I think they're should be (if it isn't in place already) a Topic popularity/ranking system. Ranking a Topic would have no effect on "karma" points or "armor" points. It sole purpose would be to allow users to see what topics are popular and what ones aren't or what topics were creative and what ones weren't. I'm sure the new forums will look quite different, but here's a picture of what it would look like, to clear things up.

The "hot topic" suggestion is listed in the popular suggestion thread in the Support and Suggestion topic.
here

Personally, I think ranking the topics makes it cluttery - I'd prefer a simple colored bullet to denote it's popular. But that's just me.

I'll leave this open for Cormyn.

Well, I feel a rating system is different enough from just marking a topic as hot. Unfortunately, I only checked here before I posted. I saw it wasn't suggested yet for AG3. Never thought to check this one.

I think this is a good idea. But instead of sorting it by popularity just sort it normally by latest post and have the popularity rating to the side.

We'll see how this turns out.

I'm also geeky enough to do a view/reply ratio as well ;)

I was once geeky enough to do a full fledged excel sheet for balloon invasion, but that's a really interesting idea. I should make an excel sheet of the threads in the tarven and see which one thread is closest to a 1 to 1 ratio.

But instead of sorting it by popularity just sort it normally by latest post and have the popularity rating to the side.

You'll notice I added little white arrows next to popularity, replies, posts, date. That would mean you could sort/reverse-sort any of the categories.

You'll notice I added little white arrows next to popularity, replies, posts, date. That would mean you could sort/reverse-sort any of the categories.

Oh okay, I didn't quite catch that there. I think this is a great suggestion

I dunno, I think it's kind of redundant to flag a forum thread as "popular" when it meets/exceeds a number of replies, 'cause, hey, can't you just look at the number of replies?

I'm not going to bother making a sortable field column for it either, as it will place too heavy a load on the database to recalculate those lists every time someone replies to a thread.

Hmm...is there anyway to make the threads with the most posts automatically jump to the front without doing a sort column?

Well I assumed, the users would "vote" on the thread if they chose to, almost it exactly how the "rating" system works in iTunes. The star or rating amount shown would be an avarage or something. The topics themselves would not be given they're popularity by the number of posts and replies, but by how the people "vote" for them, if they choose. Again, it would not give you any type of points to "vote" on a topic.

The forums automatic and initial state would always be sorted by date, like how it normally is. Only if the users chose to click on popularity would it sort. So the threads would not be automatically sorting.

.is there anyway to make the threads with the most posts automatically jump to the front without doing a sort column?

Yes, but then everybody coming to that forum would have to click through several pages of popular threads just to get to new threads.

We could have an indicator on the thread line itself, where we show the number of replies/views, etc., I'm already requiring that the new forum engine will also show who started the thread. This popularity counter will NOT be a sortable feature.