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Glorum_Golem
233967 years ago
Suggestions The following are all forward thinking...software's probably not ready to discuss any of the following yet, but I thought I'd suggest them to offer some ways high-volume forums might want to be able to use this softtware. I've run very high volume forums since 1988, FWIW. 1. Option for other users (and/or admin) to be able to edit a posting's tags 2. create groups of users who can/can't vote...but leave interface identical for both (i.e., deactivate actual results of voting for troublemakers). 3. Remove karma thermometer (that process should be transparent...otherwise the forum becomes about the karma rather than about the topics at hand...people trying to game the system enjoy more feedback, etc). 4. admin-configurable threshold of deletion-via-voting 5. threading (e.g. offer "reply" button on each post, and indicate (and perhaps scroll to) parent of each given posting 6. (this one's really getting ambitious) natural language ability in search engine to find threads tagged with synonyms of the search term
Glorum_Golem
233967 years ago: Also, create a page showing a reverse chron "news-ticker" of recent postings, so active users can catch up with what they've missed since last visit.
Glorum_Golem
233967 years ago: Also, allow users to self-edit postings (with admin-configurable time limit...and, for that matter, let admins edit without time limit).
Glorum_Golem
233961 years ago: wooops, the front page already does the "news ticker" requested above. This is an example where the ability to edit posts would help :)
mario
229608 years ago: Thank you for the insights. I didn't reply soon but I did read this post 10 days ago. Posts (including tags) are now editable or deletable by the post's author or the 'admin' (currently me). [What would be the top reason for a time limit?] I would like to extend this to comments/replies. I understand what you mean about the karma thermometer and I have a similar view. My only concern is whether you would still have sufficient voting activity after hiding everything.
Glorum_Golem
228972 years ago: reason for limited editing window: 1. nervous nellies will edit into perpetuity 2. it's weird for a long thread with much quoteback to have an earlier post not say what the quoteback says 3. malcontents might zero out all their stuff when they stomp off in anger 4. potential for people to change what they previously said when losing an argument 5. evil stuff slipped in later (i.e. after moderators stopped paying attention).
Glorum_Golem
228972 years ago: If you hide the voting guts, super users vote disproportionately. This is, for most communities, a plus. But I can see not everyone want it that way, so I'd make that a config. Generally, the more features can be modularized, the better. Some sites like to load up with features (and the icons and stuff that come with), some like things smooth. Ruby'd be insanely great with this system.
Glorum_Golem
228971 years ago: If you won't allow other users to edit the OP's tags, can you let new tags be added in replies? Let such tags have fractional weight (i.e. the diammetrical opposite of super tags). I don't want all sorts of tag gaming to take place, but the very guts of this s/w is tagging, and tagging is about using the wisdom of the many, so I'm unhappy with how undistributed tagging decisions are. I could discuss this further...not sure how interested you are.
Glorum_Golem
228970 years ago: Front page is not a live ticker...I was wrong in my self-correction above. Please bear in mind that this s/w has serious potential, and will be used by hi-volume forums. For that reason, I'd suggest you be careful about bandwidth and other efficiency issues (especially re: search), but also think about user experience if there are several postings per minute. Such users want to know what's new...what they've missed since last visit. And most importantly, something none of the package message board s/w does: they very much want to know if any replies to them are waiting. Which is another reason to thread this thing. But if not threaded, at least they want to see threads in which they've participated which have new stuff since last view. Do you have an email address? If so, I can shoot you a couple of URL's to look at for ideas.
Glorum_Golem
228969 years ago: Crap, now front page HAS bumped this thread. I did a full reload before, to no avail. Is the DB updating not instant?
mario
228816 years ago: Ideally the rating component will be very configurable, including being cleanly removed or easily converted to a more traditional moderation. About opening tags, I am very interested. Please continue.
Glorum_Golem
228749 years ago: ----- If you won't allow other users to edit the OP's tags, can you let new tags be added in replies? Let such tags have fractional weight (i.e. the diammetrical opposite of super tags). I don't want all sorts of tag gaming to take place, but the very guts of this s/w is tagging, and tagging is about using the wisdom of the many, so I'm unhappy with how undistributed tagging decisions are. ----- Just making sure everyone knows that "OP" means "original poster", or the person starting a given topic. As I said elsewhere, I feel like you're approaching this from a blogging perspective, making the OP the focus and everything else corollary and subsidiary. I feel that approach is short-sighted. Blogging is huge right now, but classic forum-style interaction (more horizontal discussion) has proven itself for decades. Treating each OP as a featured blogger seems like a distortion of community. The network effect, which makes forums so useful, is about equal parties contributing knowledge, as opposed to the blogger model, where one person is addressed by the peanut gallery. Doing it that way smothers the network effect. Since this is forum s/w and not blog s/w, I'd generally like to see a little less power concentrated in the OP. And tagging is one example. Respondents ought to be able to add or change the tags. Different posters will have different philosophies of tagging, so if only OPs determine tagging, tagging will be a mishmosh (and tagging is ALREADY such a nebulous thing!). Communities, as opposed to individuals, DO have a style. So if the community as a whole (both respondents and onlookers) have ability to add or even change tags, that'd help. Let the community wisdom make the tagging better, more thorough, and more consistent. Of course, you can't do any work with communities without anticipating trolls and people with agendas. I could see some users re-tagging with an agenda (or simply to vandalize). So I'd only allow reasonably high status users to retag. And don't ever reveal a poster's status to himself or others...let that be a black box (because there are "trojan trolls": people who accrue status and credibility only to enable their agendas - and the admins need to be able to quietly constrain them without the friction of obvious blocking, which just makes them re-register and build another nametag). People can still act out, tag-wise, when they start threads (because OPs needn't be high-status to tag). But allowing good users to retag and add tags will help correct. Enabling high status respondents and onlookers to change or tag adding will also help ensure that digressions within a topic get tagged on the fly. Which reminds me....when things digress badly, there ought, eventually, to be a way for moderators to snip off postings and make them new topics (this is one of innumerable cases where threading would help....just move a thread branch and all replies thereto). And, ideally, a way to leave behind a "pointer" telling andn linking users where stuff was moved to. This is a consideration for high-volume discussions.
Glorum_Golem
228748 years ago: typo correction: ----- Enabling high status respondents and onlookers to change or tag adding will also help ensure that digressions within a topic get tagged on the fly. ----- Enabling high status respondents and onlookers to change or ADD TAGGING will also help ensure that digressions within a topic get tagged on the fly. [please please enable post editing for respondents! :)] |
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