Voting Mechanism for Threads/Messages

I have received complaints about the quality of some of the threads and messages posted to the forum these days.

If I see a thread that is out of control, I can and do mark it as Read-Only. This effectively shuts down the thread. However, I just don't see a majority of the rogue threads.

So, my question is, should we try to inhibit the noise and improve the quality of the responses in some way? For example,

  • We could institute a weighted voting system of some kind to limit the noise. Threads with too many negative votes would be closed (read-only). Messages with too many negative votes would be removed.
  • We could require forum users to login to reply to message threads. I would only want to do this if we can make it painless for legitimate users.

Let me know your thoughts and feelings on this.

Jon

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  • We could institute a weighted voting system of some kind to limit the noise. Threads with too many negative votes would be closed (read-only). Messages with too many negative votes would be removed.

    I suspect this would just generate a load of worthless bickering from bruised egos.

    We could require forum users to login to reply to message threads. I would only want to do this if we can make it painless for legitimate users.

    As pointed out by others I also suspect this would not deter timewasters.

    I think you have two options:
    1) Do nothing.
    2) Vet all posts before they appear on the forum.

    As a general note to others: The complete nonsense posts are mostly made by people wishing to do nothing more than provoke a reaction. The usual description for this is trolling. Usually it is rather more subtle than the ones we see here - Usenet contributors, for instance, would ignore them completely. Unfortunately many of the regular contributors here don't seem to be able to spot these and try and ridicule them in the same way they ridicule genuine posts from desperate students. This is exactly what they want - if you want them to go away then just ignore them.

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  • We could institute a weighted voting system of some kind to limit the noise. Threads with too many negative votes would be closed (read-only). Messages with too many negative votes would be removed.

    I suspect this would just generate a load of worthless bickering from bruised egos.

    We could require forum users to login to reply to message threads. I would only want to do this if we can make it painless for legitimate users.

    As pointed out by others I also suspect this would not deter timewasters.

    I think you have two options:
    1) Do nothing.
    2) Vet all posts before they appear on the forum.

    As a general note to others: The complete nonsense posts are mostly made by people wishing to do nothing more than provoke a reaction. The usual description for this is trolling. Usually it is rather more subtle than the ones we see here - Usenet contributors, for instance, would ignore them completely. Unfortunately many of the regular contributors here don't seem to be able to spot these and try and ridicule them in the same way they ridicule genuine posts from desperate students. This is exactly what they want - if you want them to go away then just ignore them.

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