Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

And who will be reviewing all those thank you messages?
Not to mention it's technically more taxing to implement something with questionable payoff. imho.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

But you see, it's not me (the theoretical poster) that needs to put the effort in. It's the person doing the thanking. More often than not, they won't put in that effort. Otherwise, why would they be asking the same question that's been answered 50 times previously in the past two years? :)

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

I think there's a lot of merit in this proposal... posts can be "Thanked" for so many reasons, some frivolous, whereas a "Useful" vote count would (hopefully) suggest the recipient has added something useful, and more importantly on topic, for the community at large (although this can't be guaranteed of course).

Perhaps "Thanks" should stay as it is - ie. easy to apply to each post with a single click - with a low-ish Karma weighting for the recipient, and a "Useful" (aka Reputation) count introduced with a more sizeable Karma weighting. There should be a limit of one "Useful" vote per thread from each member to prevent abuse, and perhaps a mandatory comment too which could be seen by the recipient.

I'm sure there are several "reputation" hacks available for vBulletin.

I also agree that a "No Thanks" system may be seen as negative, and unnecessary for this community.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

:D

Aye, there's the rub, and of course the reason for making the effort count.

Could be like: click on 'thanks loads', and get a clickable list of 'why' (e.g., 'because it answered my question directly' or 'because i learned something new' or 'because this person thanked me last time' (with the option to add your own)) - so, 2 clicks instead of one.

:eek:

Just brainstorming. It's almost certainly an idea that would never fly because I'm lazy too :o

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

The thanks system does have a political party feeling about it at times. If you want to make thanks even worse in that direction, add no thanks.

I thought the real point of the Thanks system was to cut down on posts that said "I agree!" or "Great point!" and still let the thanker express approval.

The natural tendency of needlessly abandoning the ITT site was to drive away clueless newbies and keep people closely associated with developers and hobbyists. That has succeeded, and there are really a lot fewer objectionable posts than there used to be, so there is less of a problem. Group unity has been reinforced, but influence over the clueless, who are the primary people one wants to sell the N900 to (because there are so many of them), is less.

So the changes have worked, and those who wanted them should be happy. There is no big reason for tightening things up further.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Why are you still trying to steal my pocket lint?!

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

I think the system works fine the way it is... some may game it but to say that the thanks received by those in the past is somehow "fluffy" or "frivolous" kind of hurts my <sniff> feelings </sniff>

I have seen 25 or 30 "thanks" piled on one line posts in a matter of hours and whether it is a joke that lifts the spirit of the forums at the time, a line of code that cleans up a community project, or the location of a file in the system that allows an application to be used in a new way. The poster earned the thanks.

I have also seen posts that were made months ago slowly gain thanks as new users find the information helpful...
It all seems to even out.

What the "thanks" system has done is allowed enthusiasts an opportunity to earn karma...
Prior to that, karma was only earned in the other maemo.org components I believe, and not from contributions in this forum.

In any event, I'm not sure, but I doubt there are many that are eligible for discounts based solely on karma received from this forum. If there are, I know from my own experience it wasn't from frivolous and fluffy posts and it certainly wasn't instantaneous. :)

I am a believer in the value of forums in the development of ideas and thoughts that benefit a community. I am glad maemo.org and Nokia recognizes this as well.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

I'm not suggesting that all "Thanked" posts are frivolous, far from it, but would it be fair (for example) for someone who posts a "Joke of the Day" thread and who receives a ton of "Thanks" for making people laugh to then be considered for a discounted developer device? Yes, they probably deserve something for helping to brighten up the place (a T-shirt perhaps?) but maybe not a device that could go to someone more focused on code or fixing problems...

Having a system that differentiates between simple "Thanks" and a "Reputation"/"Useful" score might prove more beneficial in the longer term - comparing the two scores may also elicit useful information regarding the nature of the members involvement within the community/forum.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

So what you are actually saying is that a No thanks would not work for you, instead you would like to see something like a "! delete this thread" button am i right?

the "no thanks" should'nt be interpreted as if you were given a cookie and so you could say no thanks. I believe the initial idea was to make an opposite of thanks.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Well that is where moderation comes in Mil...

A Joke of the Day thread should be moved to a forum where "thanks" is not earned.
Neither should or would off topic joke posts be tolerated in productive threads for very long.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

I know that you believe you understand what you think he said, but I'm not sure you realise that what you read is not what he meant.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

And what I'm saying is people who post threads like this >> http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=33125
that attract new users and give the impression that "thanks" is not earned are generally attention whores and will move on well before any appreciable karma is earned. :)

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

this is the part where i perish and feel dumb. right?

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

in that case you wont be bothered long by me am i right?

:) seems everyone knows everything best around here, maybe i should put: "am i right?" in my signature.
could be another reason to stay longer. time is the nr1 thing that bonds people. at least well thats.. some creative oppinion i just came up with.. or should i ask.. am i right?


let's put the cr@p aside. i see it from both sides. (noobflood from last month(including me)/veterans (if u will))

i shouldn't be posting this but studying linux :P maybe the other n00bs should too. i vote (again) for n00bstickys :)

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Ik vrees dat het dom zijn niet tijdelijk is, helaas.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

It's the most amazing thing: wisdom tends to come from experience. ;)

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Not comparable...

• The current and target user base and size of both communities are very different. T.m.o expects a change in user base, but not one which will make the user-base more like Slashdot wrt type of person.
  
• Slashdot is a news weblog; t.m.o is a vBulletin-based forum. As said, goals of each platform very different, but even then comparing a forum with a weblog is moot. Maemo.org has its own news/weblog platform.
  
• At Slashdot, regulars metamod the moderations of moderators, and every regular with karma gets 5 moderator shots every once in a while. Moderation is not available for every user, and a scarcity. Goal of both is quality moderations.
  
• At t.m.o anyone can start a topic 'on the front page', and moderators moderate afterwards. Maemo.org has a democratic chosen Council.
  
• Overal, the Slashdot +1 options are more available than -1 (referencing to description of moderation) whereas funny is not taken into account for karma.
  
• The Slashdot moderator guidelines ask moderators to focus on the positive instead of the negative (mod up instead of mod down). It is mentioned for a reason, I assume based on past observation.
  
• The Slashdot moderation system is not perfect, and there are various platforms which use Slashdot's system (Slashcode is open source), or a Slashdot-like system.
  
• It is unclear whether moderation system was of direct influence to Slashdot success.

If Offtopic forum is not enough (which is not a proposition I judge on) what could be implemented is: +1 Funny aka +1 Thanks_but_offtopic which shows visibly as thanks but has no influence on users' karma. This allows a way of showing appreciation to someone while not contributing to their karma, and works against karma whoring while not showing its direct effect. It underlines the focus of Thanks being what its core intend is: a way to thank someone.

Otherwise, earlier moving thread to right forum is a solution. Might require more moderators.

Instead of focusing on TS' solution or Slashdot's solution which bring huge implications and testing with it lets focus easier solutions for (major part of) problem TS' describe: limiting the tensions, flamewars, and flamebaits and more important improving general quality of t.m.o. Although for that we have different thread like the user-friendliness of t.m.o thread.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

I admit that was an extreme example of mine, but why shouldn't the poster of a joke of the day earn some thanks from the community? The fact is we don't allow "Thanks" in the Off Topic forum precisely because we only have the one system that contributes towards Karma - perhaps if we had two systems, one which is weighted more significantly than the other, then we could thank people for interesting/amusing posts in all forums including Off Topic without any risk of skewing their overall Karma, the bulk of which should be earned from "useful" and on-topic posts.

Anyway, maybe one for Reggie to ponder! :)

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Or, just allow Thanks in Off Topic but don't include those in Karma calc.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

I dislike the idea of "no thanks", but see this example of a post that was thanked:

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...3&postcount=74

What can a user who does not want this crap in this forum do?
There is "Report This" link, but reports of something which is not an obvious spam are apparently being ignored.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Unnecessary thanks would never go away with the current system unless those members mature and actually value the important steps and ideas presented by fellow members.
And the current system of thanks is the best one IMHO. LIke everybody said no thanks and other sorts will just create a big mess and would take forever to clean up.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

The thanks system is a repeated failure wherever it's tried.

It may start out as a mechanism for rewarding 'useful' posts, but it always devolves into an 'attaboy' mechanism...rendering the 'thanks count' pretty darned useless.

Much like the way that 'report this' mechanisms are inevitably used by wusses.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Maybe it's been brought up but...how about a 'Not relevant''flag?

Sometimes threads goes for a long time, multiple pages.
As they progress a number of things can happen:
- jokes takes off adding up numerous posts,
- posts that are now irrelevant as they refer to a bug that is fixed, etc

The thread can still be valuable...but things like the above 'Clutters it'.

If we could 'vote' on posts to be 'not relevant' and as soon as they get say five votes - they don't show in the thread anymore - NOT affecting Karma in any way - maybe that would be something useful.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

I can see the possible value of the 'not relevent' but I do wonder if there's not a risk people will use it to prevent someone else's opinion from being seen.

Personally, I don't see the off topic posts as too much of a problem: they tend to happen in the more lighthearted threads, or ones where the main topic has already been dealt with. A skim through the Applications, say, or Fremantle fora shows that while some of the posts in 'n900' are less serious when necessary, posters can keep to topic and remain focussed.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

You forget the latent ******ishness of humans, and the mob/herd mentality they often exhibit.

Within a week or two, your 'voting' system would become the blunt tool of retribution for any and all manner of mindless squabbles.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Good thing its all over in 3 years then :)

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

No.

You are making the common mistake of confusing loud, obvious exceptions with the quiet majority.

I recommend coursework in statistics. May be eye-opening for you.

I also recommend you tone it down a bit.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

FWIW, I once implemented a 'patronage' system, of sorts.....where a select few (eg. the original site admins) are able to up-vote or down-vote posts. They can also award voting privileges to those they consider worthy, but such an award must be agreed by simple majoritarian democracy among the current vote-privileged members.

Worked pretty well....interesting posts did tend to bubble to the surface. Regular users could filter threads by signal:noise ratio, so there were less "I hate wading through crap" complaints.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

You are making the noobish mistake of trying to sound l337 when you have no idea who you're talking to.

Quit trying to play daddy, it's lame.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Today's nominee for best unintentional irony. :rolleyes:

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Outstanding retort. I'll consult peewee herman for advice on how to respond in kind.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

May I just take this oportunity to bring up my idea about the 'Not Relevant' flagging system? :)

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

You sound like someone who has experience in gaming common public forums... Dude you really have no clue about this place. Do you?

You have yet to be Sheldoned. :D That's where a thought of yours that was posted gets kind of gang flamed by people who might be much more talented than you. Except, when it is all over with... when you're left lashing out at no one in particular but generalizing so much you offend everyone, you will realize that you weren't flamed at all. What you thought were flames were just people asking questions to clarify what exactly it is you were trying to say. Your answers became more ambiguous because the reality may have been that you have no idea what exactly it is you were trying to say and that prompts even more questions. In the end it was really you alone beating up your own dang self.

... At that point you either become a productive member of this forum community or you eventually just go away. :)

Whatever the outcome; make sure to have fun and keep in touch with yourself dude.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

How many of these have we gone through now?

:D

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

...was some one counting? :p

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Nah... the numbers have actually been far too few to matter. ;)

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Does your claim include the statement 'thank you' or did you not mean to include real life behavior? If yes, we might as well scrap thanking someone from our human behavior. If no, your statement is contradicting and excluded an important, albeit offline mechanism.

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

I see you again, Milhouse!

And I know what you're thinking... :D

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Neither do you.

But Texrat is a known regular.

You are not.

You have no reputation here.

That is the difference.

So know your place.

Noob.

And in the other post you're assuming admins have the time to vote up or down. LOL. Poor Reggie. You also underestimate the value of the crowd above authority of a few. Neither is perfect. But if you prefer the latter, feel free to live under a dictatorship. ;)

Re: A No Thanks, of sorts
 

Was that sarcasm? I can never tell.