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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

Parents
  • Many thumbs up.

    Just a question: Without logging in, I can post using a large number of aliases. But that also implies that unless you add accounts, I would be able to vote using a large number of aliases.

    With real accounts, I think the voting would help a lot. It would be no fun to write stupid comments if all it took to clear it out was a number of negative votes.

    But trolls are likely to give out false votes too.

    I would think that you would have to weitht votes. People who have received many positive votes for earlier posts may get a bigger weight when giving out a negative vote. That makes it hard for quick drive-by attacks on the forum. You have to actively fight for the right to "moderate" bad posts by spending time giving helpful answers.

Reply
  • Many thumbs up.

    Just a question: Without logging in, I can post using a large number of aliases. But that also implies that unless you add accounts, I would be able to vote using a large number of aliases.

    With real accounts, I think the voting would help a lot. It would be no fun to write stupid comments if all it took to clear it out was a number of negative votes.

    But trolls are likely to give out false votes too.

    I would think that you would have to weitht votes. People who have received many positive votes for earlier posts may get a bigger weight when giving out a negative vote. That makes it hard for quick drive-by attacks on the forum. You have to actively fight for the right to "moderate" bad posts by spending time giving helpful answers.

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