Topic: best replies should appear first in a thread. (Read 942 times)

I think it’s a great idea to include a sorting feature, for example, sorting by most merits, sorting by latest posts, sorting by rank, etc. with your default sorting set as your default chronological order.
This way, you don’t have to mess with your existing order of posts. You can use it however you want.
If you prefer your posts to be in their default chronological order, that’s fine too.

You are right because adopting the like and upvote patter will kill the order flow if comments with most likes/upvotes are made to appear at the top. It will also make it extremely difficult for those who read every comment in a thread as they will not know the chronological order of the flow of the conversation. If you ask me, I thing the forum is fine the way it is arranged... if you stopped in a particular page, when you return you can just continue from that page and read down. In this case, you will not miss any single comment.

I think the system will be similar to the upvote on reddit, but I don't think that kind of system is suitable in all thread/OP or in all section, especially on the thread or section when the focus is just to discuss, rather than finding a solution, in the thread where the focus in discussion like this OP, I prefer a chronological order like the current system, so I wouldn't miss the context for all argument/statement that quote other replies.

However, that system might be suitable on a certain forum section like Beginner and Help where the most of the thread were made to find a solution for a certain problems, so I guess an extra option won't hurt, but it shouldn't be the default option.

It's not obvious always that the earliest replies will get merit, it depends upon the reply that is the reply according to the post or it is just spam. Mostly those replies get merit which is according to the post or someone helps each other in a way the help is needed.
Some people look at others' replies to what they said in the bitcoinTalk to that post, so sometimes there are some talks in their minds, which suddenly come to a person's mind and thus he replies to the post.
And if someone likes a person's reply and gives it merit while it is not according to the post, and another person doesn't like the reply, How could that message be kept on the front page?
Also, you will see the merit posts on the first pages and you will find other users' posts and search for them going to other pages, I don't think it's a good idea.

Agreed, I don't think DT1/DT2 should have anything to do with judging post quality - it's purpose was for trust, it should remain in that category alone.

That makes zero sense and if we continue like this way, I am afraid being a reputable member will become a burden on this forum rather than a privilege. Also, this forum is not a twitter or facebook and we shouldn't turn it into that one.

Why should they do that? Why should it become their duty?

---

Just leave things the way they are regarding to post sorting. You guys are asking for a headache for no real reason. First of all, it's not duty for DT members to read posts instead of you, don't be so lazy, reading will also help you to advance your English. Then, every opinion matters. You better report spammy posts, so, moderators can remove them. If we empty threads from spammy posts by reporting them, then we will be left with threads where every comment is on-topic and nice to read.

I think chronological responses are probably best - especially for keeping track of things.

I wouldn't mind some sort of indicator that suggests as a reply is the "top voted" or "top merited" response. Would incentivize good posting (especially for those running sig campaigns to hire actually decent posters)

And not only that. Moving the best replies to the first pages assumes that these best answers are simply given to the OP's question. But the topics are interesting not only for direct answers to the first post, but also for the discussion that arises along the way. And often very good posts may have almost nothing to do with the OP's question, but are a response or comment to what other members writing in the thread have said. If all these best posts are artificially moved to the 1-2 pages, then the consistency of the discussion will be lost and it will be unclear why a certain post is considered the best, because it will be taken out of context.

You're thinking this way about early replies having all the attention because when a user opens a thread it's the first page that appears and due to this you feel they get more attention than others which for me it's not true. There are users that still move through page to pages taking their time to read replies/opinions of different members about a topics and am saying this because I have had replies that still got merited  even at 5-7 pages upwards and other person's can attest to this for themselves too.

For research purposes and scholarly benefits a good reader must know that great treasures are not hidden on the surface and therefore must dig deep to get the best therefore for people that knows what they want they can't just rely on the first two or three pages of a thread they will hence dig deeper to more pages (and I thinks that's how a good number of my replies received the merits they got).

 Quality can't be hidden from those that take time to look for it. So where on a page it falls on doesn't really count.

If replies should be arranged in the very pattern  as you've suggested it would worsen the monotonous replies you earlier complained about in the preceding statement under number 2 of your discovery. 
And this could make replies boring having no variety of taste as everyone will want his reply to be at the first two pages which will make almost 95% of replies in a thread align more on the ideas that appears on the first two pages believing it will get to receive merits as those that are already in the first 2 pages did.

 And indirectly we will unknowingly be promoting merit phishing in the forum if such idea is given relevance as a criteria to sorting out quality post. Because the question is, who determines a quality post? It's still debatable as to who on the grounds that it's a subjective matter.

Let's base it on Ignore lists, much easier.

Like we have DT1 and DT2 lists, they can choose which reply is more relevant and valuable in the list.

And how exactly will this list of trusted users be updated? And how to reconcile this with the merit system? This will not lead to positive results, it will be even more subjective, than it is now, because there will be an even greater inequality between "trusted" users, which means - those who registered a long time ago and have many merits, and newbies and low ranks, for whom the chances of getting into the list of these trusted members will be even smaller than with the merit system.

I would like to share my idea on this matter.
The forum needs to add a like feature we have on many social media platforms or upvote type feature, but not everyone can upvote/like the replies to come on top of the thread,
some trusted users of the forums are allowed to like/upvote the replies after reading them and deciding that is it a valuable reply or not.

Like LoyceV said, it could depend on the amount of smerit the user has, but aside from what he's said,I think that every member on this forum, whether merit-source or non-source, is mostly subjective in terms of awarding merit (I agree with what Mpamaegbu said). I sometimes also think that favoritism has arisen in the merit system, where a user can still have a load of merit but can only give more merit to a user with whom they are pleased, considering the quality of the post.

I have come across a thread where the first comment was of great quality but from a low rank member, and he received just 1 merit, but the second comment was almost the same idea as the first comment but from a high rank member, so he received 5 merit from the same user that merited the first comment. I sometimes wonder why it's so, but I thought to myself, "Every member has the right to award any amount of smerit to whomever they want to, as long as it is not in a merit-abusing manner, like sending smerit to their alt accounts.

Sometimes? Really? The whole merit system is totally subjective. These mystical criteria for quality posts and contributions to the forum do not have a clear form and definition. And all this leads to a situation where users try to adapt their posts to these "standards", destroying their own style and making posts unnatural and artificial. Instead of sharing original thoughts, we often see a situation where forum members compete in repeating the same thesis, trying to make this repetition as qualified as possible. But at the same time, the greatest amount of merit is not received by these refrains, but by something new and unusual. And something that often has nothing to do with those obscure criteria that everyone likes to refer to. Moreover, in favor of the subjective nature of the merit system, also testifies the fact that usually more merits are given to those posts that have already received merits. But being the first to give credit for a post is usually difficult for some reason.

Yes, I also thought about that before dropping the comment you already quoted, but I also noticed that a lot of forum members have more s-merit, but still, when some come across a post that is not up to their standard and the post is supposed to receive even more merits, they give low merits to the post.
But when other members see that same post, they give it more merit, although it still depends on the amount of merits a user has, because I have seen a situation whereby the same post has been merited twice by the same person and I feel that the person who merited the post didn't have enough merit at first.

Nah... It would be a disaster in the merit system and who should be in charge of this group? To me if such a group is being created I feel it will damage the whole merit system, is best for it to be this way. If you think the merit system is slow then we all have to wait. The best thing to say is add more merit source to help the ones that are already in the system. People or should I say users abuse any little opportunity given to them so if that happens some might play with it, and it will also increase these account farmers to be all over the Forum.

I can understand why, defenitely the sockpuppet problem, indeed something that has plagued the trust system previously as well. Just that it came to my head and I put it up for discussion to see how people might think.

Regardless, the term best or good are relative, which has become the crux of this thread now, whether someone rewards merit to them is a separate idea. I get that, but the Noise/Signal is still high and there is no deterrent to the noise.

Still the status quo seems to be better than any change at the moment.

just no.

and if such a group is created i would simply put all these merit pointers on ignore.

Chances are it depends on the amount of sMerit the user has piling up.

I totally disagree with what you just said. Every poster must not get a merit reward from a merit source, because what can be quality in your eyes might end up not being quality in my eyes, just because everyone can not be the same as you think or, as I think. So, if a post is not quality enough to get a merit reward from a merit source, that same post could be quality for any of us to merit it, although the merit system is not for posts that are only of quality to a merit source, but if the post have points that sound somehow interesting, and supposed to receive a total of five merits but because it is not quality enough, the post might receive 2 or even 1.

If you observe, you will see posts that have 20 merits, 10 merits, 8 merits, 5 merits, 3, 2, even 1 merits in just one post but get merited by different users, both merit source and non-merit source. That is not because the post is not good, but some people who give the post lower merits see the post as not quality enough and those who give the post high merits see the post to be high quality.

So that is to say, you might not like what I like, and I might not like what you like.

That's why sometimes people give the merits can be subjective. Each person can have a different view about the quality and usefulness of a post. It can depend on the perception, knowledge, experience, and the need of each individual.

No, merits shouldn't be the only a measure of the quality of a post. But if a post gets merits, there must be something valuable on the post. Low quality post or useless post can't get merits. It it still gets merits, there should be something wrong with the members who send the merits. I believe a post which deserves to get merits is a post that fulfill the minimum standard* of good posts.

---

* On topic, constructive, useful, valuable, informative, etc

I am very far far away of being merit course, and I also believe that merit system is more subjective, and that will be an obstacle in the way of becoming one, I guess, but when I see a post I found to be of a high quality, constructive and sometimes the one I simply agree with, but I don`t have enough sMerit to appreciate it with, I make a note for myself, and return to it when I have better ability to reward it. At first, I also thought that someone else would give merits, because a good post will definitely not be missed, I could not be the only one whose attentions caught.

But then I saw many times that good posts remained without merit, or received 1-2, which in my opinion is extremely few, because merit sources are able to give from 10 and more, but they do this mostly for those users who already have a lot of merit, and not for those who still have room to grow. Therefore, I decided to return to such posts myself and reward them. Sometimes, of course, only those merits from me are very few, but I am sure that such an approach still allows us to correct the situation when good posts do not receive merits at all, because other users do not have sMerits at that moment, and then such posts simply get lost in the flow, and become forgotten.

Thanks for the merit rain. Yes, I do get nudges to apply to be a merit source but the literary long wait for Godot isn't what my patience can carry. I wish theymos could attend to such issue speedily, so those accepted or rejected would know their fate and move on.

Once again, thanks.

I agree with you completely because being too fixated on earning merits really kill the fun of the forum and make discussion here sort of boring as people will tend to jettison their opinion in order to align with those of merit sources or those they feel will give them merits. I have seen few threads where everyone make comment just to align with the big people because they need the merits. If I'm not wrong, this should be one of the biggest Bitcoin community and considering the very essence of Bitcoin, people are supposed to feel free to express their views, criticize positively, disagree to agree and just have fun. The moment we make everything about the merit, then there will be serious problems.



I know a lot of people that are so committed to the forum that they read each and every comment in any thread they are following, giving merits to deserving comments irrespective of the page the comment. These are people I respect a lot as I have not see such level of commitment. They are always willing and help, guide and correct any misconception as it relates to Bitcoin and blockchain. Furthermore, since threads with with the latest comments comes to the top, most people usually go the latest comments and this shows that every comment gets the needed view and attention.

This problem arise because there's no punishment, there are many users are still giving their sMerit to their gangs, this is really easy to notice when someone receive and send merit to the same user over and over. We need de-Merit feature and only merit sources are able to use it.

Let's say I make a complaint about this matter, it's useless because they only get neutral feedback since theymos have stated DT user who leave negative feedback about merit will not become a DT member anymore.

If I drag this "merit connection" to cheating (using alt accounts to participate in a same campaign), people will not believe it and start asking more evidence because merit isn't a strong evidence.

I've said it before: being a Merit source often feels like a burden. Don't get me wrong: I like being able to reward good posts, but there's an ever increasing pile of sMerit waiting to be distributed. Right now, I have 175 source sMerits again, and it keeps going up. I can't find 175 good posts today, so I send larger amounts. That's how the system is supposed to work: it gives others the chance to distribute it further.

Of course it's subjective, but I also believe on average it turns out quite okay.

This is difficult:
I've also changed my view on this: the Merit system was supposed to stop spammers, not the average poster. If someone isn't a spammer, that's enough for me to Merit them.

You can of course apply to be a Merit source. It requires "some" patience though

Interestingly, the merit system has now formed a fulcrum for most campaign managers in getting members into their campaigns. To get high paying campaigns, members would go extra length to get loads of merit. I'm one of those who believe that the merit system is more subjective than objective and doesn't represent quality at all time (just like you noted too).

I wish I had some merit to splash on your comment. Again, another merit deserving post but I lack the ability to splash any on it and I believe there are others who would've done so too but lack merit.

I guess there are a smaller number of merit sources on this site compared to users who are not merit sources. So, everyone on this forum, be it M source or non M source, usually has their own way of awarding merit. You cannot just say that other comments are noise (although so many shitposts can appear) because you can't fully be sure if it's noise or not; it could be a comment that someone else can learn from. If a merit source visits a thread and notices a few comments on the first and second pages that seem appealing and of good quality to them, they can decide to give merit to those comments, but I could proceed to read pages four and five of that same thread and I can see a very good comment that is very appealing and educational for me, and I can just decide to merit that comment.

So, every member on the forum, apart from the merit source, has their own way of distributing their merit, depending on who they wish to give it to. Also, I think they distribute their merit on posts that they think are appealing to them.

I already mostly read only those comments that are more merited or are from reputable members, who I know write good stuff, scrolling such way doesn't need any implementation and is easier to do. I understand, this also makes me skip replies that could potentially be quality, but I do not care that much.

What you gotta say in response to any technical analysis/problems in Bitcoin that's depicted by your braincells alone??.. yunno how much more people read sleeplessly, all through the nights just to become gurus?? And for this reasons, have been online all through - that any complaints that's filed in, gets a response from them almost immediately?? Can the late comers - as you call them - make such sacrifices??...
Chill buddy!

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

If this will be implemented then what will be or what are the criteria to determine what post are the best or which post is the best that will be displayed first in the forum?. Merit system is already here and it is also used to reward forum members who posted good/high quality post which means the post is one of the best post in the forum and to prove it is where the merit comes although some good post are not seen or missed by some people and that's why there's no merit but to find a way for that is the reason why there's a thread about submitting a good post that isn't merited or never receive a merit.

The purpose of the merit system is to mark those comments that carry value in order to stand out from the rest of the noise. So if the merit sources are not going to the fourth or fifth page to read on those, then the purpose of the merit system does not get fulfilled but is only a superficial idea.

I can speak for the sources too, they are humans and they get tired of reading through bucketloads of cesspool.

---

One idea that came to me:

Apart from merit sources, another group needs to be created like "Merit Pointers" - these are users who help the merit sources reach the posts that they feel need merit. We already have people posting their list of merit worthy posts on threads created for similar purpose, but a button to mark these posts seems to me as a forward step.

In my opinion, I don't think that is necessary. There are some people who arrive late to a thread; let's say the thread has gotten to four pages, but because they still wish to drop their opinion, they can drop quality comments, which might likely not earn any merit, probably because merit has already been awarded to users that made quality comments on the first page. But one thing I understand is that sometimes the OP may not even get the idea he wanted from a comment that received merit; he may even end up getting the idea he seeks from the fourth page, which may not bear any merit. So, sometimes it's not really about a comment getting merit; the thing is, did everyone or the OP learn from that comment? It could even be that a non-merit comment presented a great idea too. We learn every day from every day, and you never can tell what experiences others have shared in their comments that could be helpful to the reader.

I kind of like the idea of this one but this tends to create an echochamber of opinions and ideas which isn't my jam given that in an ideal world, all opinions should have an equal footing when it comes to being heard. I think that the FCFS(First Come First Serve) system employed in the forum right now is working just fine plus the effort of the one who have created the Bitcointalk SuperNotifier for people that wants to keep up with the latest posted topics would be in vain and I like to use that Telegram bot.

They will because the early replies often set the tone for the discussion.

This is not always true, there are some topics where perspectives and opinions cannot be repeated because of how many perspectives and opinions a topic can have. The first page often contains nineteen replies to a topic after the OP's post, the second page will contain Twenty replies. After page one and two you would have had about thirty-nine replies of which not all will be proper perspectives and opinions. The response on the first and second page are not always the most reasonable or proper perspective/opinions.

Different time zones, so many of us see the topics at different times.

As someone interested in a topic, Always try to read through the replies so you do not miss out on the best replies. 

OP you said you do take your time to read every replies before commenting yours, if I'm not mistaken right? What if we already have about 25+ replies before your arrival, are you saying you'd leave what the OP is saying about the thread (which is the key to start up your point) and be glancing through every 25+ comments? Hmm.
Sometimes the best part of those comments are found at the end and those who started the comments in page 1 or 2 might be battling with same replies like repeating same thing, call it spamming.
And what you see as quality post and drop merit another might see it as blabbing and to that person the post you dropped even 500 merit that person might see it as rubbish so the way you see things and accept it might be different from other people. You know, everyone have different taste for something.

You are right, and there is another drawback to this, which is there are many shitposters here who can get merits on their posts to keep them on top, and many will give that post merit too, just because others have given it. I know you must be thinking about where those shitposters will get merits, you are a newbie here, many people have alts, and they try to give merits hunt merit like a hunter.

Well, if they are able to get merits then all the good posts will be buried under mud and no one can actually get benefit from those, I mostly read whole threads if there are only 2 to 4 pages but if the pages range from 4 to 8 then I just read those whom I found good posters. Because with time I came to remember some names and do know that the post from this member must be a good one.

I believe others have contributed quite well to this discussion but I just want to add mine as well because my reasoning might be different from what other have said and it could be right or wrong but the more view we have to this topic the better we understand it. I want to start by saying not all quality posts get merited. Sometimes the more quality response don't get noticed and the reason differs based on individual posts like the poster not been a well known user for his quality contributions yet, or those that saw the contributions didn't have smerits at that time to reward the posts so ranking posts based on merit will be an injustice to those quality posts that didn't get merited and as the saying goes, instead of an innocent man to be convicted, let the guilty be set free irrespective of their numbers so instead of one worthy post not been ranked at the top of the relies, let all the less worthy post be there based on it is nwo (first come, first post).


You did well and here are some reason I feel it won't make sense to sort the thread by merited replies.

• Each thread has a flow of discussion like from one discussion (OP) other discussion (subtopics) pops up on that thread and sorting the thread by merit will obstruct the flow of discussion on the thread.
• It'll bring about more merit abuse as people will want their replies to be at the top of the threads so they'll be abusing the merit system often to achieve that.
• It might lead to campaign managers only accepting users that their replies are always top of the thread which will leads to my second point (merit abuse)

It was going to get renamed to merittalk for a while back then

But seriously I do agree a major point in this forum is the merit earning and the reason why people flock in this forum so much is because of the campaigns that are run and the merit needed to get into them. Whatever disucssion we end up doing, merit becomes a key factor in it.

Still I guess this thread has served it purpose and the community created tools to show max merited posts first should help out instead of anything official from theymos. I think the topic should be closed now.

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?
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

That's a lot of work to do actually.

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).

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.


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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.


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.


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.

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.

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.

Of course, there will be compatibility features, and it's coming from a third party I just want to point out to OP there's existing already but it's different when it comes to compatibility, there are requests that cannot be granted because of compatibility to the forum version Bitcointalk is using, when I still have an active forum I faced a lot of issues when it comes to compatibility, it's better for an SMF to have a simplified features it loads faster and few bugs the best replies should appear in a thread feature will totally shake up how the posters view the threads and posts.

I think post are being merited according to how you finds it useful and helpful besides others may not see it interesting therefore may not be merited or may not value it. So if judging by merits then I can say is wrong, have you seen were someone post nothing much meaningful and gain merits to it? Yes some are just because that person is a giver as well and has gained popularity and to whatever they posted they easily gets merits but this doesn't show how constructive the post is to other people. Besides other thing I noticed is that a thread are being sorted according to how they replied there's no way it would be on random sorts rather than # counting from 1 to last page.

@hatshepsut93 published a script some time ago that allows one to sort by merits a given thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.52836909

In the context for the thread it was initially aimed at, the Anniversary Art Contest, it’s an alternative view that could make sense. In general terms though, it will break the order of the conversational flow, leading to likely missing out comments that build-up to a given posted answer/comment.

You're talking about reddit, such interface will make advertisement become better, but it's not good for reading all the replies because it ruin the arrangement.

I wouldn't surprise to see a drama about merit because merit selling is very possible here, to make the user who wear their signature comes up into the first page. The problem of merit selling is good evidence, people could deny it's not merit selling by saying giving merit is subjective.

OP, if I were you I would lock the thread. Just so you don't continue to accumulate opinions against your idea. You have had an idea, about which people are mostly against and now it is time to move on.

Of all the responses most are radically against it, and a few say that some of what you say makes sense but they don't see the need for it. You can add one more to those who are radically against it, mine. This forum is fine showing replies in chronological order, there is no need to change it nor would it be positive at all.

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.

I doubt this current forum software is compatible to that upgraded version. Also, there's already merit system which work the same for this. It could be more helpful if there's a sort feature of every thread's reply, the most/least merited reply, oldest/newest, etc..

Is merit an absolute determinant of what a quality post might have been or identifies best replies, let alone a thread?

I think not. Most of the things we work with here on the forum are subjective and time bound. You wouldn’t expect a reply made at 12noon just to be repasted at an earlier time let’s say, 9am just because it had merits on it while others didn’t and it’s perceived to be the best response.

If is boiled open your year a little I’ll say, merits attracts more merits and people tends to merit posts that already had merits on them. Also, users as well do follow up certain users posting style and merit based on discretion.

That doesn’t make the posts any better from the rest.
It’s just normal to scan a thread by reading through in such for response of interest and when satisfied, you’ll be good to go unto the next.

No, no, no and one more time - no! No offence, but I think it's bad idea. Like most here already said, posts should be shown in chronological order - from start to the end. I'm not sure what's point to show one post out of context alone on the top. It's same like book - you don't read it from 54th page, you read it from 1st page to the last page.
 

It will definitely affect the arrangement of the thread and it’s post, the replies was arrange in such a way that it looks more like a chat group where they follow sequentially. But if you bring those replies up base on merit then you will have a disorder. I have notice that most replies that actually get those merit more are the replies that sometimes correct the mistakes from  other members replies, so if you arrange them base on merit then the replies that were corrected will be bury down.

This idea wouldn’t work out because if there is no merit then which of the posts comes first and or will the moderators be given another very hand work to fish out the best replies? The whole concept is good but surely one can’t be implemented. The best thing is if a thread is related what you are interested in then find sometime and go through it. You Might even find something helpful for you without it been merited to take It up the post ladder

Do we have a benchmark of how we will determine the quality of a post? Sometimes comments that look stupid at first glance can be valuable if you look deep enough. People have different approaches and points of view to judge a topic and react to it. Someone's comment might just share his points of view and it doesn't add any real value to most of the forum members.

BTW i am familiar with point number 4. How to use this use scrip?

I agree with you but this does not happen in all cases. And this also depends on the person meriting you on how they tend to relate your post to their own opinion on the post, whether it’s worth giving merit or not.


This happens but not in all posts. If you will take your time to go through the replies until the last page, you’ll hear different opinions and views on people no matter how slightly different it is. That is why some users get merited in the later pages than the first page.


This is left for the OP to follow up on the replies of people on his post. If he seeks to really get answers to what he asked while creating the thread, he won’t neglect it and continue to interact with the people on that thread until maybe he finds the perfect answer to his question. Those that go through replies can also see a good reply in one of those pages and can easily merit them, hence the reason why some later post have more merit than the first page of reply.

Topics can be rearranged using

 - Show Most Recent Post at the Top
 - add each user who spamming to your ignore menu.
 - Using UserScript to make a specific account replies first
 - Rearrange topics according to merits .

These are 4 simple ways will be enhanced by the quality of replies but I do not think that there is an indication of the quality of replies and changing the arrangement of topics will be a little more difficult to track discussions.

The natural flow of the discussion will be disrupted and the flow that has been sorted according to when the post was made will look messy if it refers to the system that OP wants to implement.

There is also no definite standard as to whether the best post will appear on top or not, as the parameters of a post will be determined by how relevant the comments made are or also by the members involved in the discussion.

Just need to follow how the discussion goes and see whose posts or responses are really relevant and deserve to be given merit or something else.

OP is good enough to give his ideas, whether they are implemented or not is for the forum developers to decide.
We see that the Bitcointalk forum currently has a good system order, as well as the implementation of the merit system, and the latest is the use of the sign (OP) as a marker that the member is an Original Poster, and it has been 1 year since the OP sign (SMF patch) was implemented and initiated by PowerGlove.

Identifying the OP at a glance (SMF patch)

The first point you pointed out, I completely agree. No deny on that. Sometimes it's not even the first person it's the user. As you become a known person in this forum, and when others who knew you previously, see you comment something good, they simply give out merits.

Even if they arrive late or reply late, that doesn't matter. Those who are really dedicated dig all the way from page 1 to page 10. Even I sometimes read several pages before replying. I think what matters, is the important of a post. If it were useful in any way, you'll see much constructive reply from almost all the top users.

On the other hand, if it were a spam post or shitpost, there won't me much activity anyway. And you won't need to read all the pages.

The thing you are asking for is good but somehow not necessary (My opinion). It may create a mess in that thread. When it's sorted based on dates, it helps a lot in finding a comment and replying to it. But if you sort it based on merit or in any other ways, reply will get scrambled. Who knows where my comment would be. How would others find my comment in a thread where he/she wanted to reply! Is my comment worthy or useless. Who would determine that!

I don't buy this your idea OP, because the reply to a post should be based on first come, first post. Not all replies without merits show that it is not quality enough. A post might be quality to me and not quality to the other person. What matter most is that the discussion is flowing and people are learning and contributing based on the OP or based on the contributions by forum members above.

If the merited post are put on the first page, you will see that the discussion will be zig zag and can set confusion on newbies or members that are trying to learn from the thread. It will kill the fun of the discussion in the forum.

somehow I do agree with you because if the thread goes work like this will not be good. The reason as OP is saying all the post of the threads comes on the first page and it doesn't matter even if they do a late reply and somehow get merit. in this way, other people who are coming to read the thread they will not read other posts that don't get any merit. Those posts will be considered as shit even posts have valuable knowledge right?

in conclusion, I would say it is the best way as it is now. In this way, all the members have the same respect as merited ones. There will be no judgment like which post should be read or not to be read. I think it sounds well.

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.

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.

The best replies may not end up at the top or get the most number of votes, some of the best replies happen after the first or two pages and those who voted may think that they voted for the best replies when there are better replies that will come and missed it, we have the merit system and a post getting merits sometimes happen along the discussion, could be after the end of the discussion, if you create a poll for this I don't think many will agree on having the best reply voted show up on top.
 

Well, it won't be justified to to make someone's reply on top page only because that reply received merits. Sometimes there are very good replies to a post that doesn't receive any merits and those replies are mostly on page no 1 or 2, but if whatever you said is implemented on forum then all those replies will be further away from those 2 pages.

The merits can't justify that how good someone's reply is because merits are sent by members and everyone has difference in their opinions. Let's say if someone agrees with another user's opinion then that person may send the user a merit for that contributive opinion while if others don't agree with that opinion may send merit to someone else's opinion which is totally different from 1st user's opinion.

I believe such kind of system will create much trouble in forum and won't be helpful at all. The ones who make contributive replies will get discouraged if their replies don't appear on the place where they have posted those replies. Such kind of system will be totally a failure if it's implemented on mega-threads as they have thousands of pages and if even a single user receives a merit then his/her post will somehow disappear because it will move to those pages where the replies have received merits.

It's an interesting scientific forum research you did, though. What is the sample? How many topics have you looked at to come to these conclusions? I'm willing to bet not much.

You touched on a very interesting topic and it would be great to conduct a full-fledged study on this topic. For example, by automating the process, because manually, by a person, it will take forever.

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.

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.

There is a modification for this already

Best Answer In fact other forums are already implementing this, if I have a forum I will never implement this as it will not encourage diversity in response readers will just focus on that one reply disregarding all the other incoming replies that could be better than the best reply and besides discussion begets new discussion within a discussion, if you have this it will discourage that.

You do have good thinking, and I have also observed that too, but not everything is about merits. Sometimes, I try to make the first post to see how many members agree with my point of view and how many don't. Because when there are 10 or 20 posts that are mostly made on some topic, then I make mine. I don't get to know anyone's thoughts about it. Like, what do they think about my reply?

That's why I try to make posts that will remain on the first page.

And talking about your suggestion, I don't like it, and I don't want it to be implemented. Because this would become some sort of discrimination. Because not every member tries to copy others' replies, but unintentionally their context ends up the same. And that's not fully true that only the first two posts make good merits, I have seen many threads where people get merits even on the second and third pages.

The point is, we are here to add value and to learn from others, but yeah, merits also matter, and we cannot ignore that fact. But our first priority should not be based on merit.

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

PS. You already said that the first posts get most merits and imho this makes the rule you've proposed somewhat annihilating itself.

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.