possible change to forum ranking... looking for feedback

[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).