Idea for forum improvement

Just an idea...

Would be nice to have some sort of post rating system on ED's forum.

On most forums, users have the ability to "Like" or "Kudo" (or in some cases even "Dislike") posts. See an example from a very popular Dutch forum in my attached screenshot.

I think this would be a useful addition to ED's forum. It is an easy way to show your support or appreciation when someone posts something useful or did something to help the community (which happens a lot). This also avoids having multiple forum pages filled with "thats's great!", "Thank you!", "Awesome!" etc.

It will also drastically reduce the "+1" or "this" replies.

"Dislike" option might cause and spread unwanted negativity, on the other hand it might also muzzle people that keep moaning about progress of modules and other usual weekly drama ;)

(now I'll sit back and wait for all the "+1", "-1", "you suck", "you are brilliant" replies)

Already had it. It was abused. It went away.

Already had it. It was abused. It went away.

Ah of course :(

And there I was, naively thinking the DCS forum only attracted intelligent and mature people that could handle such a system...

Already had it. It was abused. It went away.

Did we? We had a system to (dis-)credit a person for a specific post but not a post itself.

I think it would be useful to rate good/bad posts independent of who actually posted. There are simply too many to read them all.

If I could read though the best posts of a day/week/month I would save a lot of time and probably not miss a lot of good info (or read a lot of rubbish).

It's not possible to abuse an upvote-only system....a downvote/upvote system, yes, but if your two options are just "upvote" and nothing then...what? The Mudspike forums have upvotes only and there's no problems there.

It's not possible to abuse an upvote-only system....a downvote/upvote system, yes, but if your two options are just "upvote" and nothing then...what? The Mudspike forums have upvotes only and there's no problems there.

Exactly, that's why I shared my doubts about a dislike button in my OP. I'm afraid internet is, and will never be, liberated from childish, jalous and rude behaviour. So a dislike option would probably be abused.

Upvoting wouldn't hurt anyone (well of course some people will allways find a reason to be offended :P)

I am for an accumulation of thanksgiving points but not for the like and dislike system because they have a negative psychological effect as well as useless on this forum

I really don't see why internet ''likes'' (or dislikes) interest people at all. I got likes, I didn't care, got dislikes....... still didn't care. Ah, Facebook, thou art the doom of the human race

..Ah, Facebook, thou art the doom of the human race

Exactly

The idea that you can only "Thumbs up" a post is bad, but it is because people would not hesitate so much to click "Thumbs down", so not allowing them to down vote is only way to go.

The idea that you can down vote a post (not the person) is required so you can actually mark a "Stupid idea", but problem is that it gets abused because people get so hanged to the person writing the stuff, than what is written. And there are always lots of egoist people across different forums that you can easily find out by seeing their huge post count history, as that is already one kind mark that person has too much time dedicated to their alter ego in the forum and so on they are using their insights of the forum community and the topics to elevate themselves more than helping other people and avoid getting touchy with others.

Actually in the forums it would be almost better that the messages would be anonymized completely, so no poster, nothing such would be shown. Of course some people want to use a signature to get recognized but discussing with random people without knowing anything about them is far too often refreshing and more polite than among pseudonyms.

Would be nice to have some sort of post rating system on ED's forum.

Wait, you joined 8 years ago and you don't know such a system was already in place?

Anyway, I agree with some of the others that the biggest flaw of the old rep system was that we could only +rep/-rep members, not posts (although they would see in their User CP which posts earned them +rep or -rep, and from whom).

An upvote/downvote system for posts would make a lot of sense IMO. If it's an upvote only system, that's still a lot better than having no feedback of this type IMO.

Of course, back then we saw not just "+1" posts, but also "+rep", so I'm not sure these would vanish entirely. ;)

I really don't see why internet ''likes'' (or dislikes) interest people at all. I got likes, I didn't care, got dislikes....... still didn't care. Ah, Facebook, thou art the doom of the human race

Just for the record, I never registered to Facebook, nor will I ever do as long as it's up to me ;)

Wait, you joined 8 years ago and you don't know such a system was already in place?

 

Anyway, I agree with some of the others that the biggest flaw of the old rep system was that we could only +rep/-rep members, not posts (although they would see in their User CP which posts earned them +rep or -rep, and from whom).

 

An upvote/downvote system for posts would make a lot of sense IMO. If it's an upvote only system, that's still a lot better than having no feedback of this type IMO.

 

Of course, back then we saw not just "+1" posts, but also "+rep", so I'm not sure these would vanish entirely. ;)

I had a 5 year break from DCS due to lack of time. Only became more active about 2 years ago. That's why I didn't know we had such a system.

The upvote only system would mainly be a handy tool to be able to filter out popular/useful posts for those that don't have time to read everything.

Another option/idea would be to make the thread initiator or forum moderator to mark a certain post as "best answer" or "solution" (as you see on Autodesk forums for instance)

Just for the record, I never registered to Facebook, nor will I ever do as long as it's up to me ;)

Facewhat?

Yeah, same here. :)

Another option/idea would be to make the thread initiator or forum moderator to mark a certain post as "best answer" or "solution" (as you see on Autodesk forums for instance)

I know that from some sites. And while the "best answer" is really helpful in maybe 80% of the cases, there are still instances where the entire discussion is really useful.

So I guess people wouldn't get an incentive to give a better answer or provide a clarification when one was already chosen as "best answer".

Still, sounds like an interesting idea that may be worth a thought.