Misc Suggestions Redux

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August 18th, 2002, 10:34 PM
Terr

Misc Suggestions Redux
Just an update to my old suggestion thread, with a few more items and some since-brainstormed-and-clarified things.
1. New administrative command, to "Sink" a thread.
  The thread can still be replied to, but any bumps are ignored, and any replies do NOT cause the thread to move up the list and register as 'active'. This allows a sort of mid-way option between locking and doing nothing. It allows the subject to sink into obscurity without cutting off any ongoing discussion.
  
  Sinking could also act as an alternate behavior for suicide threads which have enough posts and a not-that-low average (per post) AP level. Individual posts may still be immune to antipoints. It may be hard to implement, but some not-that-bad threads have become suicidal due to a single bad post may be able to benefit.
2. Gold Dots and Trancendental levels.
  After a certain antipoint amount, users can no longer recieve antipoints, and have a gold dot which will pop up something along the lines of: 'USER no longer recieves antipoints." The way I see it, it removes possible motive for abuse (scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine) of antipoints at high levels. Furthermore, it keeps the AP system from becoming an ongoing contest. As for users turning into jackasses once they are antipoint-immune, how about a tradeoff? After a certain AP level, users can choose to take or reject Gold Dot status. If they accept it, they are immune from antipoints, BUT all of their antipoints that they assign are no longer anonymous.
  
  As of this revision, I'm unsure about how useful a Gold Dot system would be. Has the balancing AP system changed anything? I can't quite remember all of my original thoughts behind this suggestion, but I'd like put it out here anyway.
3. (Minor) Similar threads submissions
  It would be nice if people were able to submit items to the 'similar thread' list for a thread. I see this as being most useful when it comes to news or help threads. Members could submit a thread or two as 'similar', and subsequent arrivals would be able to quickly see threads which were posted in the past on a similar subject; threads which the automatic system may gloss over.
4. (Minor) Assign-towards-even option for assigning antipoints
  If you find a post which you think wasn't really good or bad, but you suspect the user was given positive or negative antipoints unfairly, an assign-towards-even option would allow older members to fix the situation without accidentally pushing the balance of antipoints in the other direction. Assign-towards-even would essentially allow a user to give a fractional amount (instead of the whole shebang) of an antipoint assignment, so that they could bring a post back into 'nuetral' status.
August 19th, 2002, 04:20 AM
khakisrule

Quote:

New administrative command, to "Sink" a thread.

thats a really nice idea, it helps get rid of useless threads without censoring the people participating in the discussion. Thats pretty useful.

Quote:

Gold Dots and Trancendental levels.

if you gave people gold dots and made them AP immune wouldn't that help them abuse the system? Because sure they could complain but if they did then they would get more negs from others who don't like the AP complaining. So I think that would defeat the purpose of the thread signing.

Quote:

(Minor) Similar threads submissions

Yeah, thats a cool idea I see JC just implemented, but it kinda takes up space and I have to use dial-up on vacation, so I was thinking it would be nice if the user had to select that option in their preferences, or had to click a link (maybe for a popup) to display similar threads.
August 19th, 2002, 01:58 PM
souleman

Sink threads, still a good idea.

Gold dot> khackisrule, that was intended for people that already have more then 2000 antipoints (or some really high number) so you wouldn't have to worry about abuse that much, but it was shot down. Not sure if JP ever posted it, but I talked to him on IRC one day, and he said no, so....

Similary threads..I agree, also, maybe certain people could pull off threads that are not simillar. I know that all 6 threads that are showing up here do not have the same suggestions, just the word suggestion in the title.

Assign toward even...yup, definately a good idea.

ALSO I would like to see a way to edit the bookmarks. That is going to get a LOT of bookmarks in there, and some will be increadably stupid or the site that was linked will go down. I would like to see a way to remove certain bookmarks (or have certain users be able to remove them.... <hummm...antipoint bennefit?>
August 19th, 2002, 02:22 PM
ZeroOne

I was going to suggest that we could rate threads so that the automatic Similar Threads feature could look at how good the thread is, but then I realized it could use the current overall AP status of thread. I wonder if it already notices it and prefers very "green" threads?

Edit/Add: There would be plenty of space in the 'Similar Threads' table for a column telling the overall AP status of the thread. (As there would in the main forum windows too but this has been suggested previously. Wonder if it's ever going to be implemented? Would be good...)
September 4th, 2002, 09:25 PM
[WebCarnage]

Infact...this idea just came up two seconds ago to me. I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, but how about the antipoints don't go to a particular user, but rather a whole thread. This would elimate competitions at all (unless ofcourse the one-in-a-blue-moon "my thread is better than you" crap, which Moderators can easily overcome). This would mean that each individual would not have to worry about ANY antipoint "status" whatsoever, and would allow more chance for good threads to show up and bad to go down. For this could also turn into a way for threads to get to the main page, more points "donated(?)" to a thread would boost the thread higher on the scale.

Maybe we still may need a small individual AP status to give more points to a thread or not? ...Hopefully not. I vote for EVERYBODY to have the SAME amount of points, regardless of their amount of excellent or crap posts.

Maybe though the AP comments could remain? Maybe instead of the link saying: Assign Positive or Negative AntiPoints To This Post ; it could say: Comment user about post or something. Now I wouldn't want this to "take over" (if you will) the PM, but the comment would allow you to refrence back to a particular or specific thread the user wrote, which would be easier. Things like the Newsletter, things from JP, wargame info (I'm not a part of that so I don't really know if you get that PM'ed to you or not). AO PM should be like AO secondary mail - just for the community though, if you can understand that.

Just my two cents.