Better alternative to postcount limit in development forums

---

Why are you judging members by their post count?
For lack of a better alternative. I challenge anyone to come up with a better alternative.

OK. You need a 'user points' system. I'm more familiar with Drupal than vb (you should probably upgrade sometime), so I'm not sure what's available for vb, if anything. You want something similar to this: http://drupal.org/project/userpoints

Users then earn points for performing certain actions on your site (not just posting), you can assign different amounts of points for different actions. Points can be removed too.

Then have a minimum userpoint limit for posting in certain forums.

Then you'd have better control over what activities you were encouraging users to do, rather than just encouraging short spam posts.

Chalenge accepted.

---

Originally Posted by wbaw

OK. You need a 'user points' system.

First of all I'd like to say "challenge accepted"

@wbaw: I like your Idea of a 'user points' system. To make sure that there are only posts that are above a certain level of standard, you need to create some kind of 'filter'. But I think that, such a system as you have suggested could be exploited as well. As long as there are technical rules to be fulfilled one can just do so and get his status right.

@12aon: In my opinion we need a rating system for the quality of posts and based on this a hiding mechanism for posts.

Let me explain why I came up and what I mean by this.

I have to confess that I'm a heavy user of youtube. And here you have a good example what I mean. You do not only have the ability to press a "like", "+1" or "thump up" -button but also the possibility to press "thumps down". What I figured out is, that the rating of the videos are surprisingly close to my own opinion. That implies that everyone is sensitive to the quality of a video (or post?!?) and furthermore that the average opinion about the quality is in average the opinion of the single reader itself (myself).

In the XDA-Forum you have the "Thanks" button. What I suggest is a ... hmmm ... "ingratitude" button (or just do "thumps up and down", "plus and minus", "happy and sad" or whatever you like). Each user has a single voice for each post.

With this mechanism in place, a post that is below a certain threshold could be automatically minimized. I don't mean that they should be deleted, because there might be answers that refer to this particular post. But by minimizing it, bad quality posts get out of the focus of the reader. If wanted, one can still expand and read it (by pressing some kind of an "open button").

That is the first step. In the second step there is a user rating that is based on the post rating of all his posts. So if one does not mind his behavior or is asking stupid questions over and over again. His Account is restricted to post only in the non developer parts of the forum.

The first advantage by applying this functionality is, that silly posts get quite fast out of the focus of the reader.

The second advantage is that silly poster (no offense here ^^) are removed from development forums in the long run.

The third advantage is, that one have to take care of all his posts even in the long run (writing 10 posts does not necessarily means that one have learned its lesson). So the over all quality of the forum itself is increasing.

In my opinion this functionality is a little bit better than restricting everyone (even the high quality poster) to non development forums just because they are not active enough to reach 10 posts.

The problem is, to define the threshold. I've some ideas in my mind, but that would leave the scope of this post which is to invite a new (I know its old, but new to this forum) idea.

Cheers
Ponsel



p.S. Sorry 4 my bad English. Its not my native language.

Originally Posted by wbaw

OK. You need a 'user points' system. I'm more familiar with Drupal than vb (you should probably upgrade sometime), so I'm not sure what's available for vb, if anything. You want something similar to this: http://drupal.org/project/userpoints

Users then earn points for performing certain actions on your site (not just posting), you can assign different amounts of points for different actions. Points can be removed too.

Then have a minimum userpoint limit for posting in certain forums.

Then you'd have better control over what activities you were encouraging users to do, rather than just encouraging short spam posts.

I appreciate your ideas on this topic, although I have to admit I am really mystified by this: "....rather than just encouraging short spam posts".

Why do you believe that encouraging users to post in the proper sections with helpful answers to other users is "encouraging short spam posts"? I seriously don't get this idea. It is not really any more difficult to try a little to post even marginally helpful answers to other people in the General and Q&A forums as opposed to "short spam posts".

It is not like getting 10 not-spam posts is that difficult. Probably hundreds do it any given week here. Is it too much to ask that people read a little first, gain some knowledge, try to be a little helpful to others in the General, Q&A, Themes and Apps, and Accessories device forums, or in the general discussion forums, in order to be able to post into any dev thread on this site?

I am not sure if there is a way to add this type of functionality to VBulletin, but I think it just becomes a meaningless stat over time just like the thanks counter, and users will figure out a way to scam it as well.

Originally Posted by Ponsel

First of all I'd like to say "challenge accepted"
@12aon: In my opinion we need a rating system for the quality of posts and based on this a hiding mechanism for posts.

This is already in the works from what I hear, there will be rating buttons on each post, enough positive votes raises it up, enough negative votes hides it (not delete).

Originally Posted by mf2112

This is already in the works from what I hear, there will be rating buttons on each post, enough positive votes raises it up, enough negative votes hides it (not delete).

That sounds great. I'd love to increase the visibility of my favorite ROM and further more rate away bad posts.

Cheers
Ponsel


p.S. Just writing to increase my "noob counter" ;-D

Originally Posted by Ponsel

That sounds great. I'd love to increase the visibility of my favorite ROM and further more rate away bad posts.

Cheers
Ponsel


p.S. Just writing to increase my "noob counter" ;-D

I would advise not writing posts to simply increase your post count. That can get the wrong kind of attention. Instead, simply try to write good posts that help people less experienced than you in your devices General or Q&A forum and it won't ever be a problem to worry about.

@wbaw - While the user points system would be a massive change to how things are run at the moment, I can't help feeling that mf2112 is completely right when he says that it'll become just like the thanks button.
In an ideal world, it would be a great idea and would work perfectly well. But in amongst the realms of the internet, a lot of people will simply do all they can just so they can post something wherever they'd like to.

@Ponsel - Even though this rating system can be a great idea and will probably be put into action at some point, I can't help feeling that this system will be exploited aswell.
I say this because quite a few times, in my short time here, I've seen moments when there's been a casual discussion going on with 6/7 people and everything's going great. Then all of a sudden, one states their opinion and none of the others agree with it or like it, so they all gang up on the individual.
In this instance, the 'gang' could quite easily vote all the individuals comments down, thus resulting in him/her being penalized.

Obviously the situation would be able to be rectified in the end, but until a mod has been able to view the whole situation, the individual would still have to be without certain posting rights, which wouldn't be fair.

The third advantage is, that one have to take care of all his posts even in the long run (writing 10 posts does not necessarily means that one have learned its lesson). So the over all quality of the forum itself is increasing.

^^^I really love this bit because as you mention, people will have to take care of what they post, even if they have thousands of posts. Also, I really do think it would improve the forum quality aswell. Only time will tell as to whether it with get implemented or not and whether it would even be effective, but I do like the idea so far.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

Originally Posted by mf2112

would advise not writing posts to simply increase your post count.

I just could not resist to show how easy it is to exploit the "noob counter" system. You just need to start a discussion and keep trolling.

But here's the non trolling reply:

Originally Posted by KidCarter93

@Ponsel - Even though this rating system can be a great idea and will probably be put into action at some point, I can't help feeling that this system will be exploited aswell.
I say this because quite a few times, in my short time here, I've seen moments when there's been a casual discussion going on with 6/7 people and everything's going great. Then all of a sudden, one states their opinion and none of the others agree with it or like it, so they all gang up on the individual.
In this instance, the 'gang' could quite easily vote all the individuals comments down, thus resulting in him/her being penalized.

I know, that my idea is not without any fault. But I think that this problem can be solved by a good threshold. I think its to early to go into details, but to support my idea and to encourage everyone to participate in this discussion (I can't fight the feeling that I'm just trolling again ^^) I'll now suggest one possible solution how to solve this problem.

I think the threshold should work in two steps:
Step 1. As long as there are no more than 5 ratings the post is visible.
Step 2. As long as there are 10% or more positive votes the post should still be visible.

These numbers have materialized out of thin air in front of my inner eye and I'd be glad if some "number cruncher" could calculate better ones. But first let me explain why I've chosen this particular ones.

First of all I'd like to state that I'd rather let a bad post stay visible then losing a good idea. So I would be very careful when filtering them out. By the method that I've suggested, a post would be as visible as long as not at least 6 persons have rated against it. And even then a single positive vote can keep the post above the threshold until there are 10 negative votes against it.

• Normal posts will get voted very seldom (just because they don't polarize as much).
• Posts that polarize will get some positive and some negative votes and stay above the threshold.
• I figure that bad posts are so obvious bad that barely anyone will ever vote them positive (well ... the poster should not be allowed to rate his own post ^^).

The rating system for the account itself must work somehow different. I've no Idea how it should work, but I think that the lowest 5-15% of the "most unpopular" accounts should be restricted on non development forums (these numbers are out of thin air as well ^^).

Originally Posted by KidCarter93

^^^I really love this bit because as you mention, people will have to take care of what they post, even if they have thousands of posts. Also, I really do think it would improve the forum quality aswell. Only time will tell as to whether it with get implemented or not and whether it would even be effective, but I do like the idea so far.

Well in this point I'm not sooo optimistic because normal posts rarely get a rating at all. Giving those assumption someone with a lot of posts might stay above the threshold. It might be advisable to take only the posts with a rating into account, but I'm not sure.

I hope my remarks support my Idea of a rating system for posts ^^

Cheers
Ponsel

only issue i have is i am very experience in flashing roms just new to this site and i have a couple very specific questions about ombg nand and i could not ask. which is my main reason for signing up. there is a ton of great info here but i was having a specific issue with the rom on my rhod400 and i hope to get a answer in general since i couldnt ask directly in that thread.

Originally Posted by orangezx10r

only issue i have is i am very experience in flashing roms just new to this site and i have a couple very specific questions about ombg nand and i could not ask. which is my main reason for signing up. there is a ton of great info here but i was having a specific issue with the rom on my rhod400 and i hope to get a answer in general since i couldnt ask directly in that thread.

As others have stated, you should make some helpful posts around the forums. If you say you're sharp at flashing, I'm sure there's a ton of questions you can answer around the forums.

The TP2 is a strange device, in that it runs both Android and WinMo. We really need an "Android General" section for the TP2, which I have tried many times to get...

So unfortunately there's not a whole lot you can do. Just don't go spamming forums with worthless drivel... that will certainly get you unwanted attention.

This is the kind of thing we think about a lot. We actually do have a "points" system in beta on some forums but there are a lot of issues that come into play when you start showing/hiding threads based on points. What if a group gets together and starts voting competing projects down in collective voting blocks?

Right now we simply ask that in order to post in certain sections, that you help others out first. It may not be the ideal solution but it is working for the community at the moment.

Anyway, rest assured we continually evaluate the best way to balance user interaction vs limiting the cruft.