best replies should appear first in a thread. - page 3.

Zoomic

sr. member

Activity: 630

Merit: 277

I have read so many suggestions regarding the topic I created and I have gathered diverse opinions. Some of the opinions are not strong enough to counter the OP while many have good points that convinced me that this format is effective.
Such opinion as the flow of conversation. If most merited posts appear first and an unmerited post quotes the most merited post, where will the post appear?

Quote from: LogitechMouse on September 27, 2023, 07:17:28 PM

Why is merit becoming the main factor to determine which posts are good, and which are not. Anybody can give merits to anyone, and in fact, many already gave 50 merits to a post that's considered as shit-post, or a post that has no added value on it.

No matter how we see it, as long as this forum is concerned merit has a very big relationship with quality post. No one can successful deny this saying.

LogitechMouse

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Quote from: Zoomic on September 26, 2023, 10:54:47 AM

tl;dr

The question is "What is considered best for you?"
What's best for you, might not be the best for some. What are the factors for that reply to be considered the best one?

I mean it doesn't matter for me if my reply is on the 4th or 5th page already. For me, as long as I share my opinion with the current topic, and as long as my comment isn't off-topic then that's good. This suggestion of yours again is circling around merits. Why is merit becoming the main factor to determine which posts are good, and which are not. Anybody can give merits to anyone, and in fact, many already gave 50 merits to a post that's considered as shit-post, or a post that has no added value on it.

There's a famous quote and it says "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." and I don't think there's something that we need to fix with it.

OcTradism

hero member

Activity: 1722

Merit: 801

Quote from: m2017 on September 27, 2023, 10:53:50 AM

I read this topic to the end and discovered that the solution was found back in 2019.

Luckily for you because the thread is only two pages until your post. It does not need too much time for reading and I glad to bring the solution as soon as possible.

The solution is an user script so not all forum members will use it or only minority need that filter.

Quote from: NeuroticFish on September 26, 2023, 10:58:02 AM

And who or what decides which are the best replies? Because it's clearly neither the length nor the rank of the poster that could be added into the equation.

Merit can not decide a post is quality or not. I mean excluding very excellent posts with many merits (100+ or more), they are actually absolute quality posts. Posts with one or some merits maybe are not actually better in quality compare to posts without a single merit. Merit sources can not read all posts in forum to keep their merit distribution fairly and posters who beg merit sources can get more than people who only post and don't beg merit sources.

Bushdark

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Quote from: Zoomic on September 26, 2023, 10:54:47 AM

I have this habit of reading through many replies to a thread before I will respond. At the course of reading through few pages of a thread before replying, I discovered that;

The earliest replies get more attention and earn more merit
Some of the replies from pages 3 upwards are repetition of what others said in pages 1 and 2.
I also understood that some of the quality contributors sometimes arrive late and their replies get buried easily

I therefore propose that, if possible, the arrangement of replies to a thread should be based on the number of merits that reply earned in that very thread. This will tend to sort the quality replies to appear in the first page no matter what time it was made. Even if the reply appeared on page 7, just 1 merit to that reply will send it to page 1. This will also help researchers to meet the most relevant posts in the first page, without having to search through tones o replies.
This sounds good to me but it may not go well with some other persons, I decided to drop the suggestion here. Although, I don't know much about the SMF version of the forum, but with the way people complain about it, it seems it doesn't allow some certain things to be incorporated to the forum.

How do you determine the replies that are best and the ones that do not worth it? You don't choose the kind of reply you need to get from a post since you can't determine what people is write about a particular post. The reply you get on a post is always depend on the person that write it and what they think about the post. Whether a reply get a retitive reply or not, the important part is to make sure that one passes the message they urge to pass without trying to feel annoyed about the reply they get. If we are very emotional when writing, we can make a big mistake by taking some of the replies we get from people personal.

Smartvirus

legendary

Activity: 1554

Merit: 1139

Quote from: Twentyonepaylots on September 27, 2023, 02:04:35 PM

Quote from: NeuroticFish on September 26, 2023, 10:58:02 AM

And who or what decides which are the best replies? Because it's clearly neither the length nor the rank of the poster that could be added into the equation.

We cannot apply such a rule or feature that is very subjective. Some are not native English speaker, that may say less but is worth reading.

I don’t think the language thing do count much as, that would allow account for difficulty in expression or making a good point on a subject. In a way it could result in the post not being merited of which, the proposal of implemented would dish such posts and these could be of great concern to the user who had made the comment.

Quote from: Twentyonepaylots on September 27, 2023, 02:04:35 PM

Quote from: NeuroticFish on September 26, 2023, 10:58:02 AM

I hope that you don't expect somebody (moderator?) would read every post and give it some points/ranking, right?

That's a lot of work to do actually.

The traffic on the forum and volume of posts made on the forum is so high that, even Albert Einstein wouldn’t be able to meet up with that sort of work load. It would be so much to read and moderate. You would hate such job if given as it would take literally, life out of you!
Without any system for forum up on this, it ain’t worth implementing as it would undermine the quality of some posts which might be of value to others.

EarnOnVictor

hero member

Activity: 896

Merit: 654

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The truth is that the best replies can't be known in a thread of many pages, not even moderators will be efficient enough to justify a post as the best, which is why I advise we leave it the way it is as it's in any other forum. Anyone who is seeking answers should browse through the volume therein and will surely get to know the ones that are being repeated often that are constructive enough.

Also, the merit suggestion you gave is not a good idea, by now you should know that the meriting of a post could be biased and personal, it's not a good yardstick to know the best posts as it's often sentimental.

Twentyonepaylots

sr. member

Activity: 1932

Merit: 370

Quote from: NeuroticFish on September 26, 2023, 10:58:02 AM

And who or what decides which are the best replies? Because it's clearly neither the length nor the rank of the poster that could be added into the equation.

We cannot apply such a rule or feature that is very subjective. Some are not native English speaker, that may say less but is worth reading.

Quote from: NeuroticFish on September 26, 2023, 10:58:02 AM

I hope that you don't expect somebody (moderator?) would read every post and give it some points/ranking, right?

That's a lot of work to do actually.

m2017

legendary

Activity: 1792

Merit: 1296

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Quote from: Zoomic on September 26, 2023, 11:38:31 AM

Quote from: m2017 on September 26, 2023, 11:18:45 AM

But nuances arise. How to evaluate the usefulness of posts? Merit is not a 100% objective measure of usefulness. Especially in the hands of merit sources, who sometimes throw away merit in batches left and right, which casts doubt on the usefulness of certain posts.

You have a great observation here. I admire your sense of reasoning. As you said, this could cause another problem whereby we may have a group of people who may agree to keep one another's post on the first page. They may keep sending merits to the posts to keep them at the top even when the post quality does not worth it.

Be careful with this, flattery is my weakness.

I just expressed my point of view and my vision of the situation, which, in my opinion, seemed the most noticeable. Neither merit nor such an abstract concept as the quality of a post are adequate criteria for ranking posts. Until now, the time of the post was used (the earlier post is located at the beginning of the topic) and probably nothing better can be thought of (without compromising functionality and systematicity).

Quote from: Zoomic on September 26, 2023, 11:38:31 AM

Quote from: m2017 on September 26, 2023, 11:18:45 AM

The idea of ranking posts based on merit seems interesting (moving posts with merit to the front pages), but wouldn't that disrupt the natural flow of discussion on the forum and create confusion in the sequence of posts? That is, it will turn out that the answers to the questions will be in front (the first pages) of the questions themselves. In my opinion, this will create chaos with posts.

Disruption of the natural flow of conversation is your strongest point and I do no think I have a way off it for now. Thanks for your seasoned contribution.

Need to think, perhaps it will be possible to find some kind of solution if the bitcointalk community needs it. No thanks needed. I was just glad to be helpful, but this is not the most significant contribution, to put it mildly, in finding a solution to the problem you voiced.

Quote from: OcTradism on September 27, 2023, 09:31:50 AM

Quote from: LoyceV on September 27, 2023, 08:23:44 AM

However, a third party would be able to do this! @TryNinja has a very nice database with posts, and he could probably sort them based on the Merit they received.

A userscript of hatshepsut93 can do it. Filter posts by most merited posts in a thread.

I read this topic to the end and discovered that the solution was found back in 2019.

OcTradism

hero member

Activity: 1722

Merit: 801

Quote from: LoyceV on September 27, 2023, 08:23:44 AM

However, a third party would be able to do this! @TryNinja has a very nice database with posts, and he could probably sort them based on the Merit they received.

A userscript of hatshepsut93 can do it. Filter posts by most merited posts in a thread.

I can not quote the userscript quote in this post (error but why I can not quote it ?) so you can get the code from hatshepsut93's post.

Quote from: hatshepsut93 on October 22, 2019, 03:07:31 AM

Here you go, it adds a "sort by merit" button right before the "reply" button. Works well even on large threads, tried it with all posts from the anniversary art thread.

Saisher

full member

Activity: 2324

Merit: 175

It will not work for a popular forum when a single discussion can generate hundreds of replies you'll have to check all the replies to vote for the best ones and most of the time those late replies give additional information that may be lacking on the earlier replies and not all the voted best replies are the best answers there is a difference between popular and factual on replies.

tbct_mt2

hero member

Activity: 2366

Merit: 838

Quote from: TheUltraElite on September 27, 2023, 08:41:40 AM

I see the point and maybe I have myself thought of the same at times. Now the concept of the forum traditionally has been the chronological order for posts.

Default setting, in a thread, posts will be from oldest to newest but if you customize your setting, posts can be displayed from newest to oldest but I don't like this order. It is hard to view a thread with this reverse displaying order.

I would like to read OP, eary posts and make my comments if I can contribute for the thread or can help OP.

Quote

"Arrange by merit" maybe a good option but then the problem that arises but everyone overlooks is that the voice of the rest of the forum gets wiped under the rug and that is a bad thing. Merit sources might have to read through threads for finding posts to merit and this problem remains as it is. Overall I dont see how we can improve on this, but feel free to come up with suggestions.

Merit ordering sounds good but in flow of discussion, it will make me feel uncomfortable to get the flow and I don't like it. I read a post not only because it is merited and a post without merit can have some interesting idea or information.

Code:

Show most recent posts at the top.

TheUltraElite

legendary

Activity: 2898

Merit: 1253

So anyway, I applied as a merit source :)

I see the point and maybe I have myself thought of the same at times. Now the concept of the forum traditionally has been the chronological order for posts. There are methods to rearrange posts in a thread based on maximum likes and maximum comments and so on.

"Arrange by merit" maybe a good option but then the problem that arises but everyone overlooks is that the voice of the rest of the forum gets wiped under the rug and that is a bad thing. Merit sources might have to read through threads for finding posts to merit and this problem remains as it is. Overall I dont see how we can improve on this, but feel free to come up with suggestions.

LoyceV

legendary

Activity: 3290

Merit: 16489

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I always imagined part of the reason to introduce the Merit system was to use it to differentiate between posts once enough good posts have been Merit. It just never happened. I can think of many pitfalls, so it's probably a good thing.

However, a third party would be able to do this! @TryNinja has a very nice database with posts, and he could probably sort them based on the Merit they received. I did it for Bitcointalk's 10th anniversary art contest (for some reason none of the images work through the image proxy anymore, so it's useless now), and for that topic it made sense. For most topics it will completely mess up the discussion, or show very old posts. Imagine sorting by Merit on the Wall Observer thread, you'll end up with more or less random posts instead of a discussion.

NotATether

legendary

Activity: 1568

Merit: 6660

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: NotATether on September 27, 2023, 05:29:46 AM

There's probably tens of millions of topics by now, so implementing any PHP algorithm to sort the records by "usefulness" (however that's defined) before they are returned to the client is going to tax the server every time someone clicks on a topic, and the drop in loading speed will be noticeable.

Shouldn't such algorithm implemented directly on the database?

MySQL (That being the forum's database server program) doesn't have a way to make a procedure out of such a complicated sorting feature as usefulness, because it requires analyzing the entire text and only machine learning can do that.

Besides, when the only contents of your post table are "ID", "user", "text", and "merits received", and the language is SQL, there is only so much you can do.

348Judah

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If you're suggesting that the best replies should appear first on a thread, that means any reply made that is not rated the best or among the best should then be a low quality reply which automatically qualify it to be off topic or low quality post, now the issue here is who will be responsible in sorting out replies made, how and what criteria will you use to determine the low quality post from the best replies to rate each accordingly, i hope you never underestimate the delivery capacity of everyone here because we all keep learning each day, quality post or replies is not by rank or being centralized on particular set of people, everyone including you can make that required standard and deliver the best and your replies may be on the last page, what matters is the conveyance of the required information in what you post.

Majestic-milf

hero member

Activity: 1008

Merit: 629

Quote from: UchihaSarada on September 26, 2023, 09:03:52 PM

Best reply with you can be not a best reply with me. Because you have your knowledge that is different than me. What you need, what can help you can be different than what can help me. A post is helpful with you can not be helpful with me because I already know about that knowledge.

If a best reply is only based on its received merit, it is not correct too. Received merits can be emotionally distributed by merit sources and how thin or deep their sourced merits is at a time they click on Merit. Received merit can be from farm accounts too so it does not good to use for choosing a best reply.

We are thinking on the same wavelength. Although the Op is making a suggestion, I feel he's trying to say something but he's not wanting to be clear about it.
Everyone has their way or rating good reply thats why sometimes a well written, comprehensive post may not get the deserved merits but someone can jumble the English and someone else will understand the message they are trying to pass across and then dole out merits.

Coin_trader

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I made almost same request like this last year https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.60258814 but for Beginners and Help Board to easily locate an answer for all the trivial questions thread for easy filtering all the post since thread here can be easily flooded due spam post from signature campaigns.

But same problem arise abotu who will determine the top answer for that specific question. This is really good for newbie to easily find the answer when they use the search bar and see similar question thread on there mind but this feature will obviously need to have a voting system or a centralized touch to come up with the accurate result. Additional work load therefore very hard to implement.

Lucius

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Quote from: Zoomic on September 26, 2023, 10:54:47 AM

I have this habit of reading through many replies to a thread before I will respond. At the course of reading through few pages of a thread before replying, I discovered that;

It's a good habit and it makes sense because in this way you avoid that in your post (if you're going to write it) you won't repeat what others have already written before you.

Quote from: Zoomic on September 26, 2023, 10:54:47 AM

The earliest replies get more attention and earn more merit
Some of the replies from pages 3 upwards are repetition of what others said in pages 1 and 2.

That's just proof that few members read more than the first to a maximum of 3 pages of a topic, and then what about topics that are meaningless in themselves and have 10 or more than 15 pages each and serve as spam megathreads for sig campaign spammers.

From time to time, some members appear who wonder how it is that they can never get merits, and they don't realize that their posts are buried under a pile of garbage and that probably no one has even read them.

Quote from: Zoomic on September 26, 2023, 10:54:47 AM

I also understood that some of the quality contributors sometimes arrive late and their replies get buried easily

I therefore propose that, if possible, the arrangement of replies to a thread should be based on the number of merits that reply earned in that very thread. This will tend to sort the quality replies to appear in the first page no matter what time it was made.
~snip~

What you imagine is perhaps technically feasible, but as others have already mentioned, we cannot always rely on merits as something that defines whether a post is of better quality than another in the same topic. I often notice that some members favor certain members when it comes to merits, regardless of the fact that someone else has written an equally good or maybe even better post.

Such a way of sorting posts would theoretically allow some 10-20 members to be at the top in each topic, which would mean even more merit for them, and even less opportunity for those who really need merit to reach the next rank.

Findingnemo

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Actually i have no problem with OP's idea, as long as it's not enabled by default and user must manually click button such as "Sort by merit, date" on each thread. Just don't forget not all reply has quote of thread/it's previous reply which could cause confusion.

Sorting replies by the number of merits is not a really good idea cause how can we decide that the post that has more merits is the best reply of every thread cause it varies due to different factors.

For example, a post that is on the first page possibly will get more attention so likely to get more merits if the content serves the purpose of the OP's query but sorting replies based on merits will collapse the structure of the discussion and a thread is supposed to be a place discussion happens so implementing such feature as default may create a chaos overall.

NotATether

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It's not Reddit or Stack Exchange with an upvote/downvote system - and please leave merit out of this - it's just an ordinary discussion forum.

There's probably tens of millions of topics by now, so implementing any PHP algorithm to sort the records by "usefulness" (however that's defined) before they are returned to the client is going to tax the server every time someone clicks on a topic, and the drop in loading speed will be noticeable.

Topic: best replies should appear first in a thread. - page 3. (Read 1025 times)