Idea - Thumbs up / Thumbs down box to tick (to help weed out the total BS) . It affects the all internet forums, tv, magazines, whatever, but the fact SO much tech help/info on here is utter bollocks really doesnt help people. Its maybe worse here as drifting is what the kool kidz want to do, so it attracts cruisers and 14y/o fanboys, and when its just posts on a forum nobody can tell if the 'tech info' you have just been given is fact from experience, or some 50th hand info a small boy heard while having an online game on his Xbox. Its not the perfect solution but a little thing you can click under each reply if you think its good or bad info would help people work out whats good and whats shite. Ive no clue about websites so if thats major work, well, it was a nice idea at least, lol
Yep, the rate thread button would do just this if people actually used it. For example, click the 'rate thread button at the top'. Hover over 'current rating'. 2 votes - 3 * average. Because I just voted it 1 star because we already have this system and people chose not to use it. It would certainly bring out the good threads if it was used. However, for anyone that has ever browsed Reddit, that has a good up/downvote system. Completely different software though so I doubt something like that could be added really. And anyway, in future, proper bullshit crap talking threads will just end up being removed once people get bored with them, so I don't personally see anything to improve.
I see what Stav is saying though, that if I come on and say "which is the best engine for my skyline, a Gala24 or a Gala12" then it's going to be really hard to work out which answer I get is a good one, and which is just some nonsense someone overheard at the local cruise. If you have a look in the tech section there's a sticky there asking for people to contribute towards articles and 'how to' guides. It might be possible for people to be given a 'tech expert' badge, or something along those lines, so that it's clear which posters are technically qualified to give advice on things.
Rating a 'thread' is fuck all use though IMO. In 90% of threads there is 2-3 shithot correct replies and 20 replies of total bollocks. So rating a thread is no good, you need to be able to rate individual replies. Threads very rarely have only good and only bad replies, almost always a mix.
Only issue with that is who does the rating? If someone's like "yo u nd a badman turbo on dat wip!!" and then 20 other cretins rate it positively, it makes it look like that's good advice. Technical advice should only really be rated by people who understand it in the first place
So you'd be looking for a more facebook-esque like/dislike system. I see where you're coming from. Hopefully though, we'll have a good selection of accurate tech info in its own section/thread in the technical forum soon (need the time to work through the threads in the tech section and pick out the good ones) and once new good info gets posted up, it will be added to this 'catalogue'. That's the idea anyway - so good information gets singled out and put in a static place, shit stuff gets buried and forgotten about. Edit: Stav, hope you don't mind, I'm going to modify this thread slightly so it can be used for more general suggestions also, so we can keep them all in one place. Ideas are always good.
Whilst in principle its a great idea to have a like/dislike to show whats good advice and whos spouting shite as Chris says problem is that shite-spouters can simply "like" each others crappy advice. Other problem is that in the same vein as the facebook system, people will just start "liking/thumbs-upping" a comment because it has a funny or witty comment in, instead of how valid the advice is.
Thats an ideal world, but anyone rating it would be better than nobody rating it. If it appears under a persons name each time they post (you know, '50 good, 12 bad' or something) it will deffo help. Even I struggle to work out who the fuck im listening to on here 90% of the time. To have the ideal world ones you'd almost need expert tech moderators. Fuck, I'd do it, but unless it was paid work I'd not, lol.
Yeah i think a personal Kudos scale would be good. And also, if people thumbs up comments which are non-technical or whatever it generally doesnt matter. If they are receiving a Thumbs up for a random post they've obviously done something helpful, funny, interesting etc. You would expect these people to be fairly good with their technical posts as well because they are not just general asshats. And by good i dont mean "know there shit and extremely helpful" but maybe someone willing to share their experience even if they are not 100% on the whole subject. me for instance, i often share experiences and say stuff like "i dont know if it will work for you but its what i was told so maybe it will help" .. it might not be the most technical answer but it may be helpful none the less lots of forums do a kudos scale like so: "Piercy received +4 Kudos for the post (more)" *Upon clicking more* "Fred, Bob, Billy, Simon" Then next to the Username: Piercy Kudos: (16) Then the 16 can be a link to maybe view all kudos'd posts. That way when people use the search they might see highly rated answers (in existing threads) as well as being able to see how highly rated a person is when posting on a new thread. Hope this all makes sense. I think it would be a nice idea (even if only trialled for a few months to see the effect). Side note: you could also incorporate kudos with visitor comments (on profiles) that way people could leave a thank you note with the kudos Side note two: Also, i wouldnt include a thumbs down. If people like your post they can thumb it, if they dont they can do nothing. and if its retarded they can report and/or a mod can deal with
I think thumbs down is needed at it will teach people to stop people writing total bollocks just because they feel like it. Most people wont want to have loads of thumbs downs. Forums can be self-moderating to some extent if you have something like that.
On another forum im on we had Karma. You are only allowed to give out say 10 karma points a day and only so many to the same person. People have a little counter under their name (instead of post count :O ) and you can click it if you want and see every reply that they got karma from. It is awarded anonymously with just a short comment box. We had negative karma as well to start with but it just got abused as people did it when they fell out and as hardly anybody had neg karma it was a big deal when you got it blah blah blah.. This is how it looks if you click on your karma overview and heres how it looks under other peoples names, which you can click on and get to the same screen as above for each user. Looks like lots of work mind it did / does work well. Used to be a huge forum as well, more active people than DW :O
The rep thing can be nice. But from experience it can quickly turn very nasty. We had this on another forum which i'm on and people kept giving negative reps for the silliest reasons.
The thing with the technical section is that a lot of 'drift setup' advice is down to personal preference although imo drivers with lots of experience with different cars and setups are better sources for the info. I don't really know what my point is but Stav should have Tech mod rights purely for turbo/engine questions :-) The karma thing will be more of a popularity contest on here
I think theres a "Thank" system for VBB that gets used on other forums so you can see that the correct and useful info is appreciated (per post, rather than per thread), effectively rating the post and the author. I think Zilvia might use a similar system actually? The advantage to using a system like this would be that a simple like would stop a thread turning into a bitch fest between two members with different opinions. If everyone rates one persons response over the other, everyone can see that must be the correct way to do something.
tbh, a limited number of people on this forum should get an extra tag there <------------------- something along the lines of "drift master" "tech master" etc... You have to earn the tags by simply being long standing enough on the forum to earn the respect of its owners. All this Kudos and rating stuff is useless, since if somebody is a dick, but generally give very sound information (stavros) then they won't get the "kudos" - meaning, the system is flawed.
Isn't the tags thing a big ballache to sort though? IIRC they're all well out of date already, esp the 'driver' ones etc. But fuck, even the 'driver' ones help if they were up to date, so you know you getting drift info from someone who has driven rather than a fanboy. I want one saying "Dick, but knows about tuning" Mitto can have one saying "God of the toy car kids"
