Topic: Improving Quality - page 2. (Read 280 times)

I did not mean to replace or adjust the merit systems using votes or likes. These two systems would opperate independently. And I recognize the difference between a discussion forum and a "support" system (which the Stacks are).

As for demerit, I don't favor that either, but included it as it was suggested in other places.

However, I did not consider the issue of alt accounts. This adds of course an interesting twist.

From your comments I take it that you don't think there is anything else that can be considered (aside from the merit system) that would increase the quality of the discussions? It would be disappointing if the quality issue is just a fact of life which simply has to be accepted.

I started a thread about twitter campaigns on the beginners board, and it hasn't received any replies yet. In it I said that I was told to leave and go to Reddit if I wanted to talk about Bitcoin, and that this forum is now all about bounty. This is my thread -
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/twitter-campaigns-posted-on-the-beginners-board-3346535

This is what the forum has come to, and it is difficult to see how it can dig itself out of the bounty hunter hole.

Some users have suggested that a up vote could be introduced which would show that they appreciate the post but, don't think it's worth a merit. The only thing with Stack exchanges system it wouldn't likely work at this forum. Stackexchange is primary used for asking and answering questions. But, this forum is much more complicated than that, and there's probably no real incentive of having an alternate account on stackexchange where here there's multiple reasons why someone may have an alt.

This opens the possibility of abuse, but not only from alt accounts. A lot of people have made a lot of enemies around here specifically those who point out scams and would be targeted by these down votes. This is also why a lot of people including myself are against the idea of a demerit.

I think if we ever introduce a system like this it would have to be limited to a 'like' and you could like a post. Honestly though, I don't think it's a big priority and there's probably better things to worry about.

Merit is very good for this forum. I think dont need to imput dismerit becouse its not youtube and social network. You help another member and give merit as a thanks a lot. For spam and shitpost watching moderators.

I understand that the merit system was implemented to improve the quality of posts and reduces spamming in forums.

With 4 months in operation, it seems that merits delivered to some extent on the second objective, but, at least from what I have experienced thus far, missed to improve on the first.

It is still very rare to find a discussion which is not highly technical in focus that is of a somewhat decent quality. I would love to have a good debate about, for instance, the economic, social, financial, ecosystem etc. impact of bitcoin and crypto-currencies, but very quickly every topic gets flooded with one liners, empty statements withouth any reasoning, and often not even connected in any way to the topic of the thread.

It appears as if the merit system encourages good posts, but does not discourage bad ones. I find this really a shame.

I would like to see whether there are some means that could augment the merit system and which would more effective in raising the quality of some of the discussions and posts.

For instance, on other occasions, the concept of dismerits (negative merits) was suggested.

What I found even more effective is the system that's implemented by, for instance, Stackoverflow, where questions and answers are up of down voted. Applying a similar approach to individual posts together with perhaps means to visually emphasize higher rated posts, might just do the trick.

This, or any similar system, is not meant to replace the merit system. The merit system would be still relevant for gaining ranks and the benefits that come with them. And merits would still be awarded for particularly relevant and good posts. But such up and down voting of posts would be less restrictive (e.g. no limit like with sMerits) and if giving a vote is a simple click, would likely also be more actively used than merits.

I have not considered how difficult it would be to implement any such measure in the software, so this is just meant to kick off a conceptual discussion for the moment.