I have an idea for features to deal with thread bombing in a humane way.
The problem:
I have long had the problem of mistakened individuals dropping in first, and quickly, on many threads posted, and answering anything but the actual specific question asked, wrongly, but like the president of the United states fully convinced of their ability and how right they are. This pretty much instantly kills opportunities to get right answers from right minded individuals, as people see the thread is active and has some sort of answer and don't enter the discussion. It may even appear these people must be trawling, but they actually believe what they are saying in some sort of delusion. It is usually the same several people out of tens of thousands that do this, permanently sucking the air out. They see something, squint their minds eyes, and conclude it is somehow something else, and answer that. Nor can you explain it to them, they debate, and deliberately avoid seeing, like their notion is a matter of life. The further issue is, a lot of people are like that a little bit.
So what to do to seperate out all this noise in threads.
The solutions:
The solutions are really to give the original poster, and whoever they nominate (I am often involved in heavy very long threads that could do with this) abilities to present a sumarised version avoiding the noise. Allow the thread starter to be sort of like an mini moderator with no delete or block powers (to stop abuse by troubled individuals acting like megalomaniacs).
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- First, give the head poster and those the head nominates to help the head, the power to select relevant posts to summarise the thread. This goes into a summary view, at the start of the thread, and also a skip forwards, and backwards, to the next summary post (a few arrows in the post control). The head poster and nominees select messages in the thread with ticks, or select individuals, or groups to go into the summary, and select a cross to take them out. Selecting an individual or group, takes one to a screen of their posts in the thread, where you select which of their posts to include in the summary (as many posts will likely not be that relevant).
The second view above may be optionally put into a link at the start of a thread, for sites that don't want it in the main time line of posts.
- Second, there should also be skip to next/previous "< >" arrows to follow a summary posts, particular posters, groups (including head poster group and summary posters group virtual groups), and any post that is in reply to yourself or mentions you by one of your names. The skip feature has been used before, in a skip to next fashion.
- A "report fake answer/trawling" abuse button could be optionally used, where the head poster and nominated assistants can alert moderators to such bad conduct.
- Along these lines, allow/encourage the original poster to summarise in writing the findings of the discussion in the top post, but to add further "head" posts to the beginning of the thread. Put a button to take people back to the original posts on every page, and insert a new head post message link message into the thread when there is one, and a new linked head post update message when the original poster "announces" (button) a complete update.
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Now, individuals can quickly skip a lot to of noise. Those coming to a thread, maybe in future to research information, can just go through the head posts or thread summary before deciding to post, or to look elsewhere.
With these, you can put back the power into the hands of credible people in this disruptive age.
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I've had a number of improvement suggestions over the years which I could start to offer here when I can remember them. -- Such as a user nominated and scored (votes before moderator looks at it) information and answers into a searchable database or wiki feature, as the standard look up the answer first suggestion, just doesn't work. Even if a search function is good, it can take many hours to find an answer to a simple question a number of people could answer within seconds. And other such suggestions. Such as crosslinked threads, to allow the same thread to turn up in multiple related sub-forums, as sometimes a message thread fits no single sub-forum, and the people that can, or few individuals that may, answer or contribute are in different sub-forums. -- As even the simplest suggestions to big problems on forums, forum admins often don't want to code in my experience.
Waaay too long but I'll say this... you want the topic starter to be able to semi moderate his topic and be able to hide the original posts of users in that topic with his own summary?
Seems totalitarian to me. I'll withhold my vote til I can get a much shorter explanation of what you want.
I am a web developer/administrator, specializing in forums. If you have work you need done or are too lazy to do, pm me!
Would it not be easier for the forum admin(s) or moderator(s) to have a little rules list/forum code of conduct, like most forums do? i/e... 1 - keep replies on topic, if not start your own topic,
You could then add a tick icon (like on here for solved topics) or add solved to topic title... so those who don't answer because the topic is active will know if it's not solved.
If people are purposely posting the wrong answers - would it not be easier to warn them or ban them after 3 strikes?
Use moderation queues: first moderate all posts. Then exclude long time members when they proved to not make (many) mistakes anymore. Problem solved. And/or simply delete inappropriate posts.
Lack of moderation and coming up with different ideas to solve problems of that is a thing I've seen often.
"The problem is probably not my English but you do not want to understand correctly. ... We will not come anybody anyway, nevertheless, it's best to shit this." Affin, 2018-11-20 ↑
"But this shit is not here for you. You can follow with your. Maybe the question, instead, was for you, who know, so you shoved us how you are." axe70, 2020-10-10 ↑
"My reaction is not to everyone, especially to you." Raptiye, 2021-02-28 ↑
"The good news is hell is just the product of a morbid human imagination.
The bad news is, whatever humans can imagine, they can usually create." - Harmony Cobel
Toxyy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 05, 2018 1:44 am
Waaay too long but I'll say this... you want the topic starter to be able to semi moderate his topic and be able to hide the original posts of users in that topic with his own summary?
Seems totalitarian to me. I'll withhold my vote til I can get a much shorter explanation of what you want.
Ok. Haven't got any reply notifications on this.
In design it is really a lot of working out writing and reading. If you cut corners you don't ussually get a good well balanced solution. Just Ines you think are that others find the opposite.
It's simple, it completely different from what you said. There are several new features to make it harmonious.
The thread originator, gets to hide nothing in the thread or delete anybody else's posts. All they get to do is make short summaries and lists of relevant posts people can follow instead of wading through thousands of posts (I go to forums where this is the case). They can also choose different ways to skip through the thread to relevant posts (say on a company or development forum, where you can follow the company reps, development team posts with answers). Makes life a lot easier unless you are doing the summaries.
A few extra examples of where this comes in useful. You open up a discussion about something and you put summaries at the beginning as the discussion goes (people may vote on how accurate it is, just to let others know how good it is at first glance). You make a information database in the first couple of posts on something. It might be the latest reviews, list of new equipment. What happens in real life on you run out of room on one post, so people set up placeholders (if nobody pod s a reply before you get too, it happens). The posts give a natural way to divide groups of information.
Dan Stylez wrote: ↑Tue Jun 05, 2018 3:38 am
Would it not be easier for the forum admin(s) or moderator(s) to have a little rules list/forum code of condut, like most forums do? i/e... 1 - keep replies on topic, if not start your own topic,
You could then add a tick icon (like on here for solved topics) or add solved to topic title... so those who don't answer because the topic is active will not if it's not solved.
If people are purposely posting the wrong answers - would it not be easier to warn them or ban them after 3 strikes?
Lol. Good ideas Dan, let's add the solved/tick suggestion to this.
Conduct:
I wish moderators would do that (believe me, some are just too chummy with people that even harass) But having a loose standard helps great conversations, and clamping down is just too much work, often I see too slack or too hard a hand. When you are on forums of tens of thousands of members its a chore (why I avoid becoming a moderator, O take my job seriously, and don't want to be day and night hovering on a keyboard msking sure the rules are followed to the letter, when others won't) But this diverts work optionally to those wanting to do it, and provides an structured way to improve information flow.
AmigoJack wrote: ↑Tue Jun 05, 2018 7:04 am
Use moderation queues: first moderate all posts. Then exclude long time members when they proved to not make (many) mistakes anymore. Problem solved. And/or simply delete inappropriate posts.
Lack of moderation and coming up with different ideas to solve problems of that is a thing I've seen often.
Yes, that is sensible, let's add that somewhere. But on technical arguments just too much reading for moderators (many of which not qualified to decipher things) it seems to fall down on technical volume forums. One of the big issues, is you get people that don't really know things, but because they are practitioners, they think they know everything by use/experience, but are hopeless at the design side, but Presidential about it. That's why in software development you don't just hand everything to the programmers in a complex system, but why you should have system analysts and designers to sort out what should happen that the programmers then figure out how to do once it goes through their own analysis and design workflow of how. When you skip on complex systems you end up with a lot of issues.
What we get, is engineers avoiding the practitioner forums, who actually do have answers, and varying degrees of competency in answering them. The practitioners tend to get caught up in company marketing, hear say, old practitioners tales and culture.
I'm writing here, because I've been involved in foums for decades and I'm just sick and tired of how things have gone. I have my own R&D skill set, and when I saw the forum software was the largest open sourced in the world, I thought it was a good place to start.
What you are suggesting seems to be fairly complicated, especially for the user. Personally what I would like to see is "best answer" that could be voted on by other members. This would be limited to a single post and it would appear below the OP and it's original position. It could also be highlighted.
“Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I have found several thousand things that won’t work.”
Other boards or MODs from the past realized a user reputation system. A post (only) reputation (per topic) would have its advantages and disadvantages, and might also come with a new topic sort option. With a default installation, modify existing post's subjects and/or icons to identify them as having a higher priority (nobody uses subjects in replies anyway in a meaningful way).
"The problem is probably not my English but you do not want to understand correctly. ... We will not come anybody anyway, nevertheless, it's best to shit this." Affin, 2018-11-20 ↑
"But this shit is not here for you. You can follow with your. Maybe the question, instead, was for you, who know, so you shoved us how you are." axe70, 2020-10-10 ↑
"My reaction is not to everyone, especially to you." Raptiye, 2021-02-28 ↑
Maybe add additional privileges - can moderate your own topic - but this will not help much, especially if the questioner does not have good knowledge (that's why he asks).
I honestly do not understand why the idea of entering +1 in phpbb is still blocked. The Team phpBB explanations why not to do this makes no sense if users want it. Some forums even have a thread rating visible as a column next to the number of views (MyBB). The rating is well-seen by the Google search engine. Have a look at the google console.
phpBB is very conservative.
thecoalman wrote: ↑Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:01 am
What you are suggesting seems to be fairly complicated, especially for the user. Personally what I would like to see is "best answer" that could be voted on by other members. This would be limited to a single post and it would appear below the OP and it's original position. It could also be highlighted.
How about a differentiation between best and most voted on answers? Topic starters could vote on best answer.
I am a web developer/administrator, specializing in forums. If you have work you need done or are too lazy to do, pm me!