Let's evolve, shall we?

[MfA]

Hm. I'm of the opinion that an a priori filtering of people based on their postcount has the danger of being too disruptive

It only affects the people who turn the filter on.

A true community moderation (and meta moderation) system might be preferable, although I think the forum is too small for it, but also a fuckton of work compared to filtering based on group membership.

 

[Arwin]

I like it.o

I'm not sure. It doesn't seem as elegant as the comments moderation on Eurogamer, for example. You can either plus or neg rep a post, and put a threshold above which the post is shown. This can be -5, but also +5. I was slightly skeptical when it was introduced, but as it happens it works perfectly well about 95% of the time, and that is a much more 'public' place where controversial topics can run into hundreds of comments within an our of an article being posted.

I have it set to -5 there, but you can also be really efficient and up it to +5, so that you only see the standout posts. I think this is the big advantage of such a system - it allows you new ways to filter out interesting comments. For instance, you could on the front page of the forum make a link to overviews that give the list of posts for the last week/month/year/all-time that received the highest positive score (most valued), the highest number of votes (most controversial), and the highest negative score ('pile of shame').

It also lowers the barrier from bringing a topic that is being discussed to something that could become an article, perhaps, which starts out as a collection of postively ranked posts on the topic.

So far though I haven't really seen a suggestion that is a big improvement over what we've had. I liked the rep system we used to have, but have to admit that since it was abolished, the only complaints I've had on this board have pretty much disappeared, as they were all regarding the (ab)use of the voting or even the moderation system (the infraction points).

We implement Universal Search solutions in our business, that can content rank information based on keywords and other logic rules. A game like LittleBigPlanet 2 uses a lot of that kind of stuff as well, but basically for me it would be incredibly efficient to be able to do something like create a saved search that allows me to set topics I'm interested in and then give me an overview of posts relating to that subject with the right meta-tags (you can do more than use tags, but it is just really efficient).

Key here is that most of the meta-tags do not need to be set manually, but are inherited from the forum or topic they've been posted in. E.g. say we have three topics about Killzone would have Killzone as a tag on it, as well as Guerilla Games - all the posts in these topics would inherit these tags, but the Killzone topic posted in a subforum about 3D technology could inherit properties for those as well, and if it were about MLAA use in Killzone 3, then that could be another meta-tag. Finally you could add any optional tags to them (and those optional tags would be similar to the post icons you can choose now, but with an option to enter text manually, and they would be more useful ), if for instance you have a cross-over post, in say that you have a topic on MLAA and make a post that is about the MLAA implementation in Motorstorm Apocalypse, then you could add the Motorstorm Apocalypse tag to it.

The results could be presented in clusters, in new posts in the search, highest ranked posts in the search, etc.

In the end though, I don't think all the effort is worth it at the moment. You first have to think of a better reason to want to do this, e.g. to make Beyond3d more than just a place of discussion, but a place that can be used as a proper reference to intelligent background information on topics. That may not at all be what people here want to do, nor the people running the site, nor the devs posting on it (their words could get more attention than they want).

My conclusion is, that things are probably fine as they are! (I don't come to that conclusion very easily or very often ) But if you do want to cut-down moderation work, then I think Eurogamer's system may just be the best and most elegant system out there in its combination of pure simplicity and effectiveness.

 

[Rodéric]

I'm not sure. It doesn't seem as elegant as the comments moderation on Eurogamer, for example. You can either plus or neg rep a post, and put a threshold above which the post is shown. This can be -5, but also +5. I was slightly skeptical when it was introduced, but as it happens it works perfectly well about 95% of the time, and that is a much more 'public' place where controversial topics can run into hundreds of comments within an our of an article being posted.

I have it set to -5 there, but you can also be really efficient and up it to +5, so that you only see the standout posts. I think this is the big advantage of such a system - it allows you new ways to filter out interesting comments. For instance, you could on the front page of the forum make a link to overviews that give the list of posts for the last week/month/year/all-time that received the highest positive score (most valued), the highest number of votes (most controversial), and the highest negative score ('pile of shame').

Sounds like self moderation to some extent. It might be enough, however the reputation system did show that it was a popularity contest more than anything, hence the idea of restricting voting rights to people who will vote correctly ^^

We implement Universal Search solutions in our business, that can content rank information based on keywords and other logic rules. A game like LittleBigPlanet 2 uses a lot of that kind of stuff as well, but basically for me it would be incredibly efficient to be able to do something like create a saved search that allows me to set topics I'm interested in and then give me an overview of posts relating to that subject with the right meta-tags (you can do more than use tags, but it is just really efficient).

Key here is that most of the meta-tags do not need to be set manually, but are inherited from the forum or topic they've been posted in. E.g. say we have three topics about Killzone would have Killzone as a tag on it, as well as Guerilla Games - all the posts in these topics would inherit these tags, but the Killzone topic posted in a subforum about 3D technology could inherit properties for those as well, and if it were about MLAA use in Killzone 3, then that could be another meta-tag. Finally you could add any optional tags to them (and those optional tags would be similar to the post icons you can choose now, but with an option to enter text manually, and they would be more useful ), if for instance you have a cross-over post, in say that you have a topic on MLAA and make a post that is about the MLAA implementation in Motorstorm Apocalypse, then you could add the Motorstorm Apocalypse tag to it.

The results could be presented in clusters, in new posts in the search, highest ranked posts in the search, etc.

I'm not sure this is going to help the forum, it sounds more like you want to query a knowledge base rather that participate in discussions.

My conclusion is, that things are probably fine as they are! (I don't come to that conclusion very easily or very often ) But if you do want to cut-down moderation work, then I think Eurogamer's system may just be the best and most elegant system out there in its combination of pure simplicity and effectiveness.

After the reputation try, I'm not convinced it would work that well.
Might be worth trying.

 

[Arwin]

After the reputation try, I'm not convinced it would work that well.
Might be worth trying.

The difference with the reputation part of it, is that the ranking is only for every individual post. It can only become a popularity contest if people systematically down or uprank posts from specific posters, but there is no personal accumulation as was with the reputation system. I think that is an important distinction.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The difference with the reputation part of it, is that the ranking is only for every individual post. It can only become a popularity contest if people systematically down or uprank posts from specific posters, but there is no personal accumulation as was with the reputation system. I think that is an important distinction.

I don't see open voting rights for all users as being at all reliable. It'd only take a sudden influx of console bots to crap on the votings system and mess things up. eg. Someone posts a reasonable console specific challenge to the view "xxx game is the best looking game this gen." The poster of that view gets a few mates to neg rep that reasonable post, and it drops off the radar so good, upstanding members don't ever see it to +rep it.

Such open voting only works if the people voting are Good Eggs. That's why I'd rather have limited voting privileges. By extending the voting privileges to those who show merit, we ensure the voting elite aren't just the best buddies of the mod staff or people who have slipped Alex a suitable bribe. It means every contributor would have a fair chance to attain voting rights, but we avoid the mess of the riff raff. It's a selective democracy, one that votes on what medical procedure to use by asking trained and experienced and knowledgable surgeons and doctors to vote, rather than soliciting votes from doctors and decorators and authors and taxi drivers and shop keepers and barbers etc., most of whom aren't in a position to be able to provide anything useful.

I'm also not particularly wanting the typical Eurogamer level of posts being present here, even if optionally hidden. If present, even if half the board ignore them, it means new people joining will see an internet-standard discussion and follow the usual insults and bickering. We want all visitors to see a better standard and know either that's what they have to subscribe to, or they know this isn't the place for them and they steer clear. Basically when dealing with signals, filtering out noise is better than not, but not introducing noise in the first place is the ideal.

 

[I.S.T.]

The problem with any of the voting systems that have been proposed, IMO, is people who rarely post... Us lurkers are gonna get punished.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Not necesesarily. It depends on how voters can be identified and extended rights to. But also if the body of voters is representative of the standards of the board, they'll vote how most folk would vote anyway, so the end results would be the same.

 

[Rodéric]

The problem with any of the voting systems that have been proposed, IMO, is people who rarely post... Us lurkers are gonna get punished.

How so ?
Posts are being voted for their relevance/quality, the frequency at which you post doesn't matter...

If you have 100% quality posts, and at least a given amount of posts (likely as many as for senior membership), you could join up the voter pool.

Besides if you lurk, wouldn't you want to only see good content ?
(ie wouldn't something that reduce noise help you in your most usual activity on the boards ?)

 

[tabs]

The intent of the system is that devs and intelligent others aren't scared off discussions because they have to deal with a sea of pleb posts.

A problem I see with having voters/devs being able to down vote pleb posts is that they have to read it properly to know to down vote it. In effect these intelligent users can't just skim it and ignore it (as they do now) they also have to focus on it in deciding how crap it is and clicking accordingly,

While it may convey some 'power' to the people most able to effectively use it, it also means they have more work and responsibility. Won't this also lead to a loss of focus on the discussion in hand, for the very people the system is trying to serve?

The benefit is obviously that less troll-feeders / off-topic perpetuators have a chance of doing what they do, and that is good for the discussion as a whole. Does that outweigh the drawback? Can't we just rely on mods (who volunteered for this work) to do it? Is the SNR really that low here?

I'd rather have a 'suggest thread promotion' button, where we can highlight a thread as having great contributions, for special moderator attention during it's lifespan. Perhaps a thread star-system that is actually useful. Could be good for referencing in the future too. Devs could make this happen with a click, elevated posters could too perhaps (or maybe 3 votes or something), regular users maybe not, or maybe lots of votes.

A promoted thread could have a warning attached to it that popped up for a new entrant - saying 'This thread is being closely moderated... etc.. here are a few rules...'. Could be on a timed cookie so you get the warning again if you revisit it after a couple of weeks, just as a reminder. Certain posters could be disallowed from posting in 'star-threads' temporarily. I would suggest that anyone banned from it permanently just shouldn't be on B3D at all.

 

[Dominik D]

Necro.

Why not simply have per user black/whitelists, and allow developers to get a special flag which adds them to a developer whitelist which new users can subscribe to? Developers who don't want to interact with the plebs subscribe to the developer whitelist and filter out all posts from people not on their whitelist, and replies to posts from people not on their whitelist. Developers who don't want to interact with plebs but don't mind seeing replies to the plebs from their equals (which might inspire them to add some plebs to their white list) only filter out all posts from people not on their whitelist.

This idea is flawed since it assumes that all devs are reasonable and unbiased and people like [insert some nick from your blacklist] won't get into the whitelist. There's also no simple way of getting people out of the list when, say, they go insane.


So, here's an idea for removing counterproductive people from discussions: public vote on offenders. You think [insert some nick from your blacklist] is derailing interesting discussions? Create a thread on him and get, say, 10 ppl support your motion. Done, guy's banned from posting for a month. Making noise again? Banned for 3 months; banned for life. Make process open and make it mandatory to support vote with an argument for "muting" given user. By making it obligatory for people to actually write something more than clicking +1 you make it hard to remove people by accident but at the same time build a clear history of what's acceptable on forum and what is not.


Every system that let's people vote for and against can be abused. Every system which is based on some arbitrary measure (postcount for example) can be abused. It's my opinion that the only sensible way for people to have civilized discussions is to have civilized discussions about the discourse itself. Making stuff automated (karma, rank, white/blacklists) is not going to work.

 

[MfA]

This idea is flawed since it assumes that all devs are reasonable and unbiased and people like [insert some nick from your blacklist] won't get into the whitelist.

You can always specifically ignore the dev, trumping the whitelist.

There's also no simple way of getting people out of the list when, say, they go insane.

The dev list would be site wide, a mod can remove or add people at whim.

 

[Dominik D]

You can always specifically ignore the dev, trumping the whitelist.

And that's essentially what I do today: everyone's on the "whitelist" and two or three folks are on the black list. Also white/blacklisting doesn't prevent one from seeing someone quoted (which was mentioned in this thread before as a downside of lists).

The dev list would be site wide, a mod can remove or add people at whim.

So it still boils down to mods regulating, which is what the system was supposed to mitigate in the first place by putting tools in users' hands.

 

[MfA]

Also white/blacklisting doesn't prevent one from seeing someone quoted (which was mentioned in this thread before as a downside of lists).

Forum quotes with post references can be automatically filtered out, which represents the majority.

So it still boils down to mods regulating, which is what the system was supposed to mitigate in the first place by putting tools in users' hands.

No, the mods would simply administrate the group membership of the dev group ... what they (or anyone else) decides to do with that as far as message filtering goes would be up to them.

 

[snarfbot]

the search function could be beefed up a bit, giving links to specific posts with the search terms you searched for, rather than a link to a 100 page thread for instance would be pretty nice.

i usually end up googling beyond3d + "search term" in such situations.

also in regards to the potential post vote thing being discussed, sadly there are people out there who tend to turn it into a forum rpg, making posts with the intent to garner praise points rather than to promote discussion.

so one side effect could ultimately be more rather than less noise in the signal.

anyway, im more of a reader than a contributor so i might skim over or ignore the offenders, but for the most part people seem to be pretty well behaved here without any pavlovian conditioning.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

the search function could be beefed up a bit, giving links to specific posts with the search terms you searched for, rather than a link to a 100 page thread for instance would be pretty nice.

You can do that already. When searching, choose 'show posts' instead of 'show threads', and in the results click the individual post link (at the top of the quoted blue box). It returns the found post with the search term highlighted.

 

[snarfbot]

yes actually, its funny i thought my browser was bugged or something, after reading your post.

it turns out i had to change the board style to vbulletin default, as opposed to vB3D, then the search options were visible, lol.