Voting system updates - Call for suggestions

[iotar__]

Forget voting for a second. I tried this live racing thing - I'm not gonna lie it scared the bejesus out of me, IRC in 2014, really? Maybe it's just me but it makes sense only if the aim is to remain esoteric (in which case brilliant).

[JimClarkFan]

Need an ignore function, would prevent many a argument.

[Holm86]

Need an ignore function, would prevent many a argument.

I'm very much opposed to an ignore feature. Its healthy to debate specially with people you don't agree with. If you're not an ignorant you could actually be presented with thoughts you haven't had yourself before. If everybody in here just put all those they didn't agree with on an ignore list then this would be a very blunt forum.

[tok-tokkie]

I posted some days ago suggesting that the present rating system be scrapped and replaced by a user rating awarded by the management of this board. I posted that spontaneously. Since then I have thought about it a bit & would like to expand on what I posted previously.
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1. This site has attracted a lot of new members to become quite big. It now has a representative population. As a consequence that includes some arseholes and pricks.
2. Those arseholes and pricks have led to a decline in the standard of the posts and discussions on this site.
3. The site is now owned by Steven. It belongs to him and he is entitled – in fact required – to set the standards for this site. In that regard he has his appointed moderators to assist him and spread the load.
4. In an attempt to improve the standard of the posts and discussion on this site the rating system was introduced. It was intended to be a way of recognising the posts that contributed to the discussions and knowledge base on this site. It was also intended to flag the rubbish posts – mainly coming from the arseholes and pricks.
5. The rating system also enabled management to show what the members thought of the contributions made by each user. This was done by showing the score of the votes gained by posts by each user.
6. Thirdly the total of all the votes on each thread is displayed.
7. The system is not functioning as well as hoped. That is why Steven started this thread – asking for suggestions on how it can be improved or rectified.
8. The problem is that the arseholes and pricks are using the voting system as a way of promoting their ideas. They up vote posts that agree with their point of view and downvote the ones that contradict their view. There remains a body of members who vote to recognise valuable posts and flag the rubbish. But the pricks and arseholes have diluted the rating system with their opinions so that it is not a reliable indicator of who is posting worthwhile stuff and which are the valuable posts.
9. My suggestion is that the rating system be set back to zero.
10. Steven and his management team award ratings as they see fit to the users. I would suggest that it be guided by their current scores. Each board has a moderator who is familiar with what is going on in that board so he can suggest a rating for the members active on that board. Together the management can decide on the overall rating for each member.
11. The rating of individual posts in a thread remains the same as at present. Members with a sufficient rating can vote. The reason for the vote must be selected from a drop down list. The rating is shown just as at present in a grey blob. Interested users can click on the rating & get a bar graph showing the reasons for the votes. ??Click again & see who gave the votes for each reason??
12. Management have a system showing the accumulated votes that each user has for his posts. It also shows the user’s rating as awarded by management. They can review this and decide when a user’s rating should be adjusted. I would suggest that user ratings go from -100 to +100 and that the rating system works on a sliding scale – it becomes progressively more difficult to get rating points the further you are from 0.
13. The user rating is shown in a green blob for +ve or red blob for –ve. We can immediately see whose posts to be wary of.
14. In this way the users are able to indicate to other users where the valuable posts are and also to management to show them who is making a valuable contribution. Equally they are showing the reverse.
15. To an extent it also solves the problem of arseholes and pricks voting for things they agree or disagree with. Firstly their vote is confined to the post – it does not automatically carry over to the poster. Secondly their voting rights are determined by management. If someone is judged by management to be an arsehole or prick then they simply give him a negative rating for all to see and also to prevent them from voting.
16. Management are then able to influence the way this site develops. They are giving feedback onto what they want to encourage and what they want to discourage. It is visible to us all. They may well offend some people – but those are exactly the ones they wish to offend. May even chase them away. If not they can always ban them. Negative rating is clear indication to the member that he is not appreciated.
17. Hopefully it will also encourage valuable users to stick around. I have seen many depart, 747Heavy comes to mind, because of the crap that arseholes and pricks posted in response to their posts.
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Ignore button.
1. I would also like an ignore button. It is attached to each user and available alongside each post of theirs in the panel on the left.
2. There are 2 arseholes who post plenty and I always skip their posts. I would like to press the ignore button and their posts would be suppressed automatically. I still see they have posted but I don’t have to skip down to the next post.
3. I suggest that a black blob showing how many users are ignoring that user be shown along with the management rating of the user. Let us all see who is regarded as an arsehole or prick. I really think this will be quite a deterrent to these users but acknowledge that real trolls will delight in it and chase a high black blob score – see #4.
4. Management must be able to edit that black blob score so that a team of users can’t gang up against an individual.
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Freeze Posts
1. I would like posts to be frozen 30 minutes after posting so they can no longer be edited.
2. I posted something once which drew an hysterical response from a certain user, call him Z. Z is an intermittent member who usually does these over the top hysterical responses. I quite enjoy his stuff as it is usually based on sound engineering with a slightly novel application. His writing is what you expect from a raving gay who is deliberately camping it up to his audience. In this case his response was saying that my post was technical garbage and he appealed to the mods to delete it as it was discrediting the site. There had been another post before his which had said what I had posted was technically wrong & went on to explain my error. In fact his response was technically wrong and mine was correct. I assumed that Z was referring to response & not to my original post. My reply was to the first reasonable response and not to Z because I thought Z could see I was right & 1st respondent was wrong. So I explained to 1st respondent where he was making a mistake. So Z climbed in again with more hysterical posting. I ended up taking photos of the point under discussion showing incontrovertibly that I was correct. 1st respondent & some other posters acknowledged that I was correct. But Z posted again & now I was fed up so I went back to quote his original post only to find that he had completely changed it – it now read as a polite query he had posted. That is why I would like posts frozen. I changed my opinion on Z after that and now regard him as treacherous whereas previously I thought he was an amusing Drama Queen. Seems like he is banned at present as he has not been here for a while.

[flynfrog]

Need an ignore function, would prevent many a argument.

I'm very much opposed to an ignore feature. Its healthy to debate specially with people you don't agree with. If you're not an ignorant you could actually be presented with thoughts you haven't had yourself before. If everybody in here just put all those they didn't agree with on an ignore list then this would be a very blunt forum.

I welcome a good debate. But we have posters who are not worth the time it takes to hit the reply button. I have never used the ignore button on any forum every but I have grown to old and tired of some of the posters here yet despite a negative post rating, reporting posts, post getting moved to yin yang they still are allowed to post here. I think steven and the mods have shown us that the ratings don't matter much they allow anyone to stay even if they are wasting bandwidth. I am begining to feel my time here is limited. There is little worth reading posted here any more. I feel its getting close to time to follow Ciro Scarbs Bar555 ect to saddle up my unicorn and ride off into the double sunset

[n_anirudh]

Hello Mods,

Just a suggestion here. When quoting other peoples message, why not hyperlink the persons name to their profile?

" xxxxxx wrote:
......................
......................"

Here, xxxxxx can be linked to the persons' profile.

[i70q7m7ghw]

Need an ignore function, would prevent many a argument.

I'm very much opposed to an ignore feature. Its healthy to debate specially with people you don't agree with. If you're not an ignorant you could actually be presented with thoughts you haven't had yourself before. If everybody in here just put all those they didn't agree with on an ignore list then this would be a very blunt forum.

I want an ignore feature to ignore the users that ONLY post fanboy ying yang etc. Most on-line communities have an ignore feature, F1T is quite far behind in that respect.

This is just a limited list. Entirely different suggestions are more than welcome!

Steven, can you confirm an ignore feature is on the roadmap?

[Steven]

I want an ignore feature to ignore the users that ONLY post fanboy ying yang etc. Most on-line communities have an ignore feature, F1T is quite far behind in that respect.

This is just a limited list. Entirely different suggestions are more than welcome!

Steven, can you confirm an ignore feature is on the roadmap?

I can confirm it's being discussed and considered.

[hollus]

This is not a suggestion in the voting system, well, maybe it is:

Something could / should be done about the off topic posts. Right now there are many users that post whatever they feel like wherever they feel like it. With no bad intention, I am sure, but it is getting a bit too much.

Right now all that is being done if to write a post from time to time reminding everyone to stay on topic, and the posts are sometimes moved. Valiant effort, but useless against many fast-finger Joes. The same guys that post off topic everywhere, who obviously don't care about posting off topic, won't care about these messages and post movements. They got their audience when they wanted it. They won't even notice that their posts were moved in most cases, as they live in a "last 2 mintues, next 30 minutes" time bubble. (But thanks for the effort, mods!) ((Is anyone ofther than Richard Leeds and Steven moderating regularly right now???)).

I'd suggest some sort of "mini banning" for repeated off topic offenders. After, say, 3 off topic posts in the same thread, the user would be banned from that thread for a week. With a nice message explaining why and suggesting to look for and find the tread where that content would be on topic. I think this woul be more efficient that saying "you have been bad, yes, you know who you are..." (amazingly, I don't think they know).
And since we are low in mod-power... maybe something that coud be implemented in the voting system if there is going to be a bubble asking for reasons (should still require confirmation by a moderaor, I guess).

P.S. I think this forum is seriously low in mods right now. There are more active users than ever, more active then ever (maybe this is only my feeling), and there are 1.5 active mods in total, plus the admin.

[Steven]

Hollus, temporary bans from specific parts of the forum are sadly not possible, certainly not per thread. It's virtually possible to do so per forum, but it would involve a massive amount of work. More temp banning is however being discussed.

As for mods, I know we're understaffed, and something is being done about that. You can expect an announcement in the next few weeks.

[JimClarkFan]

Need an ignore function, would prevent many a argument.

I'm very much opposed to an ignore feature. Its healthy to debate specially with people you don't agree with. If you're not an ignorant you could actually be presented with thoughts you haven't had yourself before. If everybody in here just put all those they didn't agree with on an ignore list then this would be a very blunt forum.

It is those people who refuse to engage in a reasoned debate and always need the last word that I need to ignore. Asking for a ignore feature is really an admission of my own weakness in sometimes not being able to let things go



I'm sure it would save the mods a few headaches, but I have been good lately (I think )



Regarding staffing. I think high ranking members who give an even and unbiased view should be given some junior privileges to mod at their discretion. Names that come to mind include Stefan, pup and marcrush. Just my opinion.

[Richard]

There's always a flurry of people at the start of every season who don't understand the purpose of the car threads. I always send them a PM to remind them at the same time as deleting their posts. Otherwise they'll never learn. Nearly all thank me for the guidance, a few swear and end up in special measures

If I see a name popping up a few times then I'll point that out to them and it usually stops.

This brings me onto another topic .... There are some posts which aren't abusive or fanboy, but neither do they contribute much. While abusive and fanboy posts are easy to moderate, this other category aren't helpful but neither are they so bad as to warrant a temp ban. The voting was supposed to help with this category. It allows a feedback loop that doesn't require a mod to make judgement calls on something so subjective.

However I detect a mood that some members would like moderators to be tougher with this category? That's a tricky nettle to grasp because it might be saying to people that they aren't breaking any rules but they're not good enough for us? It might snare some long established members.

Finally, please do use the report button, it's the prime route for us to gauge the mood of the members. If established and/or respected members report posts that highlight a consistent trend it helps gives us a mandate to be a bit tougher.

[tok-tokkie]

Finally, please do use the report button, it's the prime route for us to gauge the mood of the members. If established and/or respected members report posts that highlight a consistent trend it helps gives us a mandate to be a bit tougher.

Add this as one of the reasons for downvotes and encourage those with down voting powers to use it. Takes some pressure off the mods & makes the site a bit more regulated by the senior members & lets the offenders get rapid feedback of what is thought of their 'contributions'. I am a member of a huge site where the senior members reply scathingly (but elegantly) to posts that don't fit in with the edgy style of the site. It is a remarkably well run site. Does have an ignore button. It also has a section called 'Head Explody - where forum rage goes to die' which has duplicate thread titles where the mods shift the rubbish they don't like. Something like the ying-yang thread here.

[Steven]

A note that I have adjusted and extended the FAQ on the voting system. http://www.f1technical.net/forum/faq.php

[WillerZ]

I think that whatever the stated intent of the voting system, it will be used as a like/dislike button. Under the current system for example, by far and away the most "valuable and informative" post I made is apparently this tongue-in-cheek analysis of a proposed car-vs-kitten racing series. I would like to think I have done better work elsewhere.