Hi
I have already posted a message about this but I wanted to reiterate.

The main complaint I have at the moment and from the beginning has been that people don't know when new posts that they are interested in get posted.
Now I know that you may say what about a crystal ball However I feel that with a little help from Jagerman and Alex there may be a solution.

I think that if people could alert a set of users when then post by private message and/or email that they have posted this may well put the unknown into the known.
Hence when you know people will be interested you can tell them (and no need for the crystal ball :) !

I still think that having a similar system for the Private Messages being able to send the same message to a set of people is also a very important function.

John
Significant Media

I have to say that I don't particularly like the idea of telling users that your post is interesting - this leads to things like chain letters, or "funny" jokes sent around through e-mail: things that I don't care about and would rather not read. I want to be the one to decide if I want to read something, not someone else.

So, a couple suggestions along this line that I do like are to have a rating system, and have notification when x number of users have rated the post, and the post rating is above y. I also like the idea of being able to "watch" a specific user in a forum so that you are notified when they start a new thread (or, possibly, when they post at all - but I think the new thread is the more pertinent option).

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Jason Rhinelander
Gossamer Threads
jason@gossamer-threads.com

my feelings on this particular issue is that this ought to be used for administrative purposes. troublesome users/bad threads can be flagged through a rating system and moderators would be notified to approve addititional posts in the thread or by a specific user. Basicly automaticly locking a thread pending moderator review or forcing a cool down period for unruley users.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.

I agree Jagerman, I hadn't thought about the negative side of the voting system . But taking this point into account it would be possible to be only able to say "I love it" and hence enabling the system to bring out very interesting messages.

In this way it wouldn't be a system that would say "your message is rubbish" but rather single out messages to say "this is a great message".

It is a way of letting people interact and help indicate where there is good content. This is a function that on Amazon leads to a list of top reviewers. This enables you go through their reviews that for the top reviewers are often good quality. I suppose you may say that other people may feel left out but then you can't love everybody's messages. And as you say it should be something that you can switch on in the admin area, depending on the type of web site/forum.

I for one, would like to see messages that my friends find interesting and from a general point of view messages that get the 'four stars' from most members...
Significant Media

I'm working on a project that is like a support forum at the moment and is completely tailored to the customers needs so unfortunately they won't be using GForum (their loss I'd say).

However, There is a function that appeared that may interest certain present and future users. They want the client to be able to say The company X's answer "fully covered my question", "partially covered my question" or "didn't cover my question".

In the forum I'm running it wouldn't be applicable but hey I just thought this function may interest someone else or incite people to use GForum for support forums for example...
Especially with the moderation function that's been talked about in another thread...

John
Significant Media