SirChick Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 Just a simple one really In support forums, i think people who post a helpful reply that solves some one's issue, some other obser can click that post as "Helpful Response". Then to rank users by integrity or some other word, you can then do total number of threads made by a user oh whom had a helpful response but didnt click "topic solved". The more helpful responses in threads to topic solved the lower your rank goes... so simple is, to keep a good integrity is click topic solved when some one has helped you... And of course people are more likely to help people with high integrity, additionally if you have super high integrity over a certain level your post could stand out more in the support. All to increase the ease of use for people helping people out.... i hate going into a topic 2 pages long when its been solved but no one ticked the topic solved so i wasted my time reading the tread. Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 The more helpful responses in threads to topic solved the lower your rank goes... That in itself can be problematic. In programming, there is more than one way to skin a cat so-to-speak. If you provide solution a, the OP flags it as resolved, and then someone sees this thread and offers another alternative (no necessarily a superior solution, but simple an alternative solution), does this mean you merit lower integrity? What if the latest poster *thinks* he or she has a better solution and posts it.. does this merit lowering your integrity? There could be a few examples that shouldn't effect your merit. As a result, I certainly wouldn't agree with that. Additionally, nothing stops other members from forming 'clicks' and boosting their friends by setting up 'resolved' posts (I scratch your back, you scratch mine) kind of thing. I feel there is too much room for exploitation TBH. I certainly see the value in being able to at a glance see who is more trustworthy through integrity, but more easily said then done IMO. I think CV has mentioned that a Karma system was in use in the past but didn't work out. I suspect the same flaws could be found in such an integrity system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirChick Posted June 16, 2009 Author Share Posted June 16, 2009 Well its irrelevant to how many helpful replies there are, there can be 100 good given responses, as long as theres one approved answer that people have rated....of which the users know has answered the question, but the user decides not to topic solved.. then the integrity goes down. So its not integrity subtract total approvals in each thread. Heres a good understanding: So say a user made 3 threads 2 with approved answers unsolved, and 3 solved. Integrity subtract (total threads with at least 1 approved answer or more that has not been topic solved) Which in the above case is a subtraction total of 2... say you start off with 50 integrity and now you have 48 unless you click solved then it goes back up to 50. And you can go into the negative like karma features do. It can't be abused because its up to the thread started to click topic solved at end of the day...once they do, their integrity is back Karma systems are rubbish as every one gives negative for fun sake.. where as rather than it being decided by users choice, its your own choice to make it negative, by not clicking topic solved. Additionally a simple list of topics with approved answers "unsolved" by the user could be avaiable to them as quick access to solve them if they had forgotten to and could not find the thread anymore. Users over 500 posts can decide if a reply is helpful and approve. And equally users over 500 posts can remove that approval, if they disagree that it answered the question. It could have some thing on the side column in the forums where the username shows etc: (with a scroll bar) the approval logs: Username approves this answer (now a topic solved should be set or integrity is lowered) Username2 does not agree (either OP or some other member who has a better result) - (now integrity is not effected as its there is no approved answers yet) In this case it wouldn't matter how " many " quality replies there are, as long as theres at least one. Then it lies on the OP to either Topic Solved or decline the approved answer to spare their integrity (for example some new error occured from the answer provided, etc, at which point the user who posted that answer could be alerted (if they have alerts on to take another look at the thread if they wish to continue helping that user) Equally a user cannot approve their own message answer. They can only approve others, but they can remove an approval of their post if they spotted their own mistake Unlimited amount of users can approve the same answer once,...but to worry about integrity, as long as theres one thats all that is needed. Which ties into my next idea related: Additionally with this... the total number of approvals to an answer.. could help with the PHP search feature.. by having topics with higher number of approval responses based on what is asked will come out on top, improving likely hood of finding topics with already well answered questions to the issue the user is searching on. Yes with people messing about is always possible, but as its stored on the side column, they can fiddle then not be disallowed in support areas and loose the amazing FREE and very quick help phpfreaks provide.. 10,000 high intergrity coders on a forum beats 50,000 not so high integrity coders hands down. It might be extra effort on peoples part but for that effort they are only helping themselves on faster replies from users giving their time to help for free, and if they are a helper themself they are helping themself too to see which threads need answers. p.s i have used this idea on my own forum for a different thing...not quite so in depth as this idea (wish i had now) so ill probably add more to my current script. And 95% of the time people don't abuse it. Obviously the 5% do but then they loose the support because we don't let them view it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtopolis Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 Part of being a programmer is learning to evaluate your sources. References from the manual can be usually be trusted, while comments to the manual are slightly less trustworthy. You may not be there quite yet, but most of programming is learning to use the appropriate tools for the appropriate jobs. At this stage you might be thinking of the functions being the only tools you have, but this goes even further such as design patterns, platforms, feature support, etc, etc. I don't think this would be a useful addition. The users that are here can't find the topic solved button most of the time, to expect them to click a "helpful" link, let alone click it honestly (not just to feel useful) would be expecting too much. A good idea, but most of the people with "integrity" are mods here anyway. Besides that, the better coders usually use code tags and formatting effectively as well as proper grammar . . . you'll learn to distinguish them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirChick Posted June 16, 2009 Author Share Posted June 16, 2009 Good points raised, but the one key point is where people are volunteering (for free) to help users who have questions. It would be nice to have something to help make it easier for them. Which would be the topic solved option as then your not clicking threads to check if its been answered or not, equally on other extra help this would lower un-needed page loads on php freaks server, hopefully reducing the amount of work the server has to do and keeps the site fast. Though the server thing is just a bonus and not as important Agree the Topic Solved is hard to find, but thats because its not exactly easy to spot anyway unless you've been on here a while. So it could be moved to a different part of the thread for making it easier to find. As for a approval etc it shouldn't be too difficult to spot if its under the username and post count on the left hand side. The manual is always good to use but not 100% always! If that were the case there would be no need for PHPfreaks in the first place..such as a logical error no manual can tell you where you made the logical mistake and when such a problem occurs usually a human response is much better to help spot the mistake of whom has more experience, which is where PHPfreaks is handy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirChick Posted June 16, 2009 Author Share Posted June 16, 2009 Heres a screen mock up of what is seen for the approves for example and what i seen for the OP who has not yet topic solved... i think its easy to see that it cannot be missed... [attachment deleted by admin] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtopolis Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 Certain mods won't be made if they are not SMF sanctioned because the moderators here that maintain the site do not want to have to update the code each time the board is updated, that is why somethings are reluctant to change, if at all. I am not entirely sure, but I think the "Topic Solved" mod is already a custom, non sanctioned mod? Anyway, I wouldn't resist your idea if we made it look much cooler than your mockup. I don't do well with smilies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EchoFool Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 Well Id imagine the coding involved would be a bit of effort, its down to weather benefit out weights the effort... i feel it would with good planning and implemention Fingers crossed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zane Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 I am not entirely sure, but I think the "Topic Solved" mod is already a custom, non sanctioned mod? Correct. But really, it was only tweeked to change the background color of the topic...in a list of topics. As for approved posts and such. I don't see that happening too soon (much less at all). The karma system has always failed here...for reasons already mentioned Karma systems are rubbish as every one gives negative for fun sake.. where as rather than it being decided by users choice Sure it would be great if users knew which post was the most helpful, but ... honestly...we're not Google. I can already see the hundreds of leechers that would show up just to read what they want to read. And also, what if the approved answer post in a topic isn't what the user is looking for. I know from experience that I'm usually looking for similar symptoms of a problem when reading a post rather than just scrolling to the last one. If one gets their answer from someone else's "Approval" marking then great, but I'd guarantee you that they'll be missing out on something vital in that thread. (or maybe not, but still) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirChick Posted June 16, 2009 Author Share Posted June 16, 2009 Comparing this to the Karma feature suggests there is a misunderstanding along the line as theres no comparison there not similiar at all..the failure of the karma feature is because its a poor idea anyway. If some one approves the answer... some one can equally decline the answer when a better answer has been made..If your worried people will use phpfreaks as a google for PHP etc then don't edit the search feature for it... I still see no way this can be abused its not possible to abuse it to the point it becomes a useless feature, other than people approving answers that are not good answers for fun of it, but any one can remove that approval include the OP, if they feel the answer was useless or a better reply has occured so they can approve a different answer. Plus if the topic is solved helpers don't need to view it again and the integrity is not lost so what ever is approved in there is irrelevant. Sure some one might post better answers to the initial approved, but most people will check that if they have common sense which is needed to be a coder If they don't then they only loose out but some one else who needs to search for answers will read the extra replies for help. Its hard to really explain all this without being able to visualise how it cannot be abused but i think my better option is to code a dummy forum with it in place for you to fiddle (this will take a while to sort) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Every system in which people have a certain amount of power will be abused, whether on purpose or on accident. Just a fact of life. I still don't see how less experienced people or cliques couldn't exploit this... Perhaps I'm missing something too. (Exploit isn't the right word for the less experienced people... 'accidentally screw up') *Goes to reread the thread again* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel0 Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Every system in which people have a certain amount of power will be abused, whether on purpose or on accident. Just a fact of life. True. *Goes off to demote corbin* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Hateful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirChick Posted June 17, 2009 Author Share Posted June 17, 2009 Every system in which people have a certain amount of power will be abused, whether on purpose or on accident. Just a fact of life. I still don't see how less experienced people or cliques couldn't exploit this... Perhaps I'm missing something too. (Exploit isn't the right word for the less experienced people... 'accidentally screw up') *Goes to reread the thread again* Where can it be abused then ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel0 Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 "I give you rep points, you give me rep points" kind of mutual agreements between members. We already have a system which is used for determining post quality, though it's manual and operated by the phpfreaks team. Surely you've noticed people running around with green and yellow badges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirChick Posted June 17, 2009 Author Share Posted June 17, 2009 "I give you rep points, you give me rep points" kind of mutual agreements between members. We already have a system which is used for determining post quality, though it's manual and operated by the phpfreaks team. Surely you've noticed people running around with green and yellow badges. Um .. youve again missed the whole idea.. by saying rep your thinking the karma system again totally wrong idea again. There is no benefit to the person who approved or who made the topic.. so to ask for approval... is pointless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken2k7 Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 I don't understand why we should have something for members who ask for help. It's better to have something for people who are helping instead. This is like demanding help. I'll be a good sport and ask tons and tons of stupid idiotic questions that get answered easily and I'll click the solved link. Then my integrity will sky-rocket. And then I'll be demanding help because you have good integrity and if a topic doesn't get answered, I'll complain. Really now. How about something that benefits users or promote users to help others instead? Most members register to ask a question and leave. And then maybe re-register, ask another question and leave. They don't really care much about this system as long as they get the answer. And as for people giving help, we shouldn't have to abide by it either. People are volunteering here by helping others. We shouldn't have to prioritize the topics based on user integrity. It's how the free world works. If I don't feel like answering a certain topic, I won't answer it. I don't care if the user has a million in user integrity rating. Like what Daniel0 said in another topic - if you want to demand help or want people to prioritize your help topics more than others, pay us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtopolis Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 Surely you've noticed people running around with green and yellow badges. I thought it was to balance out the all the shades of blue... :L Also, I agree with Ken's post. Most of the users that might use this system don't really need it anyway. They are here for more than their 1-2 questions, able to learn and evaluate the responses they get as good or not so good. Also, to reiterate what was said earlier, there are multiple solutions to questions usually, and I could see certain styles being given bias based on familiarity. (ie: procedural vs oop, most average users here are not comfortable with oop) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirChick Posted June 18, 2009 Author Share Posted June 18, 2009 I don't understand why we should have something for members who ask for help. It's better to have something for people who are helping instead. This is aimed at precisely that =/ Their integrity doesn't go up.. it stays put... but won't go down... again nothing to gain by posting a dumb question to keep integrity where it already was lol this is why its sitll not abuseable in that sense either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken2k7 Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 This is aimed at precisely that =/ Their integrity doesn't go up.. it stays put... but won't go down... again nothing to gain by posting a dumb question to keep integrity where it already was lol this is why its sitll not abuseable in that sense either. This system is completely pointless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ober Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 I agree. There is no check or balance in a system where people can be propped up but not demoted. I think we've covered all there is to cover on this topic, so I'm going to end it while we're "ahead". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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