Multi-Threading and Post-Rating

[Waldo Jaquith]

There are two make-or-break vBulletin features that I absolutely need, or I'll have to switch to Slash (http://www.slashcode.com/) before long:

1. Multi-threading, like slashdot.org (http://www.slashdot.org/) supports. Currently, each thread is just a series of posts, so the conversation can't branch off. It baffles me that multi-threading isn't a part of vBulletin. This is an excellent system to permit conversations to flow naturally.

2. Post moderation is essential. This enables each individual post to be rated based on an integer, along with an optional descriptive term. Slash, for example, provides a dozen-odd reviews ("Insightful," "Troll," etc.), and the good ones take a post up 1 point, and bad ones take it down 1 point. Scoop (http://scoop.kuro5hin.org/) (that runs kuro5hin.org (http://www.kuro5hin.org)), on the other hand, simply has the reviewer pick an integer between 1 and 5. These two packages also take different approaches to who can moderate: Slash quasi-randomly chooses a handful of users each day, and most everybody gets a turn eventually. Scoop, on the other hand, permits all users to moderate at all times, but keeps a publicly-viewable audit trail of all the moderation that you've ever done. Either system would be fine, and place the burden on the community members and not me.

#1 is extremely important because it lets esoteric/flame-based/off-topic portions of threads branch off where most people don't see them unless they want to. (And because this is a basic feature of most discussion boards.) #2 is extremely important because it helps prevent me from having to lock a lively and interesting thread (http://www.nancies.org/boards/showthread.php?threadid=17198) because some fool has posted a link to a mouse-trapping porn site and claimed that it was a link relevant to the topic at hand.

I urge you to adopt these features as soon as possible. Thank you.

Waldo Jaquith

[tubedogg]

1) Actually most discussion boards do not support threaded mode. Off the top of my head I can think of only two that do versus about 20 that only support 'flat' view. Regardless of this, it is on the to-do list for v3.

2) There will some type of user ranking or karma in the next version but I don't think it will be like this. I think the key here is having an active moderation team that deletes (or splits out) posts like that, and possibly bans the user if they continue doing it.
I personally don't find this second one useful (this is just me, not speaking for the development team). I think most people here would tell you they prefer a select number of people that they select and trust do the moderating and have the ability to delete posts etc. than rely on the community to essentially rate posts.

[Waldo Jaquith]

Originally posted by tubedogg
1) Actually most discussion boards do not support threaded mode. Off the top of my head I can think of only two that do versus about 20 that only support 'flat' view. Regardless of this, it is on the to-do list for v3.

1. Phorum
2. PHP Nuke / PostNuke
3. Slash
4. Scoop
5. WWWThreads
6. Glasscode
7. Agora
8. CGIForum
9. Cyphor

Off of the top of my head. :)

I'm not being argumentative, just trying to show you how widespread that this is. I'm glad you guys are supporting this in an upcoming release. I'd also like to remind you that the best new features are the ones that make our lives easier (ie, permitting users to do the moderation) rather than the ones that make our lives more difficult (ie, requiring us to review and moderate every post.) Thanks!

Waldo Jaquith

[Freddie Bingham]

I don't forsee us adding rating features that mimic the way slashdot works. We will be adding a threaded mode though.

[Joe Gronlund]

ya user ratings are pretty pointless and can be manipulated by any users so there not very accurate at all..

[Waldo Jaquith]

Well, I won't push my luck. :) This is a great start, and I'm quite pleased to know that multi-threading and some form of rating will be coming in soon. My board is up to 10,000 users, and we're averaging 1,400 posts per day and 150 threads per day. Both of these changes that you're integrating will be tremendously helpful.

OK, a little luck pushing: it just crossed my mind that the option to let users rate threads would be good. Even if it's as simple as the ability to put select users in a category that permits them to rate other users' threads. The lowest level of moderation. In fact, if you're doing that, it would be extra-nice if it were possible to cap the total number of messages that can be moderated in a given timespan (say, 10 messages/day.) And then you could add the ability to randomly select X users per time period that would be allowed to moderate. And then we'd have optional Slashdot-style moderation.

Well, that's a lot of luck-pushing. But that's exactly the sort of hack that I'll end up building into it, so I'm really just trying to save myself some time. :)

Waldo Jaquith

[tubedogg]

Well you can already rate threads. :) And that would be more easily transformed into what you're suggesting, with capping thread-ratings per day etc.