up voting and down voting threads?

Let me preface this by saying I'm not a computer guy and know nothing about code. I listened to a podcast yesterday and they had the guy that started reddit.com and he said that users have the ability to up vote and down vote certain threads. The up voted threads move to the top of the forum, and the down voted stuff drops down and eventually gets buried. He also said their code was all open source.

Would it be possible to do that here? Users could down vote all the bullshit troll threads that make this place sometimes suck, and up vote the worthwhile stuff bringing it to the top. Like I said I have no idea how difficult this would be to do, after hearing about it I thought it would be great though.

That is a great idea.

This is a great idea and shouldn't be very hard to implement. Along the same lines, adding a like feature to replies rather than filling up the thread with +1

down vote

yes, i like this idea. reddit also gives the ability to up or down vote individual posts within a thread. Too many downvotes on a thread or post makes it go away altogether. the whole site is dynamic where each thread has a position in the forum based on it's popularity (number of upvotes subtracted by downvotes) as with each post within the threads. So the cream rises to the top. I think there is also an algorithm that accounts for time, so old threads don't hang around on the front page forever just because they are popular. See also; subreddits.

implementing a similar voting system on MP would likely keep a lot of the trolls at bay.

democracy.

But i actually think the coding required to pull this off is more complicated than you're thinking. it would be a pretty big change to the entire infrastructure of the forum.

Also, the for sale/wtb section might need to remain as is but maybe displayed separately from other threads. But giving buyers the ability to rate and review sellers is always a nice feature.

The difficult thing with the reddit system is that threads with recent posts aren't brought back to the top. Everything is sorted by upvote/downvote with a little magic juju based on how new the thread is so old threads sink. If you find and post in an interesting older thread, chances are that nobody will see your post because it just stays buried. This leads to a lot of reposts because you need to start a new thread to bring the discussion back to the front/top.

I also second Jon in saying that it would nontrivial to merge the forum system in to the MP system.

I want to add that the current structure of the MP forum works for the purposes of the site. As Mark said, old threads would get buried with the reddit system. And the voting thing may not work so well here. The nature of reddit is a more entertainment based kind of a free for all, and is for the most part self-moderated. Although MP serves as a source of entertainment for sure, I'm not sure that's the route MP should take. I think it's first and foremost, an informational resource.

having each thread "bump" to the top with every new post is a good way to keep all threads active, so long as people are actively contributing. the newer "forum topics you follow" feature is great. helps me find the stuff I'm actually interested in.

The option to ignore certain users' posts would be most welcome.

This is what will happen to MP if you follow through with your Reddit idea.

If you want this type of interface just go over to r/climbing

it already exists and doesn't need to be implemented here.

This is a place for specificity within forums, which I have come to enjoy

I've never been to reddit. I just thought it would work well here in some capacity. Like I said I'm no computer guy. It'd be an easy way for the users to moderate elanor types.

NickinCO wrote:I've never been to reddit.

climbing.reddit.com

If anyone wants to see how "complicated" the Reddit codebase is, it's opensourced over on Github: github.com/reddit/reddit

Not a good idea for lots of reasons:

1. It opens up MP to social exploitation, in that companies/groups can hire people to upvote posts that speak positively about their products or goals, and downvote posts that speak negatively. This is a big problem on Reddit.

2. It stifles discussion. Whether conscious or unconscious, people desire the approval of others. If someone suspects they'll receive downvotes for a comment, it might not get posted at all, regardless of its merit. Eventually, a collective groupthink is formed, which is extremely apparent on Reddit.

3. It dumbs down discussion. Take a look at r/climbing. The most upvoted posts tend to be pictures or short blurbs. Thoughtful articles and stories sink to the bottom.

4. Upvoted comments aren't necessarily "good" comments, and downvoted comments aren't necessarily "bad" comments. Unfortunately, a lot of people will see it that way, especially newer climbers. Within a large population, it's guaranteed that the average person is not well informed on every subject, and it's a lot easier for the ill-informed to click "upvote", rather than post their own opinion, which can be rebutted.

I'm sure I could think of more, but that's all I got for now.

David Barbour wrote:Not a good idea for lots of reasons

I didn't read all the comments, but if we don't reply, isn't it a de facto down-vote? What we have is amusing to some and ignored by the rest. Not too bad a system, IMHO.

Bad idea. Downvote.

But srsly. Bad idea. Don't do it.