Adding Thank You Button to Posts

[Mandrake Margrave]

Long time lurker here:

I'm confused by the forum hierarchy system. I also see posts about people looking for more feedback about how people respond to what they write.

Who decides how members are defined according to the upright man status? It seems rather non-transparent. Also, I can't help but notice that members of extremely different seduction skill and writing advice quality have the same statuses. The upright status doesn't seem to reflect very accurately the level of contribution, or quality of contribution, of different forum members. Does anyone else feel like this could be improved?

What first comes to mind for me is to change things to a more transparent system that more accurately reflects the value of community members according to other users' opinions, instead of a mysterious system most likely decided by one or two moderators.

I suggest it be based primarily on the number of "thank you's" a member's posts receive. It's a feature that is common on online forums (having a 'thank you' button at the bottom of each post) and not difficult to code. So, for example, someone with 100 'thank you's could be automatically promoted to the next level. This would probably help with some of the confusion, improve user engagement, and correct the lack of transparency. It would also help readers understand support for different peoples' posts, which could help us know more accurately what people are grateful for and support and also build consensus.

What do you guys think? Can you think of other ways of organizing forum status promotion that you would like to see?

Even if not to replace however the forum hierarchy system is set up now, what do you think about a thank you button for posts and a "# of times thanked" status next to your name?

Mandrake Margrave

 

[Big Daddy]

Franco appoints eligible members that he thinks deserves a promotion to Chase and they'll personally decide if he gets it or not and I LOVE this.

It means all members are appointed and accepted personally by them, which is a way, way, way better system than a bunch of nobodies up-voting people that, basically, just posted on their thread. Meaning more frequent posters will get higher rankings for no valid reason.

Another problem: most forum members are Rank 1, and they probably don't know a whole lot about seduction. And they would be responsible for determining who are up in the hierarchy, and they probably don't know how to really identify who knows what.

I understand what you are saying about different skill levels having same rank, and I think it's largely due to: some ranks were attributed to early posters, and as forum matured, the "requirements" for each rank grew slightly higher; and I think this problem only almost exclusively happens with Rank 2. It's really obvious to identify Rank 1, 4 and you could make a solid argument for 3. But Rank 2 is indeed difficult to gauge sometimes.

That said, Once you start hanging here more frequently you learn who's who and who to listen to and who to ignore. I will say most of the Rank 3+ are safe tho. The rank gives you a quick north which is way better then some other forums where high ups make me cringe. Here you have Rank 2 members with 1000+ posts and Rank 4 with 70.

I guess you could make a point for a 5-rank system but I really like the 4-rank one. The day I become Rank 3 it will be because Franco and Chase decided it themselves, which is extremely rewarding and also one point of the ranking system. Thus I'm not looking for a higher rank just for the sake of it. To be honest I feel like I'm close but it will take a while more as I'm inconsistent sometimes... if they made Rank 3 today I'd probably ask to be turned back to 2 lol I'd be grateful for the recognition but I feel like there's some more steps until I'm free to accept I'm Rank 3.

I'm not hurried for the public recognition although they opinions are really important to me as a concrete sign of progress, but with my happiness and confidence in my skills even thiu it's important to me. If it was a up-voting system I would probably care less and mindless look for more points for no other reason than human psychology, which is not the code here (reactions =\= results).

EDIT: just to be clear I like the system how it is as it can't get much better than a per case basis by two gentleman that I respect a lot. If it absolutely HAD to be a score system in place I'd strongly make a case for allowing only Rank 4s to vote.

EDIT2: I wouldn't mind a mobile theme however. Typed this on my phone and I'm sure it's full of typos.

 

[Franco]

Ideally, we'd have a system here with more than four ranks... maybe up to about ten ranks. That would allow us to more easily differentiate between the different levels of guys.

That being said, ten different ranks is much more work on myself, and it's not something I think Chase really wants to deal with either. Big Daddy is correct that Rank 2 is quite large: we consider that to be a very vast area where you'll get guys with no lays and guys with double digit lays. But, of course, the guy with no lays is probably very far away from Rank 3, while the guy with double digit lays has likely already been noticed by us, and we're just waiting for the next opportunity to move that guy up to Rank 3.

There are of course a myriad of other factors we take into account as well -- "statistics" are more of a guideline for us than they are the Holy Grail. As Big Daddy also noted, we have guys with over 1000 posts who are Rank 2 and completely comfortable with that rank. Likewise, we've had a few guys reach Rank 3 with under 100 posts because it was obvious they either (a) already knew a lot before joining the boards or (b) did not post too often, but were obviously ahead of the average user in terms of knowledge/statistics/maturity level.

While the "Thank You" idea sounds good on paper, it doesn't really accomplish what we desire out of the Ranks. The Ranks are there to give users an idea of where we (Chase and I) think a person is at in terms of knowledge and personal accomplishments. That way, new users can trust that the Ranks are valid and that the users with higher ranks likely know some things that the users with lower Ranks do not. The "Thank You" system would just allow keyboard jockeys with low experience to answer tons of questions and receive "thank yous," even if the advice was inaccurate or not up to par.

There's occasionally going to be some disagreements among users about other users' Ranks, and that's understandable. Just keep in mind that, at some point, Chase and I decided a guy who might be Rank 3 now was a cut above the rest of the Rank 2 guys for a reason, and we had seen enough valuable contributions from that member that we decided it was time to move him up. So when you think a guy maybe doesn't deserve a Rank for some reason, consider the fact that maybe the guy is just taking an approach toward things that is unfamiliar to you -- so make sure to be open-minded when reading posts that you maybe don't agree with at first glance.

Cheers,

Franco

 

[Mandrake Margrave]

There should be a Thank You system then that doesn't replace rank, to make it not just about Chase and Franco's opinion, but also about the rest of the forum members' opinions about what is being posted. It would make things more transparent and would increase user engagement. A 5 ranks system would be cool too. That way, for example, if there's a rank 3 member who posts a lot but has very few thank yous, people would know that that person shit-posts for the most part.

Right now, I don't think users trust that the ranks that people are at are wholly valid, Franco. And that's not just Rank 2 people. So maybe keep your ranking system, but let's add a Thank You system along side it, at the very least to see what the USERS really think about what they are reading. Come on man, let's open things up!

 

[Big Daddy]

Again, the problem with that is this:

The "Thank You" system would just allow keyboard jockeys with low experience to answer tons of questions and receive "thank yous," even if the advice was inaccurate or not up to par.

Which essentially happens in every other forum, where a bunch of guys have lots of thank you and feel entitled but they aren't really valuable members. I think having two systems in place only make stuff more complicated, specially for lurkers/new users, but as I said, if there's a need for a second scoring system I'm for only Rank 4 members allowed to vote to prevent that. Though I doubt they will see value in that. But otherwise we will have a bunch a keyboard jockeys as Franco said.

Right now, I don't think users trust that the ranks that people are at are wholly valid, Franco.

I mean, I made a pretty lengthy post to explain how I feel this is way more valid than what you have elsewhere.

 

[lostnumber]

I think BigDaddy has a very detailed post about the merits of the system we have in place, so I won't rehash that except to say that I agree. I like the idea that when/if I get Rank 3 I will have earned it in the eyes of some very advanced guys

@Franco
The one thing I would echo though, is that there is way too much of a clump up at the 2nd rank. To speak to your example, guys who haven't gotten laid ever simply aren't in the same position to give advice as guys who have double digit notch counts and proven experience; there is a standard deviation of difference there that isn't being reflected by the current ranking system. I'd definitely be in favor of adding a 5th rank

I do still vastly prefer what we have to some kind of "Karma" or post count method of ranking up. I think it would be nice to have a thumbs up function on the forums as a general functionality, but wouldn't want it tied to ranks at all.

 

[Mandrake Margrave]

Big Daddy:

I think you are overestimating the risk of encouraging keyboard jockeys as well as underestimating the new users' intelligence. I'd also guess that most people who would use that "thank you" system wouldn't be many inexperienced guys, and more would empower the long time members. For new users, if anything, it would help them stay more involved in the forum, which would only help them improve in the long term instead of creating an account and then never getting engaged.

Adding a Thank You button at the bottom of each post would mostly just improve user engagement and help underline where people agree. I see lots of on here that boil down to "I agree exactly with [the other guys' points]". Well, now there's a button for that.


Lostnumber:

It probably shouldn't be tied [at least directly] to rank, but I would like to see that function too.