.
theory crafting presented honestly as such is fine... but if people forget to identify it as theorycraft, the actual wow achievements would help give some context

[Moorea]

forgot : have a look at slashdot's system too - I think it works decently (mostly "posts" are moderated but also you accumulate a general feedback based on past posts/... which gives a starting score to new posts)

[Starbuck_Jones]

I think a ranking system will do little more than make the forums a game. For me, I already know who stands out in the community (good and bad) because I participate. Waiting to be the first to thumbs down every post from someone who tends to post before thinking or obviously did not read the wiki does not create a friendly and open community. I feel it will add a layer of e-peen that we just don't need.

[keyclone]

Users should be allowed to make up their own mind about someone, but they should also be protected from the dangers that they may not be immediately aware of, and should be warned before taking any advice from someone who shouldn't be giving advice.
this is the reason i started the thread. personally, i don't look at the rankings... i read the post and weigh accordingly. if i find the post to be odd/offensive/etc, i generally look to the nick/avatar and try to understand if its out of character. but that requires a foreknowledge of forums and its members, which only comes with time.

the purpose of the suggestion would be to help the newcomers sift through the responses to questions and try to give them an ability to weigh the response, similar to how i do it, but without the foreknowledge.

and i agree... having it turn into an e-peen game would be just lame. any thoughts how to avoid?

what if the vote would be cast on each comment made by the user, and the tally would be reflected under their avatar? how could the voter's history be used in voting? if someone is a basher, and they vote someone a troll, that vote should be considered less as the voter does that to everyone thus making their vote meaningless (iffy here.. just streaming consciousness)

@ Ughmahedhurtz ('index.php?page=User&userID=843')
how do we avoid the pure democracy e-mob but still give the newbies info to help them gauge the responses? (this is the goal)

@ElectronDF
not allowing any member votes on a newbie with less then 20 posts would make perfect sense


@Fursphere
instead of requiring the achievement info, it could be a voluntary thing and the reader seeing the achievement could weight the response accordingly. this would allow privacy for those that want it, as well as give the poster the ability to back up their claims with experience.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

[edit] Added icons.

I did some thinking about this last night. The best idea I came up with is something along the lines of Fur's suggestion, minus the link to the armory.

Set up people's profiles so they can check off things like having multiboxed:
http://ugh.scaredsheep.com/wow/MB_1mo.gif for 1 subscription period in any MMO
http://ugh.scaredsheep.com/wow/MB_1yr.gif for 1+ years
http://ugh.scaredsheep.com/wow/MB_5yr.gif for 5+ years
http://ugh.scaredsheep.com/wow/WoW_80.jpg a team to 80 http://ugh.scaredsheep.com/wow/WoW_Normal.jpg a Northrend level 80 normal instance http://ugh.scaredsheep.com/wow/WoW_NormalAll.jpg all Northrend level 80 normal instances
http://ugh.scaredsheep.com/wow/WoW_Heroic.jpg enough 80 heroics to get a piece of badge gear
http://ugh.scaredsheep.com/wow/WoW_10man.jpg in 10-man Naxx or Ulduar http://ugh.scaredsheep.com/wow/WoW_25man.jpg in 25-man Naxx or Ulduar http://ugh.scaredsheep.com/wow/WoW_BGs.jpg in level 80 BGs http://ugh.scaredsheep.com/wow/WoW_Arena.jpg in level 80 arenasAnd maybe a couple others (suggestions welcome). Then have little icons show up under your avatar or signature that indicate having earned those achievements.

Now, I suspect there's nothing in the forum software that would lend itself to that without some code work, and I'm surely not going to pile on our gracious hosts by suggesting they Get Cracking(tm). :P I might have to see if I can come up with some icons people can include in their signatures. It'd be on the honor system (i.e.: you'd have to not just bald-face lie about this stuff) but I think it would give people an "at a glance" way to see whether someone actually knows what they're talking about.

How's that sound?

[Bigfish]

Just my 2 cents, but I'd prefer something independant of post count that lets people identify their relative skill level, (new, intermediate, advanced, etc), just for the sake of figuring out if someone has been around the block, or are offering their opinion, which may be correct, without much experience.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Set up a system like FoH and let the readers judge as they will. I went from being banned for 2-3 years to the 6th highest rated poster (guy with 2 posts don't count):

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/usercp.php

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

Ya thats a brillient idea to not let people give advise on something until they do it.

If you can't talk about leveling until you reach 80 then;

If you can't box 20 or more characters then don't talk about multi-boxing.

Hey if you havn't talked to GoD don't give advice about religion, and if you havn't been to the moon don't talk about space exploration. Oh and if yur not the President don't talk about how to run the country.


I think that the readers of this forum are intelligent enough to decide if advice is resonable or BS. Anyone who can even set up a multibox system isnt just going to blindly follow any advice anyone posts without independant confermation from another source. I don't belive much of anything anyone says on anything unless I read it from multiple sources. Someone says "X spot is the best to grind". I look at it, then I read other grinding guides and see if there is some common mob to all of them, then I check the mobs HP at wowhead and how many times its been looted, then I go look at the area myself. Who wouldn't check from alternate sorces? Thats why posters who put links to outside information in thier posts are lot more valuable then those who make ipse dixit conclusions.

[Sam DeathWalker]

If by "troll" you mean provide erudit elucidations on a subject to cast light upon the truth, no matter where it leads, rather then make a conclusion based upon who brings the message rather then what the message is, then ya then I'm trolling.

[Svpernova09]

If by "troll" you mean provide erudit elucidations on a subject to cast light upon the truth, no matter where it leads, rather then make a conclusion based upon who brings the message rather then what the message is, then ya then I'm trolling.I think he means trolling by taking up any chance you get to talk about yourself.

I think a ranking system will do little more than make the forums a game. For me, I already know who stands out in the community (good and bad) because I participate. Waiting to be the first to thumbs down every post from someone who tends to post before thinking or obviously did not read the wiki does not create a friendly and open community. I feel it will add a layer of e-peen that we just don't need.This is how I feel, so I'm very reluctant to entertain the thought of any type of ranking / voting system. I think Ughmahedhurtz may be on the right track, not sure about implementation, but I do like the idea of pulling data from the armory. I would think that would be a nice optional feature to have attach your armory stats to your profile.

[glo]

Ranking systems on boards tend to make people think they are better then others. One of the great things about this forum (other then the 1 wack job) everyone seems to realize we are just a bunch of nerds playing video games ;)

I vote no on elitism.

[Effex]

Have to agree please no elitism / voting. this forum is my haven away from all of that

i can understand why you would want to do somthing like this but if you are going implement it just let the mods vote, we have a small community with decent mods sure they wouldnt mind.

[Til Eulenspiegel]

Ya thats a brillient idea to not let people give advise on something until they do it.

If you can't talk about leveling until you reach 80 then;

If you can't box 20 or more characters then don't talk about multi-boxing.

Hey if you havn't talked to GoD don't give advice about religion, and if you havn't been to the moon don't talk about space exploration. Oh and if yur not the President don't talk about how to run the country.
I think it's more like, "If you haven't walked on the moon, don't talk about what it is like to walk on the moon." If you've never stepped in an arena or a battleground, then you cannot comment on what it is like to play an arena match or a battleground. If you have never stepped foot in a high level dungeon or raid instance, then you have absolutely no words of wisdom on the subject. No matter what words are spoken, even if they would be "correct" if someone else spoke them, the fact is that if someone with absolutely no experience is giving advice, then everything they say may as well be a lie.

[Moorea]

I don't mind having a sub forum reserved for 20+ boxers; as long as the people posting there don't post in the 2-19 boxer forums...

Not sure an honor system would work... or maybe if in the rules it's clear that lying == permanent "liar" tag added

But maybe this is all too complicated and just removing the title associated with the post count # is enough ?

[Svpernova09]

I don't mind having a sub forum reserved for 20+ boxers; as long as the people posting there don't post in the 2-19 boxer forums...

Not sure an honor system would work... or maybe if in the rules it's clear that lying == permanent "liar" tag added

But maybe this is all too complicated and just removing the title associated with the post count # is enough ?The new forum software that we'll be migrating to has the option to enable users to set their own user titles. So this could be an interesting feature to enable.

[Moorea]

sigh... can't wait to see what some people will pick if allowed to pick their own title...

[Zub]

I think giving ratings to people instead of posts is the wrong idea.

People having ratings, stats, titles (or anything really) WILL lead to an epeen contest of some sorts.
On top of that, (as was said above somewhere) trolls CAN write some good posts, and Forums heroes CAN write some stupid posts sometimes too.

The information we should rate is the POST, not the poster.


Now, i kinda like the wowhead method where every post gets a rating.
Say it starts at 0 (neutral) and users get to vote Plus or Minus if they want (one vote max per post)

If the post goes lower than -10 (for example) the text appears in gray. if it's lower than -20, the post is folded and you need to click some link to actually view it.
Other way round, if the post gets a rating of +10, then the text appears in whatever color that makes it stand out.

to be able to vote, you need to be registered (of course) and have posted more than 10 posts for example. (10 non-folded, non-gray posts)
This way it prevents someone just systematically killing all of a members posts, as it takes the community to rate up or down significally.

Now if you still want an opinion about the poster you can go to that poster's profile page and see the list all the latests posts from that person.
If most are gray or folded you know what to conclude.


Threads that have alot of positive posts can then show 5 stars or whatever. or maybe one star per highlighted post (maxxed at 5)


my 2c
-Zub


[Edit] Obviously people should not be able to vote on their own posts.

[Stealthy]

Now, i kinda like the wowhead method where every post gets a rating.
Say it starts at 0 (neutral) and users get to vote Plus or Minus if they want (one vote max per post)

If the post goes lower than -10 (for example) the text appears in gray. if it's lower than -20, the post is folded and you need to click some link to actually view it.
Other way round, if the post gets a rating of +10, then the text appears in whatever color that makes it stand out.

I like this system as well...simple, but works well and emcourages people to make their posts relevant and informative.

Cheers,
S.

[Bettysue]

Rating systems always seem to skew toward the popular kids, informational forum systems such as this one shouldn't be a popularity contest. It's about the posts you read not the posts you make in a lot of cases. I could ask questions all day instead of hitting the search button and I would eventually have thousands of posts that may never be voted upon. The voting system being there doesn't mean people use it every time, they may just view and move along leaving my rating somewhere near neutral and hard to adjust. The me being the malevolent question posting noob could vote down the replying person that simply says RTFM everytime i ask. Get a couple people that don't have the fan boy following and suddenly Sam Deathwalker's oddly guided posts disappear as he gets banned for not being "cool" enough to post. Every forum visited that has a ranking system I usually search around for the "display all posts" and make up my own mind about the posters. If I don't like someone I realize that that is my opinion and I let others make up their own mind.

So what I suggest is a personal per user type cool people list...friend list maybe. You could add people you find to be informative to your list, then filter threads based on people you want to see information from. Leaving the join date and removing the post count gives people an idea of who's been around for a while without immediatly scewing your view of them. I vote something other than a ranking system, though I found many of the suggested titles/ranks amusing.

[RobinGBrown]

I'd like to say that having experienced a forum with a poster popularity system I'd like NOT to see that sort of thing in this forum. If it's a popularity contest someone always metagames the system, and in a forum of metagamers thats just to likely for words.

Rating individual posts is a different matter however, I don't have any experience of that but it could be good.

[BobGnarly]

I'm not a fan of rating systems, personally. I think a good post from a knowledgeable user will stand out as such all by itself, it doesn't need flashing icons next to it to make it stand out.

My experience has been that these types of systems do more harm than good.

[Khatovar]

I also fail to see the use in a user rating system here. Regulars know who they care to read posts from and new members don't care who makes the post as long as they get answers. The specific post is what matters, not the poster. And an indiviual post rating system pretty much unused, I mean how often do you even see posts get any star ratings as it is?

All I can see coming from it is more flamebait and drama.

[Svpernova09]

We seem to have 2 schools of logic showing themselves. First, "rank users so people can judge their reputation at a glance". Second, "any ranking system is inherently flawed /will become popularity contest".

The first point, I'm very, very hesitant on, but am willing to discuss implementations. I don't like the idea because I don't want users modding down other users. I think it violates a mutual respect for each other I think we should all have. I agree with the second point that any ranking system is inherently flawed / will be come a popularity contest. I don't want that here, I don't think that's what the other mods want either.

I'd much rather users rate the CONTENT than each other. This keeps moderation about the content, and not about the user. But it allows new people to see what the general community thinks about someones posts. Of course, you could have roaming packs of wolves modding up their own content and modding down anyone that they don't like. Mod intervention should be able to stop this before it becomes an issue.

I spent a large part of my weekend playing and tinkering with the new forum system, on sample data (a database snapshot from our live db here). I've got some good ideas and some implementation ideas that should help with a lot of recurring concerns I see people bring up. I'd like to see more comments on this, so feel free, even if you've never posted here before, if you're this far into this thread, I'd like to hear your comments. If you don't want to post publicly, PM me, IM me, whatever.

[wendalf]

I like /. rating system and I think it would work well here. I also think pulling armory data is a little biased to those who link their characters vs those who don't. The characters I have listed on the wiki are not all of my characters. I have toons in Naxx and one in Ulduar but I do not list them so while I know about those encounters and have even multiboxed in Naxx, you would not know it by my armory so I would be discounted. I could care less about my status personally, but I can see the system being abused in various ways.

While I like Ughmahedhurtz idea with the icons, but game icons are not the only thing. The whole reason this post was started was in response to a technology post. So do we need IT icons as well as game icons?

[Svpernova09]

I also fail to see the use in a user rating system here. Regulars know who they care to read posts from and new members don't care who makes the post as long as they get answers. The specific post is what matters, not the poster. And an indiviual post rating system pretty much unused, I mean how often do you even see posts get any star ratings as it is?

All I can see coming from it is more flamebait and drama.I think the lack of thread rating we have now is a usability issue, not that people don't care, I think they just don't know how to rate threads.

I like /. rating system and I think it would work well here. I also think pulling armory data is a little biased to those who link their characters vs those who don't. The characters I have listed on the wiki are not all of my characters. I have toons in Naxx and one in Ulduar but I do not list them so while I know about those encounters and have even multiboxed in Naxx, you would not know it by my armory so I would be discounted. I could care less about my status personally, but I can see the system being abused in various ways.

While I like Ughmahedhurtz idea with the icons, but game icons are not the only thing. The whole reason this post was started was in response to a technology post. So do we need IT icons as well as game icons?I think the armory integration stuff would be optional, and just to show off your team. I wouldn't base too many assumptions over armory data.

[Zub]

think they just don't know how to rate threads.

not sure about the "Thread" rating. i'd rather have a "post" rating.
A thread can have alot of good and bad posts, it would be a pity to sacrifice the good ones to discard the bad ones.
Rating by "post" allows to discard the bad ones while keeping the good ones.

[Svpernova09]

think they just don't know how to rate threads.

not sure about the "Thread" rating. i'd rather have a "post" rating.
A thread can have alot of good and bad posts, it would be a pity to sacrifice the good ones to discard the bad ones.
Rating by "post" allows to discard the bad ones while keeping the good ones.Aye, I agree, I was referring to the current thread rating setup.

[badashh]

Everyone does realize they can just put Sam on ignore... right?? This seems like a lot of work to cut out some people that could just be ignored if you personally don't like what they have to offer. Just a thought.

[Svpernova09]

Everyone does realize they can just put Sam on ignore... right?? This seems like a lot of work to cut out some people that could just be ignored if you personally don't like what they have to offer. Just a thought.This isn't about Sam. this is about creating an environment where content is ranked instead of basing opinions around someone's post count.

[Taliesin]

I generally keep my mouth (keyboard?) shut on topics like these unless I have something useful to say, but since this is a thread devoted to 2 cents...

I personally don't care whichever way the forum goes with rankings and such. I don't look at people's post counts, and I think I'm a pretty good judge of what sounds like BS or trolling, and what sounds like careful reasoning or honest theorycrafting/questioning just by reading a post.

However, I do agree that anything that contributes to rewarding people for posting for the sake of rank or post count doesn't really help the community. The post ranking/digging is about the only ranking system that I feel actually carries any value, as it's a way for the community itself to help bury useless information that mods otherwise really shouldn't be involved with censoring. But I don't feel that a forum really NEEDS this ability for the threads to be useful.

If you really want to put some ranking on a person themselves, it should be based on the relative worth of their posts (i.e. average post rank, total number of posts over a certain ranking, etc). Preventing someone from ranking other people's posts until after they either have a sufficiently high postcount while maintaining an overall positive ranking themself should largely discourage people from self-bumping with dummy accounts (though this is far from a real roadblock).

[Tonuss]

sigh... can't wait to see what some people will pick if allowed to pick their own title...That is, at least, something that is relatively easy to police by forum administration. vBulletin allows for user-customized titles, and the admin can prohibit specific users from taking advantage of that option. So if you had a forum member who consistently picked a title that the admins did not like, they could simply reset it and remove his privilege to change it (as an alternative to harsher penalties, of course). (edit to clarify- I'm not saying that this forum runs on vB, just using vB as an example)

However, the ideas about ranking users based on their experience or expertise is a minefield, IMO, because it would require some form of authenticating. Otherwise, what would stop me from claiming ownership of characters that aren't mine? Or from accusing someone else of falsifying their own choices? Now the admins either have to spend time and effort investigating, or the system is no longer useful. Basic +rep or -rep systems aren't so bad, but the ratings are never evenly applied and are usually woefully unbalanced.

I don't think that a rating system can take the place of a reputation earned over time via the respect (or lack thereof) of your peers. I can see a system that is designed with fun in mind, and promoted as such. Say a system where you can rate a post +1 or -1, but the ranking system has random descriptions in random numerical ratings. Combine that with user-customizable titles and you give people the chance to be a bit silly without creating drama, and that can make the place a bit more fun. But I think ratings systems very rarely ever work as they are intended to.

[keyclone]

But I think ratings systems very rarely ever work as they are intended to. i would agree.

i was pondering the possibility of providing something to newbie users... which they would get after a week or two of participation... so the point might be moot. being able to show some form of experience bar would be interesting, if we could somehow verify.

and more fun is always on the list of priorities :D

hmph... still pondering/chewing on it

[Moorea]

link about slashdot
http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml#cm520
which is mostly post based plus some "karma" feedback

[Sam DeathWalker]

Sorry to kinda derail but seeing vBulletin was mentioned above, why is Burning Board better then vBulletin?


vBulletin allows for user-customized titles, and the admin can prohibit specific users from taking advantage of that option. So if you had a forum member who consistently picked a title that the admins did not like, they could simply reset it and remove his privilege to change it (as an alternative to harsher penalties, of course). (edit to clarify- I'm not saying that this forum runs on vB, just using vB as an example)

[Los]

Rating is bad mkay, are we getting dkp next, so we can buy post credits? (I like to exaggerate)

You will have noobs everywhere, and the more 'known' you get around the block, the more idiots you will attract. I think that most here are grown up enough to read past the gnomes? In fact I think that most gnomes stick to the newbie part of the forum anyways, is there really a need for it?

(imagine the impact on gurblash, he would be sooo in minus dkp)

[Svpernova09]

Sorry to kinda derail but seeing vBulletin was mentioned above, why is Burning Board better then vBulletin?
IMO, it's not. That's why we're getting away from it.