it wouldn't really just gives an oppotunity for people to have their threads answered indiviually, yes I know we post mostly the same stuff but it would be far more helpful and effient to make it another forum on it's own, members come here ask the Distro question then have to wade though tons of info. Their post getting lost in amoungst the other Squillion posted. It just gives an oppotunity for these posts to be answered right as oppsed to being lost in the crowd.

Jake

The point of the megathread was to stop people from needing to post the same question over and over again. Obviously, it has failed spectacularly. Having a forum which contained a thousand threads named "which distro for me" would be just as spectacular a failure I think.

There is another forum I frequent (that uses vBulletin as well), and they added a new feature I like. It just adds a little button that says "Thanks!" under each post. When a post helps someone, they click "Thanks!," and the user gets their "Thanked" count increased, and it shows up that some user thanked this user in the post itself. This serves a few of purposes: it lets people thank someone without bumping the thread and adding a information-less post, also instead of just seeing someone's post count, you can actually see how helpful they are, and it helps boost people's egos (like mine). I'm guessing it's just an add-on someone has created for vBulletin, so it shouldn't be too hard to implement.

Here is a link to the add-on: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=92410

We talked about a reputation system before (the 'thanks' thing you're talking about), but it has been rejected. Maybe a rep system which allows only positive rep would be acceptable compromise, but I doubt we'll see that feature here at LQ.

The reputation system is standard in vB, but it can be disabled as it has been here.

Instead of rating "good answering people" from "not-so-good answering people" you should rate threads as "good" or "bad", so when you find several threads discussing about some topic, you can see which one(s) of them is (are) the highest rated. And yes, you can do this at LQ, on top of the thread-system there is a menu called "Rate thread".

I see no idea in rating users better or worse based on their threads; it might tell people how probable it is that some user X gives helpful answers, but on the other hand, nothing prevents a low-rated user from giving a much better/informative answer than a high-rated user. Thus people might start turning more and more to the high-rated users, so they would become "overused" (IMs, posts asking "how Jeff would fix this" etc.) while other users lost attention, even if they had helpful answers. The feature might have pros, but I think rating threads works better. After all it's about many users giving answers to one problem, not one user giving answers to multiple problems (only). An user-rating system would lead to "professionals" against "no-knows", and after some time the "professionals" could start asking for a wage for their job and I think there's already a site for them.. "eXpert exchange" or something.

FWIW, you've been able to rate threads here since the beginning, and no one seems to use it.

--jeremy

Whats the point of rating a thread? When I'm looking through threads for help I don't see ratings listed anywhere. I'd rather have the thanks! button than the thread ratings.

I have to agree with b0uncer here. One of the reasons why this isn't a "live" help support with IRC channel etc is, to let other people search and find answers, and if it's not there, to ask them and get more answers added to the pool of answers.

My point? It's about the threads, not the people. Good threads should be flagged so others can benefit from them.

We get enough ego-ing around with the post count (we haven't had much of these lately, but "hey! I'm not a newbie! how do I fix my status" etc) and user titles, we definitely don't need to have "special" people. Special threads? yes. Inflated egos? no. Get your kicks out of helping people without the whole world seeing it.

And a thanks post at the end lets everyone in the future know that the solution indeed, worked.

titanium_geek

As a forum owner and from my experience, I can definitely say that forums *are* about people and not threads. Threads are just a form of communication medium. The actual interaction is between people. We sometimes forget that behind the keystrokes are real live people with flesh and blood and emotions. Pure text communication kind of kills this factor and we end up in a coldly hostile environment sometimes where people say things they would never say when face to face with another human being..

I've noticed that rating is hardly used even on large forums unless there's some specific reason for rating (like contest submissions and so on). People prefer to use the reputation system because people tend to evaluate individual posts and not threads as a whole.

I think a private reputation system is a good compromise. The user who gets the reputation knows that somebody thanked him and gets some kicks and motivation out of it and yet it it is all hidden from the general public and doesn't lead to politics.

Any encouragement to get people to help others should be welcome. We cannot assume that people help others for free. The cost is measured in terms of the feeling of recognition and accomplishment, if not money.

I think harishankar is right. Its definitely more encouraging to help newbies and non-newbies when I at least know they're appreciative. I mean honestly, how many "thank you" posts do you see around here? Not a lot. The thank you button, even if the count was private, would seem like something more people would be apt to use. Its quicker more efficient and you don't run the risk of looking stupid (if that concerns you) or taking the thread off topic if its still active.

hmm... I guess I could have reworded my post a bit better- it's not about the individual, it's about the community as a whole (future users etc), and hence my emphasis on the threads being flagged useful, rather than individuals. Like hari said, politics is bad. I like the "private kicks" system better than a public one.

I guess that, considering my beliefs that the forum is for the good of all, then more people contributing is better for all, and therefore we need to encourage people to post more helpful stuff, and a thanks button would be a good way to do that.

I guess we need to clarify what we are talking about- a way of flagging things useful and helpful for others to twig on to, (for me, it's better to flag threads than individuals) or a way of simply saying: "thanks! keep it up." (then, of course, that's for users. [privately, please])

titanium_geek

TG, I understood your intent behind the post and I agree that we need to put the community above the individual. But at the same time, individuals should be motivated to keep contributing. At some point individuals need additional motivation beyond just wanting to help the newbies as being a reward in itself.

And yes, publicly showing reputation values *may* be a bad idea depending on the circumstances, but it's nice for the individual to know who thanked him. Private "thanks" is a good compromise. Glad you agree with me there

Very true. Honestly, if I get thanked in 1 of 10 posts I do, I'm happy, but if I never got thanked at all, I probably wouldn't be posting this. I find people here get happy, generally, in a few ways; by finding answers to problems, giving answers to problems (whether their motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic -- ie. recognition), and human communication. Unfortunately, in order to satisfy the first one, you need to satisfy the 2nd one. Answers won't just appear on their own, and people aren't just robots who will always be at their keyboards, ready to answer. When looking at LQ as a whole, the majority of people come here looking for answers, not looking to give them. On the other hand, it is the people actively giving the answers that actually see LQ as a community. So, if you want to view LQ as a community, remember who makes up your community; it isn't the tourists. There will always be people asking questions.

This is just a wee bit exaggerated, don't you think? Let's face it, it isn't like each thread is answered by 20 different people, all w/ awesome answers and advice. If we're lucky, we get 1 or 2 good, definitive replies. Those are the people that will be thanked, regardless of what their Thanked count is. Sure, some people will be thanked more, but some people also help a lot more. I lurk on the programming forum, and a couple of people there always have good replies (xhi & paulsm for starters), what's wrong w/ recognizing their contribution?

Anyways, about the rating system... Instead of a rating system, I think it may be useful to just have 3 buttons somewhere in plain site, labelled as "Open," "Resolved," and "Dead." Threads start as "Open," and can basically either move to "Resolved" or "Dead." Resolved means the question (presumably hinted at in the thread title) was answered. Dead means there was no answer, and it's not looking like it's going to be answered. I would think most threads would be flagged "Dead" by people searching, and finding unhelpful, old threads.

Is putting some kind of flash presentation on the forum pages new? Maybe I haven't noticed the yellow bar telling me I need another plugin in order view all the media on this page.
All I can say is that it is irritating me.
Using Ubuntu and FireFox1.5.0.7. Don't want to install flash on this machine. How do turn the message off.

Just found the answer: in the location box type about:config
find plugin.default_plugin_disabled and set it false.

Are just talking about the adds? Some of the adds use flash.