Suggestion: Hey Mod: GT Actual Support Forums

I know that this has been suggested as part of the GT Forum software, but it'd be cool if it's actually employed in the actual GT Support Forums, which is a link attached to each post called "Hey Mods" that would allow members to send a quick note and also categorize the message to avoid comments like "Search forum" or Off-topic posting. It would save members time in contacting the Moderators through PM, and also a possible time-saver for Moderators and Administrators to either move threads/posts or delete/lock them.

Just a suggestion...found this to be quite useful in other forums where I frequent these days.
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Buh Bye!

Cheers,
Me

a feature to allow regular users to help moderate the forums in this manner would be very nice. I personally don't have much time to devote to the forums except for my days off from work

One site I frequent very often (gamefaqs.com) has a "message detail" link on each post. Clicking on the link brings up a form allowing you to either choose a pre-defined violation or give a unique reason in a text input box. This system as proved very effective on their forums. The system also keeps track of moderation acuracy, and is tied into a fairly complex karma system controlling forum rights, but that's outside the scope of this topic I guess.

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

Yep, that is exactly what would be helpful for both regular users and moderators.

Another forum that does this exact thing (with radio buttons of reasons, like "Off Topic","Flame","Other" and a text box to make recommendations) is DSL Reports:

http://www.dslreports.com/
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Buh Bye!

Cheers,
Me

I've been looking at this issue for about a week now.

The sites that I've seen seem to use the basic slashdot code for karma, it seems. Using a two-level rating system M1 and M2 whatever they term it.

In trying to get a handle on all this, I'm really confused

Is there any place that describes the theory of karmic ratings, or where people have discussed the problems and solutions for something like this?

In using systems, what would be the pros/cons of a system? No system can ever be everything. People want things to work differently, but there can be some "core" logic that can be developed that can be perhaps built upon.

Some issues:

1) new members: How do they get karma? How are they limited? Do you start a site off with "selected" individuals, or do you wait til people achieve some karmic level to moderate?

2) Moderation? What is the moderation supposed to do?

3) Who moderates? Anyone? Just those assigned as moderators for that day or week?

4) Are karmic values shown, or "obscured" to prevent manipulation?

5) What values are rated? Threads (who gets credit? the originator or everyone?)? Posts? Users?

6) How does a users karma change? By +/- on posts? By direct +/- on the user by members who find them "helpful"?

7) How do you tally "points" (and keep track of them), how do you assign karma? Is karma a level you attain, or is it calculated daily? There are _serious_ pros/cons to each side of that one.

8) Do you track TWO ratings -- karma and relevance? ie: Karma -- is the post liked and enjoyable relavance -- is the post on topic/offtopic/flamebait/etc

9) Do you use a +/- system where 9992 people found this post useful, 821 people found this post not useful, 99 found it off-topic. If so, how many things do you track?? And, display? And, do you only allow REGISTERED users to find posts helpful or not? After all, lurkers may be the ones who benefit most from a post -- and the post applies to lurkers mainly (think a support forum). If you only allow registered users, do you also track how many people had no opinion, and how many people did not read the post yet ?? (you can easily calculate those values from the user database)

10) oh... just about anything else <G>


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I can only comment on my understanding of how the gamefaqs.com karma system works. this probably isn't 100% accurate.

karma points. one automatic karma point for each day you are logged in the forum and visit the site. additional points are gained for each post. ranked users gain points for validated moderation notices, or lose a point for invalidated notices. only one user may flag a specific post for moderatation. points are lost when a moderator has to move, censor, or delete a message.

user levels. as karma increases, forum rights increase. new users are limited in the number of posts they may make per hour/day. eventually, users can post unlimited times and gain the ability to use the "message detail" flagging system. ranked users also gain access to private forums and advanced features such as searching. users cannot become moderators through the karma system.

karmic values. only the total karma value is viewable publicly (displayed on the profile page). only moderators and yourself may view specific information. this includes the accuracy of your use of the "message detail" function, the number of your messages that have been moderated (and an option to view those messages), and so on.

karma tracking. karma only applies to user accounts. whether or not a thread/post is thought to be usefull is irrelevant. the idea is that all posts should at least be on topic or will be flagged for moderation by ranked users and removed by an actual moderator. thus, tracking relevancy on threads is moot.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.

This is still very confusing for me.

Maybe I need a walk through of the logic. Superficially, the way links/GT's SQL is set up, it should be easy to integrate this sort of Karmic system into Community (I would not want to write anything like this for anything less -- for practicality reasons).

But what does "One karmic point for each day a user logs in" mean? Are these collected like coins? Or are they calculated each day some how? If they are collected like coins, are they "spent" or are they simply collected?

Let's say a user rises to 50,000 karmic points. Is that absurd?? Should there be a cap on karma? Should anything over 10,000 (arbitrary numbers for absurdity reasons) be capped? If so, how do you continue to reward people, yet prevent someone from coming unhinged and using their karma to spam the board.

While I like and understand the D&D link to this ethereal karmic system, my programmer side is more demanding of something "orderly" and reasonable, not arbitrary or random.

Rather than munging everything together, into some cloud-like formation, I'm more inclined to create a mulit-threaded system which ranks users on several levels, and could apply an overall score by weighted averages, or such.

For instance, "brownie points" for checking in every day, with a weighted average of 0, perhaps.

Starting new threads (in systems where it matters) 1 point (weighted 1 to 5, depending on the site)

Replying to threads 1 point (weight 1 to 5 depending on site - ie: support board more value to a reply)

Having a post rated "helpful" 1 point (weight 1 to 5)

Having a post rated "unhelpful" -1 point (weight 1 to 5)

Having a post rated "off topic" -1 point (weight 1 to 5)

Having a post rated "harmful" -2 points (weight 1 to 5, or 10)

Ok, these points are "collected" on a daily basis. They accumulate. Then what?

And what checks/balances are there?

Maybe no karma for just "checking in" every day, but rather checking in and rating/moderating.

At this point it starts to get very, very complicated. Slashdot shows that.

So, is there a simpler system? One that is more complicated than number of posts, but not as complicated as multi meta moderation?

Maybe starting with defining GOALS of such a system would give the answers?

1) Encourage posting and interaction.

2) Encourage on-topic, high signal, low noise.

3) Discourage, or even totally trash off-topic or instigators.

4) Reward regular posters, with high signal and low noise habits.

5) Make the system self moderating and as automatic and fair as possible.

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Limiting the number of posts a user can make per day has _some_ benefits. But, also a downside for support forums where an interchange of 4 or 5 messages may be required to solve a problem.

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It's a very, very complicated issue :) But, if the logic can be worked out, it should not be hard to code. The hard part is deciding WHAT to code :)


PUGDOG® Enterprises, Inc.

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Leave a PM here, or better yet, in the
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Wow...nice to see some enthusiasm on this topic, however, all I was requesting was a simple "Hey Mod" communication channel that would reduce the number of "Search forum" and Off Topic posts in the forums....

The "karma system" is a bonus, IMO, give us a way to alert Moderators about "bad" or "off-topic" threads and I'll be happy.
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Buh Bye!

Cheers,
Me

I know, I originally even said I felt that was outside the scope of your topic. I, too, would be happy with just the feature you described. the whole karma system is way too complicated to describe, and I imagine a pain in the arse to implement into existing software and user-base.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.