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Reton8
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Reton8
3,173 posts
King

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.

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/4780/threadrating.jpg

  • 22 Replies
Asherlee
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Asherlee
5,014 posts
Shepherd

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.

Reton8
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Reton8
3,173 posts
King

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.

Freakenstein
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Freakenstein
9,507 posts
Jester

That thread was more or less suggestions for AG2. When AG3 surfaced, those ideas shifted to this new update. People complained about not having those ideas implemented; they ARE getting what they want, just even better!

I typically judge the popularity of the thread by how many replies and views it has. I don't know HOW Non-Spam Picture Wars#2 got that many views, but I can say for certain it's popular. I'm also geeky enough to do a view/reply ratio as well

1337Player
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1337Player
1,766 posts
Peasant

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.

Reton8
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Reton8
3,173 posts
King

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.
1337Player
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1337Player
1,766 posts
Peasant

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
cormyn
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cormyn
2,892 posts
Nomad

I dunno, I think it's kind of redundant to flag a forum thread as &quotopular" 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.

Kyouzou
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Kyouzou
5,062 posts
Jester

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

Reton8
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Reton8
3,173 posts
King

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.

cormyn
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cormyn
2,892 posts
Nomad

.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.
jdoggparty
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jdoggparty
5,860 posts
Nomad

Can't you just look at the posts to see how popular it is? IMO A Like/dislike option would work the best.

Kyouzou
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Kyouzou
5,062 posts
Jester

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.


That could work, a like dislike system is a pretty good idea.

@Party

In some threads a high percentage of posts can be spam, so you can't always judge based upon that.
Freakenstein
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Freakenstein
9,507 posts
Jester

In some forums however, this is not the case. You could always go by the post/view ratio, where 1 reply would yield X amount of views. If a thread is viewed well, it is deemed popular as the title attracted the users and those that replied are looking back to see others.

Reton8
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Reton8
3,173 posts
King

Well sometimes a thread gets viewed multiple times by a misleading title. Sometimes they are a lot of replies because either a lot of people are saying the thread is spam, or notice the thread is spam and post additional spam comments. Sometimes the initial post is interesting but there isn't much need to reply to it (although this is probably rare). So sometimes it is hard to tell what is spam just by looking at the views and replies.

Maybe some sort of way to flag a topic/thread as spam/duplicate.

Oh, just thought of something. Flag topic as duplicate. Then if a mod chooses, they can put some sort of icon by the topic showing that it's a duplicate. Then if a user clicks that icon it links to the original thread. But, kind of pointless maybe.

Freakenstein
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Freakenstein
9,507 posts
Jester

Oh, just thought of something. Flag topic as duplicate. Then if a mod chooses, they can put some sort of icon by the topic showing that it's a duplicate. Then if a user clicks that icon it links to the original thread. But, kind of pointless maybe.


Maaaybe a brand new tool for mods. Maybe. I dun't even know the tools mods have NOW. Maybe paranoia is setting in, but I believe they have tools to automatically generate a troll bot to have some laffs in. I could be wrong. And I'm wrong 120% of the time.

Well sometimes a thread gets viewed multiple times by a misleading title. Sometimes they are a lot of replies because either a lot of people are saying the thread is spam, or notice the thread is spam and post additional spam comments. Sometimes the initial post is interesting but there isn't much need to reply to it (although this is probably rare). So sometimes it is hard to tell what is spam just by looking at the views and replies.


During my AG career, I couldn't say I found a thread with more than 20 replies saying this is spam. Maybe trolling. Either way, when we are talking about popular threads, we are talking like 100 replies and a thousand or more views; in the extreme, popular threads like the WoM. We couldn't really classify 12-15 replies as popular, y'know?
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