Forum Moderators: open
For example, Joe writes a "Is this the update?" thread and there's a million page views but only 3 replies... this is a poor thread and he gets -TR. But John rights "Update!" and there follows 400 posts, therefor his messages tend to be highly useful so they get surfaced to the top or stay up there more often.
A low score would also be a "polite" way of telling people their posts suck :) (hopefully I don't get a low score) ;)
Other factors that could be calculated in TR would be...
- # of all time posts
- avg. time spent reading the thread he posted
- etc...
Now I assume Brett would have TR10, but please even if you have to do a manual adjustment, make sure GG ranks just a bit lower than 10. He already has PR10 and more inbound links than anyone else.... a TR10 would just go to his head and it's not fair that he wins at everything :)
Sounds novel on the surface, I'm just not sure creating a competative environment would enhance WebmasterWorld at all.
Pendanticist.
My gut feeling is your good idea needs a new cornerstone for an algo. Just ask any Google moderator when he is busy stitching all those "false alarms" threads into a single file...
I rarely find the update thread useful at all, the number of replies has nothing to do with the quality of the original post. It might make for a good indicator of controversy though. Just fire up a thread about "ethics" or "apple vs. windows" or "linux vs. windows" and see how heated the discussions get. ;)
I have lots of posts flagged that provide useful information but don't encourage discussion. I have very few posts flagged that run past 20 - 30 replies. Some are simply two posts long, the original question and a definitive answer.
[edited by: digitalghost at 1:34 am (utc) on April 15, 2003]
Try a 'site search' for I think the discussion favored 'ThreadRank' (so we could call it 'TR' instead of PR (like PageRank)...
Though I thought the feature would debut at some point, still waiting...perhaps it's just an option he's building into BestBBS?
A low score would also be a "polite" way of telling people their posts suck
This idea has been kicked around several times in the past. So for originality ... your score is -TR! ;) (Just kidding).
Although there is merit to this idea, it would likely scare off people who are learning from taking part in the discussions. Elitism is not the objective of WebmasterWorld, nor is discouraging the participation of beginners or those who may not be as savy as others.
I have posted my share of silly questions and some silly answers as well. Its a good thing that there is a limit to the recent cached history for everyone's sake! :)
Google has a corporate culture, and we have a Google Forum culture here at WebmasterWorld. The update threads are an integral part of that culture. We have a lot of our newbies posting in those update threads who wouldn't be comfortable posting elsewhere; but those threads give them an opportunity to join in, become part of us, and feel like they're one of us with a sense of acceptance and belonging.
They're our babies. They pick one another up in those threads when they stumble and fall, as babies will. They help each other try again when they fail. They cheer one another on when they take their first faltering steps. There's fun, companionship, understanding, encouragement, solace, caring support and kindness. And patience.
Member names represent a lot more than an IP number and a faceless personage sitting at a keyboard. There are real human beings behind every membername, each with their own thoughts, emotions, needs, hopes and dreams and needs - each with their own worth.
We may be a tech/business-oriented resource, but it's the flesh and blood people with a heart for the people among us who make WebmasterWorld a community with a heart-beat and pulse, by far more than just an information resource.
[edited by: Marcia at 2:18 am (utc) on April 15, 2003]
As for thread ratings, I've never seen 'em work that well. Great in theory, awful in practice.
I'd like to see the Karma hack BGumble wrote. Can you sticky me a good sample url or maybe put it in the supporter's forum?
Thanks.
I love little baby ducks, Old pick-up trucks, Walks
in the rain. And trains... ;)
Anyway, what does all that love have to do with how valuable a thread is? For the Win user those Linux threads are pretty useless. Those Mac threads, don't mean a thing to me. I read them sometimes just to keep up on things Mac but I can't contribute anything to them. Different threads are important to different people.
I'm not saying all the newbies will get TR0 if post 2 bad threads, it doesn't have to be very weighted at all, just a subtle thing. or it can be based on another system.
Like maybe have a recommendation button for people to push if they agree with a post or think it was useful, and that would inflate the author's TR or something. Kind of like the yahoo message board forums are (just a thought).
I guess I never really thought about spam either because I just figured no one would be stupid enough to risk banishment from WW just for a few clicks to their spammy site.
Maybe the TR thing could be more of a personal gauge as well, something the user only sees for themselves, or people could make their score private whenever they like. Just something to think about :)
I don't think you would find the need to rate the posts there! ;)
I know you do. Will you sing that for me in Boston [semconf.com]?
Then you're the lady I've looked for
Come with me and escape...
(and +K to all of you) haha
Not those, but there's a great one still available. I've never been into domain name speculation, but if you're buying I'm selling. If the price is right. Otherwise I take it and keep it. ;)
pagerank, webrank, and siterank are all taken
boardrank and bbs rank are open
PR (= post rank) is a mixture of ER (= emotional rank as described perfectly by Marcia - i like it, thanks!) and FR (= fact rank, self explaining).
In your control panel you can decide which part of PR you'll like to get. For each thread. Everytime you log in.
Helpful?
I think that one covers myself and many like me :) I have no fear of making postings here becauase I know the answers I will recieve are pointed, humble and extremely knowledgable. It says on the the home page of forum "News and discussion for the advanced web professional"
I am a web professional but a newbie to the game. Advanced - maybe not, but with a few more years nurturing I will become a toddler :) we have to learn to walk before we can run.
If this site were to start to "incorporate some TR popularity gauge" my posts would (more than likely) drop to the minus end of the scale and I would become a lurker not as willing to enter in to spirit of WW.
No offence born2drv, but I think ranking individuals posts on a merit system would lead the forum down the wrong track and might make some users heads rather large ;)
ta
Limbo
