Forum-idea: StarCount

[Robert]

I've recently introduced a new functionality on my self-created forum, "StarCount".
For every post someone posts on the forum the number of characters of that post is being calculated (total characters minus html minus quotes). In the profile of each member the average chars/post is being stored (together with the total number of posts that's been used to calculate the avg post).

Then I've introduced stars.
People who post an avg of 0-14 chars/post get no stars, 15-44 = 1 star, 45-74 = 2 stars, etc. up to 5 stars.
Thus: every member has a number of stars displayed at any of his/her posts.

The advantage is that small meaningless spamposts lower the avg chars/post for a member. That makes it less interesting for people to post meaningless quick comments, just only for the postcount.

Ont he other hand do posts that actually are valuable because an interesting view, strategy, idea, etc. do actually get 'rewarded'. Thus: contributing to the site pays more then 1 postcount.

Of course does this bring in new possible spam-problems. People do enlarge their posts only to get a better starcount. Well, that may be true in the beginning, but people just will not continue to do that. Writing a few long messages may be fun but people who post on a very regular basis are just not going to do that. My experiences on my own forum show that.

And of course the large repeated words / copy/past posts that may be posted are very very easy to track, remove and punish by the moderators.
A SR must be able to be give (starcount-reduction) where simply the avg chars/post is being lowered. (not that hard if the only 2 numbers you store is the avg and the total-counted-posts)

On my own forum the quality of posts has been improved. And the number of silly 3 character posts has dropped. Besides the postcount, something that mostly serves spamwhores, the starcount shows which members contribute most quality to the site.

Of course it is debatable that quanity of chars/post = higher quality, though I believe that on the long run (it's an average) people who do post important posts in the on-topic forums will have higher starcounts and people who mostly post spam have a lower starcount.

Editing posts of course doesn't have any input on your starcount.

[Robert]

I can of course deliver the javascript for filtering HTML and quotes from the 'starcount' (eventhough that's not rocket science and Markos most probably can do it himself as well)

The rest of the code is pretty useless to this forum since my forum runs in a totaly different environment.

[Locutus]

Far too easy to abuse. This post would give me full score on your star rating despite being almost void of meaningful content (quote it to see why). This is far too easy to do (and the method I employed here is one of only several I can think of off-hand) and pretty much impossible to check for.

I've recently introduced a new functionality on my self-created forum, "StarCount".
For every post someone posts on the forum the number of characters of that post is being calculated (total characters minus html minus quotes). In the profile of each member the average chars/post is being stored (together with the total number of posts that's been used to calculate the avg post).

Then I've introduced stars.
People who post an avg of 0-14 chars/post get no stars, 15-44 = 1 star, 45-74 = 2 stars, etc. up to 5 stars.
Thus: every member has a number of stars displayed at any of his/her posts.

The advantage is that small meaningless spamposts lower the avg chars/post for a member. That makes it less interesting for people to post meaningless quick comments, just only for the postcount.

Ont he other hand do posts that actually are valuable because an interesting view, strategy, idea, etc. do actually get 'rewarded'. Thus: contributing to the site pays more then 1 postcount.

Of course does this bring in new possible spam-problems. People do enlarge their posts only to get a better starcount. Well, that may be true in the beginning, but people just will not continue to do that. Writing a few long messages may be fun but people who post on a very regular basis are just not going to do that. My experiences on my own forum show that.

And of course the large repeated words / copy/past posts that may be posted are very very easy to track, remove and punish by the moderators.
A SR must be able to be give (starcount-reduction) where simply the avg chars/post is being lowered. (not that hard if the only 2 numbers you store is the avg and the total-counted-posts)

On my own forum the quality of posts has been improved. And the number of silly 3 character posts has dropped. Besides the postcount, something that mostly serves spamwhores, the starcount shows which members contribute most quality to the site.

Of course it is debatable that quanity of chars/post = higher quality, though I believe that on the long run (it's an average) people who do post important posts in the on-topic forums will have higher starcounts and people who mostly post spam have a lower starcount.

Editing posts of course doesn't have any input on your starcount.I've recently introduced a new functionality on my self-created forum, "StarCount".
For every post someone posts on the forum the number of characters of that post is being calculated (total characters minus html minus quotes). In the profile of each member the average chars/post is being stored (together with the total number of posts that's been used to calculate the avg post).

Then I've introduced stars.
People who post an avg of 0-14 chars/post get no stars, 15-44 = 1 star, 45-74 = 2 stars, etc. up to 5 stars.
Thus: every member has a number of stars displayed at any of his/her posts.

The advantage is that small meaningless spamposts lower the avg chars/post for a member. That makes it less interesting for people to post meaningless quick comments, just only for the postcount.

Ont he other hand do posts that actually are valuable because an interesting view, strategy, idea, etc. do actually get 'rewarded'. Thus: contributing to the site pays more then 1 postcount.

Of course does this bring in new possible spam-problems. People do enlarge their posts only to get a better starcount. Well, that may be true in the beginning, but people just will not continue to do that. Writing a few long messages may be fun but people who post on a very regular basis are just not going to do that. My experiences on my own forum show that.

And of course the large repeated words / copy/past posts that may be posted are very very easy to track, remove and punish by the moderators.
A SR must be able to be give (starcount-reduction) where simply the avg chars/post is being lowered. (not that hard if the only 2 numbers you store is the avg and the total-counted-posts)

On my own forum the quality of posts has been improved. And the number of silly 3 character posts has dropped. Besides the postcount, something that mostly serves spamwhores, the starcount shows which members contribute most quality to the site.

Of course it is debatable that quanity of chars/post = higher quality, though I believe that on the long run (it's an average) people who do post important posts in the on-topic forums will have higher starcounts and people who mostly post spam have a lower starcount.

Editing posts of course doesn't have any input on your starcount.I've recently introduced a new functionality on my self-created forum, "StarCount".
For every post someone posts on the forum the number of characters of that post is being calculated (total characters minus html minus quotes). In the profile of each member the average chars/post is being stored (together with the total number of posts that's been used to calculate the avg post).

Then I've introduced stars.
People who post an avg of 0-14 chars/post get no stars, 15-44 = 1 star, 45-74 = 2 stars, etc. up to 5 stars.
Thus: every member has a number of stars displayed at any of his/her posts.

The advantage is that small meaningless spamposts lower the avg chars/post for a member. That makes it less interesting for people to post meaningless quick comments, just only for the postcount.

Ont he other hand do posts that actually are valuable because an interesting view, strategy, idea, etc. do actually get 'rewarded'. Thus: contributing to the site pays more then 1 postcount.

Of course does this bring in new possible spam-problems. People do enlarge their posts only to get a better starcount. Well, that may be true in the beginning, but people just will not continue to do that. Writing a few long messages may be fun but people who post on a very regular basis are just not going to do that. My experiences on my own forum show that.

And of course the large repeated words / copy/past posts that may be posted are very very easy to track, remove and punish by the moderators.
A SR must be able to be give (starcount-reduction) where simply the avg chars/post is being lowered. (not that hard if the only 2 numbers you store is the avg and the total-counted-posts)

On my own forum the quality of posts has been improved. And the number of silly 3 character posts has dropped. Besides the postcount, something that mostly serves spamwhores, the starcount shows which members contribute most quality to the site.

Of course it is debatable that quanity of chars/post = higher quality, though I believe that on the long run (it's an average) people who do post important posts in the on-topic forums will have higher starcounts and people who mostly post spam have a lower starcount.

Editing posts of course doesn't have any input on your starcount.
For every post someone posts on the forum the number of characters of that post is being calculated (total characters minus html minus quotes). In the profile of each member the average chars/post is being stored (together with the total number of posts that's been used to calculate the avg post).

Then I've introduced stars.
People who post an avg of 0-14 chars/post get no stars, 15-44 = 1 star, 45-74 = 2 stars, etc. up to 5 stars.
Thus: every member has a number of stars displayed at any of his/her posts.

The advantage is that small meaningless spamposts lower the avg chars/post for a member. That makes it less interesting for people to post meaningless quick comments, just only for the postcount.

Ont he other hand do posts that actually are valuable because an interesting view, strategy, idea, etc. do actually get 'rewarded'. Thus: contributing to the site pays more then 1 postcount.

Of course does this bring in new possible spam-problems. People do enlarge their posts only to get a better starcount. Well, that may be true in the beginning, but people just will not continue to do that. Writing a few long messages may be fun but people who post on a very regular basis are just not going to do that. My experiences on my own forum show that.

And of course the large repeated words / copy/past posts that may be posted are very very easy to track, remove and punish by the moderators.
A SR must be able to be give (starcount-reduction) where simply the avg chars/post is being lowered. (not that hard if the only 2 numbers you store is the avg and the total-counted-posts)

On my own forum the quality of posts has been improved. And the number of silly 3 character posts has dropped. Besides the postcount, something that mostly serves spamwhores, the starcount shows which members contribute most quality to the site.

Of course it is debatable that quanity of chars/post = higher quality, though I believe that on the long run (it's an average) people who do post important posts in the on-topic forums will have higher starcounts and people who mostly post spam have a lower starcount.

Editing posts of course doesn't have any input on your starcount.
For every post someone posts on the forum the number of characters of that post is being calculated (total characters minus html minus quotes). In the profile of each member the average chars/post is being stored (together with the total number of posts that's been used to calculate the avg post).

Then I've introduced stars.
People who post an avg of 0-14 chars/post get no stars, 15-44 = 1 star, 45-74 = 2 stars, etc. up to 5 stars.
Thus: every member has a number of stars displayed at any of his/her posts.

The advantage is that small meaningless spamposts lower the avg chars/post for a member. That makes it less interesting for people to post meaningless quick comments, just only for the postcount.

Ont he other hand do posts that actually are valuable because an interesting view, strategy, idea, etc. do actually get 'rewarded'. Thus: contributing to the site pays more then 1 postcount.

Of course does this bring in new possible spam-problems. People do enlarge their posts only to get a better starcount. Well, that may be true in the beginning, but people just will not continue to do that. Writing a few long messages may be fun but people who post on a very regular basis are just not going to do that. My experiences on my own forum show that.

And of course the large repeated words / copy/past posts that may be posted are very very easy to track, remove and punish by the moderators.
A SR must be able to be give (starcount-reduction) where simply the avg chars/post is being lowered. (not that hard if the only 2 numbers you store is the avg and the total-counted-posts)

On my own forum the quality of posts has been improved. And the number of silly 3 character posts has dropped. Besides the postcount, something that mostly serves spamwhores, the starcount shows which members contribute most quality to the site.

Of course it is debatable that quanity of chars/post = higher quality, though I believe that on the long run (it's an average) people who do post important posts in the on-topic forums will have higher starcounts and people who mostly post spam have a lower starcount.

Editing posts of course doesn't have any input on your starcount.
For every post someone posts on the forum the number of characters of that post is being calculated (total characters minus html minus quotes). In the profile of each member the average chars/post is being stored (together with the total number of posts that's been used to calculate the avg post).

Then I've introduced stars.
People who post an avg of 0-14 chars/post get no stars, 15-44 = 1 star, 45-74 = 2 stars, etc. up to 5 stars.
Thus: every member has a number of stars displayed at any of his/her posts.

The advantage is that small meaningless spamposts lower the avg chars/post for a member. That makes it less interesting for people to post meaningless quick comments, just only for the postcount.

Ont he other hand do posts that actually are valuable because an interesting view, strategy, idea, etc. do actually get 'rewarded'. Thus: contributing to the site pays more then 1 postcount.

Of course does this bring in new possible spam-problems. People do enlarge their posts only to get a better starcount. Well, that may be true in the beginning, but people just will not continue to do that. Writing a few long messages may be fun but people who post on a very regular basis are just not going to do that. My experiences on my own forum show that.

And of course the large repeated words / copy/past posts that may be posted are very very easy to track, remove and punish by the moderators.
A SR must be able to be give (starcount-reduction) where simply the avg chars/post is being lowered. (not that hard if the only 2 numbers you store is the avg and the total-counted-posts)

On my own forum the quality of posts has been improved. And the number of silly 3 character posts has dropped. Besides the postcount, something that mostly serves spamwhores, the starcount shows which members contribute most quality to the site.

Of course it is debatable that quanity of chars/post = higher quality, though I believe that on the long run (it's an average) people who do post important posts in the on-topic forums will have higher starcounts and people who mostly post spam have a lower starcount.

Editing posts of course doesn't have any input on your starcount.
For every post someone posts on the forum the number of characters of that post is being calculated (total characters minus html minus quotes). In the profile of each member the average chars/post is being stored (together with the total number of posts that's been used to calculate the avg post).

Then I've introduced stars.
People who post an avg of 0-14 chars/post get no stars, 15-44 = 1 star, 45-74 = 2 stars, etc. up to 5 stars.
Thus: every member has a number of stars displayed at any of his/her posts.

The advantage is that small meaningless spamposts lower the avg chars/post for a member. That makes it less interesting for people to post meaningless quick comments, just only for the postcount.

Ont he other hand do posts that actually are valuable because an interesting view, strategy, idea, etc. do actually get 'rewarded'. Thus: contributing to the site pays more then 1 postcount.

Of course does this bring in new possible spam-problems. People do enlarge their posts only to get a better starcount. Well, that may be true in the beginning, but people just will not continue to do that. Writing a few long messages may be fun but people who post on a very regular basis are just not going to do that. My experiences on my own forum show that.

And of course the large repeated words / copy/past posts that may be posted are very very easy to track, remove and punish by the moderators.
A SR must be able to be give (starcount-reduction) where simply the avg chars/post is being lowered. (not that hard if the only 2 numbers you store is the avg and the total-counted-posts)

On my own forum the quality of posts has been improved. And the number of silly 3 character posts has dropped. Besides the postcount, something that mostly serves spamwhores, the starcount shows which members contribute most quality to the site.

Of course it is debatable that quanity of chars/post = higher quality, though I believe that on the long run (it's an average) people who do post important posts in the on-topic forums will have higher starcounts and people who mostly post spam have a lower starcount.

Editing posts of course doesn't have any input on your starcount.
For every post someone posts on the forum the number of characters of that post is being calculated (total characters minus html minus quotes). In the profile of each member the average chars/post is being stored (together with the total number of posts that's been used to calculate the avg post).

Then I've introduced stars.
People who post an avg of 0-14 chars/post get no stars, 15-44 = 1 star, 45-74 = 2 stars, etc. up to 5 stars.
Thus: every member has a number of stars displayed at any of his/her posts.

The advantage is that small meaningless spamposts lower the avg chars/post for a member. That makes it less interesting for people to post meaningless quick comments, just only for the postcount.

Ont he other hand do posts that actually are valuable because an interesting view, strategy, idea, etc. do actually get 'rewarded'. Thus: contributing to the site pays more then 1 postcount.

Of course does this bring in new possible spam-problems. People do enlarge their posts only to get a better starcount. Well, that may be true in the beginning, but people just will not continue to do that. Writing a few long messages may be fun but people who post on a very regular basis are just not going to do that. My experiences on my own forum show that.

And of course the large repeated words / copy/past posts that may be posted are very very easy to track, remove and punish by the moderators.
A SR must be able to be give (starcount-reduction) where simply the avg chars/post is being lowered. (not that hard if the only 2 numbers you store is the avg and the total-counted-posts)

On my own forum the quality of posts has been improved. And the number of silly 3 character posts has dropped. Besides the postcount, something that mostly serves spamwhores, the starcount shows which members contribute most quality to the site.

Of course it is debatable that quanity of chars/post = higher quality, though I believe that on the long run (it's an average) people who do post important posts in the on-topic forums will have higher starcounts and people who mostly post spam have a lower starcount.

Editing posts of course doesn't have any input on your starcount.
For every post someone posts on the forum the number of characters of that post is being calculated (total characters minus html minus quotes). In the profile of each member the average chars/post is being stored (together with the total number of posts that's been used to calculate the avg post).

Then I've introduced stars.
People who post an avg of 0-14 chars/post get no stars, 15-44 = 1 star, 45-74 = 2 stars, etc. up to 5 stars.
Thus: every member has a number of stars displayed at any of his/her posts.

The advantage is that small meaningless spamposts lower the avg chars/post for a member. That makes it less interesting for people to post meaningless quick comments, just only for the postcount.

Ont he other hand do posts that actually are valuable because an interesting view, strategy, idea, etc. do actually get 'rewarded'. Thus: contributing to the site pays more then 1 postcount.

Of course does this bring in new possible spam-problems. People do enlarge their posts only to get a better starcount. Well, that may be true in the beginning, but people just will not continue to do that. Writing a few long messages may be fun but people who post on a very regular basis are just not going to do that. My experiences on my own forum show that.

And of course the large repeated words / copy/past posts that may be posted are very very easy to track, remove and punish by the moderators.
A SR must be able to be give (starcount-reduction) where simply the avg chars/post is being lowered. (not that hard if the only 2 numbers you store is the avg and the total-counted-posts)

On my own forum the quality of posts has been improved. And the number of silly 3 character posts has dropped. Besides the postcount, something that mostly serves spamwhores, the starcount shows which members contribute most quality to the site.

Of course it is debatable that quanity of chars/post = higher quality, though I believe that on the long run (it's an average) people who do post important posts in the on-topic forums will have higher starcounts and people who mostly post spam have a lower starcount.

Editing posts of course doesn't have any input on your starcount.

[MarkG]

LOL @ Locutus

[Robert]

Locotus, if you would've read my post (which you apparantly didn't) you would have read that you can make one such a post, or 2, or 10, but you won't do it all the time. The StarCount isn't based on 1 or 2 posts. It's based on hundreds of posts you made.

And not to mention that your post actually did add something to this site since it added arguments to the current debate.

And like I said, my current experiences are that the results are good and spam-posts / tricks are being done only in the beginning, soon to be abandoned.

[Robert]

Ah, I missed your hidden division.
Like I said, that kind of stuff can easily be edited out.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Locotus, if you would've read my post (which you apparantly didn't) you would have read that you can make one such a post, or 2, or 10, but you won't do it all the time. The StarCount isn't based on 1 or 2 posts. It's based on hundreds of posts you made.

It's very easy to dump that bit of code into every post you make, in fact FF extensions like Grease Monkey and the like could probably do it for you automatically.

And not to mention that your post actually did add something to this site since it added arguments to the current debate.

This particular post did but for example Markos could've added it to his post as well, and any PBEMer could add it to all their posts that simply contain the word 'sent'. It's so simple anyone can use it at any time, which would completely screw with your system.

And like I said, my current experiences are that the results are good and spam-posts / tricks are being done only in the beginning, soon to be abandoned.

It might work for your site but that doesn't mean it will work on Apolyton.

[Robert]

Not to mention of course that the character count would be displayed next to every post so that even people who are able to mislead the smartest filter system are easily exposed.

[Robert]

Sorry, Locotus, I missed the hidden message in your first post and therefor the point of your post. Ignore my first reaction.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Ah, I missed your hidden division.
Like I said, that kind of stuff can easily be edited out.

As I said, it's only one of a number of ways to do it. I can think of half a dozen off-hand, who knows how many others there are? A system like that is just wide open to abuse and plugging up all the holes is more effort than its worth (especially since new ways to do it are being invented all the time...)

[Ming]

And of course the large repeated words / copy/past posts that may be posted are very very easy to track, remove and punish by the moderators.

The mods would have to turn into thought police... Who is to say a long post was meant to up a count or actually add something. In the OTF, many people now post long news stories for people to comment on. They aren't doing it just to make long posts... You are asking the mods to "guess" whether such actions in the future were done for legit reasons...

Sounds like way too much work for the mods to police

[Locutus]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Not to mention of course that the character count would be displayed next to every post so that even people who are able to mislead the smartest filter system are easily exposed.

I could hack that too, but I'm not gonna show you how as that would allow anyone who reads this to abuse that code in all kinds of nasty ways (and for that reason it's also against this site's rules).

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Ming
Who is to say a long post was meant to up a count or actually add something.

Not to mention that posts that simply contain the word 'sent' are perfectly acceptable in our PBEM forums: they let the other players in the game know who's got the save and where any hold-ups are coming from (both in the immediate and longer term).

Short posts can be useful just as long posts can be spam. Statistics don't help you much there. As they say: there are lies, damn lies and statistics...

[Robert]

I'm very curious how you would hack that, can you pm it to me?

@Ming: the posts that I mentioned do stand out, ie:
I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount I post this to collect a high starcount

It also works for large quotes from ie. wikipedia.
As soon as you see a huge post you can see in one blink if it's real or made up.

Not to mention once again that one big post doesn't give you a high StarCount. It's an avg on maybe 1000 posts. One has post excessive ammounts of large spam-posts to achive a high starcount.
And people who post very very very much of those spam-posts (copy /paste) are really really known.

It's easier to spam my way to Deity, I just reply with a small tekst to every post in the on topic forums and nobody may even notice.

Of course will it be possible to abuse the system. I think it's less abusable then the normal postcount system.
Since it's easy to implement a test may be done.

@Locotus: Like I said, it's easy to filter all html-code out of it (and what's between the brackets).
There aren't 1000 ways to abuse the sytem. I dare you to post 2 right now that won't be filtered out if I remove all (HTML) tags and stuff that's enclosed by (HTML) tags.

[Robert]

Originally posted by Locutus


Not to mention that posts that simply contain the word 'sent' are perfectly acceptable in our PBEM forums: they let the other players in the game know who's got the save and where any hold-ups are coming from (both in the immediate and longer term).

Short posts can be useful just as long posts can be spam. Statistics don't help you much there. As they say: there are lies, damn lies and statistics...

You can always let certain forums not count towards to StarCount. (like the OT doesn't count for postcount)
(Not to mention btw that PBEM is apparantly a good way to spam myself to double-deity without even playing a game!!! that's not a reason to stop the postcount at all)

And like i said: of course are there valuable short posts and long posts that make no sence.
But in general the StarCount will divide the spammers from the contributors.

We're talking about an average rate!