Forum-idea: StarCount

[Robert]

Originally posted by Solver
Okay, it seems like the mods are very united on this one

mods = conservatives
btw, I'm a mod as well :P

@Locotus: all your hacks are blocked by my code. You still have to name two random hacks that won't be blocked when all HTML tags and text between the tags is being removed

[MarkG]

imho, if you want to acknowledge people's quality posts the only way to do it is to you have other people rate them. but we did have thread ratings that nobody bothered to use, so...

[Robert]

So this is the 2nd best choise

[Solver]

You, CS, are a miniscule mini-mod .

But Markos has a point, we did have thread ratings, and they didn't really work. Not to mention that you have popularity contests then, I'm sure that, if used, poster/thread ratings would partially amount to that.

The true way of acknowledging quality posts is simply by it happening automatically within the community, as it does. I know people who make great posts, regardless of their overall popularity, post count or even post length. I have made some quality posts myself, and those also become known by themselves.

So...

[Robert]

Originally posted by Solver
You, CS, are a miniscule mini-mod .

I certainly am
Though I'm fortunately a mini-mod with fresh ideas trying to think like the younger crowd. Not an ancient mod who became fat of eating too much who's sabling down all new ideas :P

Apolyton is being ruled by ancient-polymods. It's not for nothing that Apolyton is getting behind.
Right now I feel like the young guy who walked into the house were old people live. I said: "I got a new idea" and all responses are like: "It is not safe" "It is new, we don't like new things", "Didn't we do something like that in the year 1869?" etc. etc.

I'd say, why won't we try it? It's an easy addition. It can be token away if it doesn't work. Why not try something new just for the fun of it?

C'mon granny, get your feets from the floor and let's dance

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by CyberShy


I certainly am
Though I'm fortunately a mini-mod with fresh ideas trying to think like the younger crowd. Not an ancient mod who became fat of eating too much who's sabling down all new ideas :P

Apolyton is being ruled by ancient-polymods. It's not for nothing that Apolyton is getting behind.
Right now I feel like the young guy who walked into the house were old people live. I said: "I got a new idea" and all responses are like: "It is not safe" "It is new, we don't like new things", "Didn't we do something like that in the year 1869?" etc. etc.

I'd say, why won't we try it? It's an easy addition. It can be token away if it doesn't work. Why not try something new just for the fun of it?

C'mon granny, get your feets from the floor and let's dance

Are you Heresson's DL?

[Ming]

I personally have no problem with "change"

I do have a problem with change just for the sake of change. Just because an idea is new doesn't mean it's a good idea. And in this case, it doesn't seem like a good idea.

New ideas are always welcome. The internet is constantly changing and sites need to keep up. So continue providing new food for thought. But don't be surprised if people don't always agree with you

[Robert]

I'm not suprised, it's just what I expected.
I am suprised though that people who never actually tried the idea and do not have experience with it do actually claim that they exactly know what will happen, that suprises me though.

The thing is that postcount and stars besides your name etc. may not be important to moderators, site veterans, people with special titles etc.
It is appealing to teenagers, new visitors, young people. They like bling-bling. They are willing to invest just to get an extra star. They will give something to the site if the site will give something back. Honor and a postcount-title, a star, those are the things that are important to them.

And since it's impossibel to get a high postcount on a site that's being spammed for 7 years already by the veterans it's difficult to get the new people on the road.

A star system that makes it easier to get rewarded may help with that. I think that the mods that responded here don't take that into account.

[Solver]

Well, we old cranky polymods have a certain ability to make educated guesses as to what will happen .

Okay, say this system would appeal to new visitors and young people. I can see that being the case sometimes. They would be willing, though, to make longer posts for the star. Not better quality, just longer. Some quality posts take hours to write. I certainly have a bunch of posts that I spent two-three hours in a row writing. These are the things people either will do or won't, and a star won't make them do it.

I can, though, see people resorting to all sorts of silly methods to get their posts sufficiently long. Counting characters to make sure their average is, say, 60 characters. To get to it, use "it is" instead of "it's" and other tricks - adding to the length, but not to the substance.

Skeptics unite!

[Ming]

Originally posted by CyberShy
A star system that makes it easier to get rewarded may help with that. I think that the mods that responded here don't take that into account.

I'm in marketing... so believe me when I say that it is a consideration. Discussions on topics like this are the norm

However, I still don't believe the basic concept that length equates to quality. If there were some way to really address quality, I would be very interested in it.
We did try the ill fated star ranking system, and that failed.

So keep up with the ideas...

[LordShiva]

What happened with the ranking system exactly?

[Solver]

Nothing happened with it. Literally. No one bothered using it, with very few exceptions.

[DrSpike]

Brevity is the soul of wit. I suggest a BrevityCount, with the mods banning both those who bore me with long posts on subjects about which they know little and people who try to disguise their long posts in a series of short posts!

[Nikolai]

I vaguely remember the system. I used it, but I decided not bothering with it when I discovered that it seemed I was the only one doing it.

[Robert]

Originally posted by Ming
However, I still don't believe the basic concept that length equates to quality. If there were some way to really address quality, I would be very interested in it.
We did try the ill fated star ranking system, and that failed.

There's a 2nd advantage, posting small spam posts to raise ones postcount will be discouraged.

And yes, length doesn't equal quality.
Though I think that in the long term quality does equal length. I think that the polymembers who have contributed most to poly have a larger chars/post avg then polymembers who hardly contributed.

It won't be 100% perfect.
But neither is the postcount, neither is the rating system, neither is any system you can mention.

But once again, it's easy to implement, why not take a shot at it? Not only to be the forum (not counting my own forum ) who first adopted this system. (May work for the wikipedia article )
Right now forum-postcount is all focussed on the quantity of single posts. This brings a new dimention on the table.

And Solver, I must say that posters who are counting their characters, are pondering on what they can post to higher their starcount, are a plus to the site. That's much better then the "How can I as fast as possible post 100 spam messages to get to King"

For sure since I do believe (and yes, that's only a believe) that people will oftenly decide to contribute more, if only to get a better starcount.

Oh well, we've discussed it on al fascets, and I think you guys for willing to discuss the item!
The question that remains is, imho, is it possible to create such a thing in a small amount of time just only to test it for 2 months, or does it take too much time and is a test therefor out of the question. Because that's how we can get the only real answers. By testing it.

And I'm going to put up a test-forum on my own server for Locotus (Give me some time, I just became a fater ) since I want to see him hacking my forum