Suggestion - POST ratings

Dave!

Hey folks,

just thought I'd throw a suggestion out to you admins/gods.

I was just looking through the 'Garda Recruitment' thread in Emergency Services (plug).
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=52966194

It's a huge thread with a few thousand posts in it.

Anywho, I was thinking, some people went to alot of trouble with very detailed posts that were helpful to people following the thread. Yet other posts are just idle chat and congratulations (I'm not complaining, just pointing it out).

Is there any hack or option that would allow people to rate individual posts (rather than, or as well as, the thread as a whole), and then view/organise the posts accordingly?

For example, this would mean that in a thread such as the one I mentioned (in the EMERGENCY SERVICES forum ), if someone wrote a few thousand words detailing the process of getting in, the others reading the thread would give it a high rating. Then, if someone n00b comes along and sees the thread, which is over 3000 posts at this point, they would be able to go into it and click an option 'organise posts by: [rating / username / whatever]', and then all the highly rated posts are at the top.

Obviously this would mean that the thread would temporarily lose its chronology, but that might not be important when looking at individual posts rather than the thread as a whole. It would of course restore to default when you go back into the thread.

I'm aware of the 'search thread' feature BTW, it's quite handy too.

What ye think? Dunno if it's even possible, but there ya are!

Dave

Slow Motion

Would it not make more sense (if maybe more work) for the mod of said forum;) to cut and paste such posts into a sticky ?

Dave!

I'm not sure it would make more sense... It would certainly be an alternative though! But it's a rather big undertaking for a mod Especially when you have huge threads like the one mentioned.

Slow Motion

DaveMcG wrote: »

I'm not sure it would make more sense... It would certainly be an alternative though! But it's a rather big undertaking for a mod Especially when you have huge threads like the one mentioned.

It would be about the same amount of work as having to go back through such a thread and mark the relevant posts would it not?

tallaght01

I've said this before. i think it's a great idea. I use a doctors forum int he UK. www.doctors.org.uk which has about 150,000 members.

They have a very active discussion forum.

You can "award a star" to an individual post. Below the post there's a little sentence that basically says "x number of members have awarded this post a quality star".

On the forums homepage there's a table for the posts with the highest number of stars that week. It's like a top 10. It's a good way to navigate straight into high quality/very active posts/thread (on doctors.net we have about as many forums as boards has, so it's sometimes difficult to navigate all the forums).

PLus, when there's an argument going on, you can see who people agree with....means the lurkers can voice their opinion.

I think it would be a great idea.

tbh

rep ++

Cabaal

Slow Motion wrote: »

Would it not make more sense (if maybe more work) for the mod of said forum;) to cut and paste such posts into a sticky ?

You speak the truth, may I please subscribe to your newsletter.

Important info belongs in stickys, have a look at this one in the Broadband forum....helps out loads of people and saves the same questions being posted and people using the search function

tallaght01

Cabaal wrote: »

You speak the truth, may I please subscribe to your newsletter.

Important info belongs in stickys, have a look at this one in the Broadband forum....helps out loads of people and saves the same questions being posted and people using the search function

But that way only the mod gets to decide what's a useful post, as opposed to what the users regard as a quality post

AlmightyCushion

tallaght01 wrote: »

I've said this before. i think it's a great idea. I use a doctors forum int he UK. www.doctors.org.uk which has about 150,000 members.

They have a very active discussion forum.

You can "award a star" to an individual post. Below the post there's a little sentence that basically says "x number of members have awarded this post a quality star".

On the forums homepage there's a table for the posts with the highest number of stars that week. It's like a top 10. It's a good way to navigate straight into high quality/very active posts/thread (on doctors.net we have about as many forums as boards has, so it's sometimes difficult to navigate all the forums).

PLus, when there's an argument going on, you can see who people agree with....means the lurkers can voice their opinion.

I think it would be a great idea.

I remember seeing something like this on another forum and it worked very well there by the looks of it. Unfortunately something like this could be open to abuse so maybe stick some limits on it. Like limiting the amount of people you can give a star to each day or prevent new users from giving stars until they've reached some criteria.

If it is brought in though we'd have to change it from awarding a star as I'd feel like a primary school teacher handing them out.

biko

DaveMcG wrote: »

Anywho, I was thinking, some people went to alot of trouble with very detailed posts that were helpful to people following the thread. Yet other posts are just idle chat and congratulations (I'm not complaining, just pointing it out).

Perhaps have the ES mod to weed out the "unhelpful" posts? Or split into two threads.