Feature Req : Low Priority // Beta Check Mark

I've noticed the "Beta" check mark for comments is either largely non-utilized, and when it is utilized, is used more as a social media "like!" indicator than "beta".

It'd be pretty cool if there was a way to opt-in to default minimize out comments with beta. And sorting comments by beta is a neat feature that would be cool to use if the beta button was more appropriately used.

But with it's current lack of utilization, it seems pretty useless.

To me, it feels like the intent of the check-mark symbol is vague and slightly mis-communicates the intent of the button.

Perhaps a more beta-indicative symbol than a check-mark would be a step in the direction of intuitively indicating the purpose of the button?

Maybe something more indicative of the "info" concept?

some ideas, in order of my personal preference, least to most:

• the "lightbulb" - maybe the most beta-comment-quality-incentivizing?
• the "book" - maybe the most curiosity provoking?
• the "info" streetsign - this seems the most familiarly apropos
• a crowd-sourced proprietary MP "B" symbol (or just the word "beta")

A cassette icon would be historically accurate but might confuse the younguns.

mbk wrote: A cassette icon would be historically accurate but might confuse the younguns.

Brilliant!

Haven't you heard? The younguns are online. There is no longer concern for whether they are confused or lucid, all that matters is whether they are entertained or bored. /s

Anyways, this is interesting etymology!

According to Sony's history webpages, the name had a double meaning: beta is the Japanese word used to describe the way in which signals are recorded on the tape; and the shape of the lowercase Greek letter beta (β) resembles the course of the tape through the transport. The suffix -max, from the word "maximum", was added to suggest greatness.[6] 

I wonder how willing Sony would be to give us license to use/adapt the OG icon...Pretty easy to argue that that is a greek letter, not a proprietary symbol. Has the advantage of looking like a beta cassette, as Sony called out.

Also fun that "beta" is the second letter of the Greek Alphabet, and someone else's climbing beta is secondary to one's own personal experience on a route, and/or a secondary resource beyond the climber's intuition.