Suggestion Best Posts in Thread: ''on topic forum'' anyone

This one is on topic as there is something I forgot to mention with this hidden message thing. If enough users give positive ratings (thanks/like/agree/winner/genius) to a hidden post it will be unhidden automatically. If 33% of a post's ratings are negative (off-topic/abhorrent/trolling) they will remain hidden.

I guess it makes it a bit more democratic and gives members the ability to veto off-topic/negative ratings if they can obtain a super-majority vote on it.

 

The complaint is about other threads regularly going off-topic. Off-topic posts don't magically get moved to the off-topic thread on their own, they have to be identified and then moved there by a moderator. I cannot possibly moderate and move every single off-topic post live as they happen. I am currently the only person moderating this forum and I do have a life. This gives users the ability to self moderate, which should result in off-topic posts getting flagged much quicker and limit the chances that other members will become frustrated by keeping these posts out of their new post feed and will give me a break from having to move posts. (Moving off-topic posts is by far the #1 reported, complained about and moderating action I need to take here.)

 

This is live. Let's see how it works.

I marked one post here as off-topic so you can see how that will look. (NMRN, since you are the king of off-topic postings I selected one of yours.)

Please remember that this is not a true negative rating the same as an abhorrent or trolling rating. People should not take offense to receiving one.

Please report your post if you feel you have been given one you did not deserve.

 

I added an Off-Topic rating. It is currently a neutral rating. If I can find a way to move posts automatically I will do that but I don't think that is possible without coding a custom add-on for the forum software. (I'm not going to do.)

I'm thinking about making them a negative rating so that the posts are "soft-hidden". This would mean (I think) they wouldn't show up on the new posts page once they have a certain number of off-topic ratings but you could still see them if you were in the thread and opted to see them by pushing a button. This would hold true for other negative ratings as well. If I go this route I will remove public negative rating visibility and all account restrictions that come along with accumulating them.

I will make a test run on this to see how it works out. I think this will limit the visibility of off-topic posts (and the frequency of replies to off-topic posts) without restricting posters ability to have a bit of fun in thread if users actually use the rating as it is intended. As always, abusers of post ratings will have their ability to leave ratings removed.

Now, let's see how many people this pisses off. I give it a week before someone is crying about their posts getting suppressed.

 

You can press the quote button, highlight the text, create a new thread or go to the off-topic thread and then paste that quote there and reply.

 

They are neutral.

I doubt it. There really aren't that many ratings given to any one post. I suspect if it is hidden it will get even less ratings than it normally would.