Suggestion Increasing the quality of posts on the temp

[mashers]

Following on from @Vulpes Abnocto's state of the temp thread, I've had a few ideas about how to increase the quality of postings here. These are just suggestions so anybody is of course free to disagree.

1. Replace post count with 'like ratio'. This would divide the number of likes by the number of posts to give a score for the user. This would encourage users to make quality posts which garner likes in order to increase their like ratio rather than shitposting to increase their post count
2. Prevent users with fewer than 100 posts from posting in the tutorials forums. I for one get fed up seeing people post questions there
3. Remove the 'ask' feature. The postings here seem to be repetitive and of low quality. I'm not sure why this is, but I wonder if it's because some users see the 'ask' button and click it straight away without looking at the forums.
4. Moderate the EOF. I realise that th EOF is designed to be open for any discussion, but I think it encourages shitposting which inevitably spills over to the main forums. It's a bit like a rowdy bar where people fall out into the street and keep being rowdy even though they're not in the bar any more...

 

[nxwing]

There is a recent questions box though. It just isn't on the front page.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

1. Replace post count with 'like ratio'. This would divide the number of likes by the number of posts to give a score for the user. This would encourage users to make quality posts which garner likes in order to increase their like ratio rather than shitposting to increase their post count
2. Prevent users with fewer than 100 posts from posting in the tutorials forums. I for one get fed up seeing people post questions there
3. Remove the 'ask' feature. The postings here seem to be repetitive and of low quality. I'm not sure why this is, but I wonder if it's because some users see the 'ask' button and click it straight away without looking at the forums.
4. Moderate the EOF. I realise that th EOF is designed to be open for any discussion, but I think it encourages shitposting which inevitably spills over to the main forums. It's a bit like a rowdy bar where people fall out into the street and keep being rowdy even though they're not in the bar any more...

1. Not a good idea. It would be disastrous for those with high post counts, but low amount of likes. It can also go around: If you have a low post count but a high amount of likes, you will still end up with a low ratio. Adding a like count underneath the post count does however seem like a good idea.
2. Good, but the 100 post bar seems a bit high. I'd say 50 posts.
3. I think the Ask! feature just needs to have more of a StackExchange QA system, where duplicates are closed with a link to the duplicate and make it user-moderated. Also, it should be more promoted as I wasn't aware of the feature until just now.

Not gonna comment on 4, due to me not visiting the EoF frequently.

 

[evandixon]

1. Replace post count with 'like ratio'. This would divide the number of likes by the number of posts to give a score for the user. This would encourage users to make quality posts which garner likes in order to increase their like ratio rather than shitposting to increase their post count
2. Prevent users with fewer than 100 posts from posting in the tutorials forums. I for one get fed up seeing people post questions there
3. Remove the 'ask' feature. The postings here seem to be repetitive and of low quality. I'm not sure why this is, but I wonder if it's because some users see the 'ask' button and click it straight away without looking at the forums.
4. Moderate the EOF. I realise that th EOF is designed to be open for any discussion, but I think it encourages shitposting which inevitably spills over to the main forums. It's a bit like a rowdy bar where people fall out into the street and keep being rowdy even though they're not in the bar any more...

1. No. See everyone else's responses for why this is a bad idea.
2. Don't forbid them from posting, just auto-moderate. Over at Project Pokemon, I've seen a few new members who registered for the sole purpose of posting legit tutorials or for posting their own research. I do agree the " & FAQs" should be removed since it has consistently caused confusion to those who have made a reasonable effort to post in the correct section.
3. Perhaps more moderation? At stack overflow, I'll often see a thread closed because it's a duplicate of another. Removing the 5 character limit on searches may also help, since it's useless right now. (Ex. "Install cia on 3ds with fbi" would return nothing related")
4. I saw a moderator earlier in the thread say it is moderated. I don't go over there, but IMO, that section should be for things like forum games. Make it clear that trash posts are not welcome.

 

[flame1234]

Auto-moderation is a good idea, but it would take up moderator time and Costello might not like it.
------------------
About thread creation: You often end up with *stuff* like:
http://gbatemp.net/threads/sword-art-online-infinity-moment-psp.342727/
http://gbatemp.net/threads/last-ranker-translation-patch.343425/

Basically what happened is someone who doesn't want to / won't / can't do any work made the first post. If someone actually wants to start a project with that name, they have to make a new thread if they want control of the first post. I think it's an OK thing to want if you're going to do a project.
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What about removing the post count altogether? The medals say post count, more or less.

 

[Deleted User]

Making a short quiz that a user is forced to answer would be nice. Downside? Control+F. If the terms and rules were summed up and made much shorter, the chances of them using the Control+F function is lower but here's still a chance.

Instead of making them read the rules, make them watch a video provided by GBAtemp which explains the rules. Try to make the video no longer than 5 minutes. After watching the video, make them answer a 20 item quiz. The video should probably be unlisted and disallow comments.

Videos fly completely over my head quite often, I wouldn't be surprised if there were other people out there who are like that too.

 

[gamesquest1]

Auto-moderation is a good idea, but it would take up moderator time and Costello might not like it.
------------------
About thread creation: You often end up with *stuff* like:
http://gbatemp.net/threads/sword-art-online-infinity-moment-psp.342727/
http://gbatemp.net/threads/last-ranker-translation-patch.343425/

Basically what happened is someone who doesn't want to / won't / can't do any work made the first post. If someone actually wants to start a project with that name, they have to make a new thread if they want control of the first post. I think it's an OK thing to want if you're going to do a project.
------------------
What about removing the post count altogether? The medals say post count, more or less.

Well tbh auto moderation wouldn't/shouldnt really add any additional workload in theory a post reported now would still be reported then only thing it would do is prevent too many replies to said shitpost/spam/bs post

It could even be that the deleted post remains deleted and is not brought to the mods attention at all unless specifically objected to similar to youtubes copyright policy

 

[The Catboy]

The issue with the ratio option, is that it could easily broken. I could have a good ratio, when people are just like my shitposts.
The rest of the ideas I actually do like because I feel they would help.
Seriously though, the ask feature needs to go.
I also would suggest using a custom google search for our search feature, because the default one sucks. As well just locking shit threads. After the 11.0.0-33 update, there were shit tons of the same thread popping up basically minutes after each other. The same error, same question, same results. Some of these threads almost had the same title, but yet they were right on top of each other. That's something we need to look into stopping.

 

[Seriel]

I agree with the 100 posts to post in Tutorials idea.
But the rest i'm not so sure.
Some idea from other forums i'm on (and in one case, am mod on) has been to moderate the first couple of posts from a new user, so they have to be approved before they are visible to the public. However, in these two cases the forums were significantly smaller than gbatemp (though still big) and it would just create a huge increases in workload for the moderators, who already have a lot to deal with.

 

[Deleted User]

I agree with the 100 posts to post in Tutorials idea.
But the rest i'm not so sure.
Some idea from other forums i'm on (and in one case, am mod on) has been to moderate the first couple of posts from a new user, so they have to be approved before they are visible to the public. However, in these two cases the forums were significantly smaller than gbatemp (though still big) and it would just create a huge increases in workload for the moderators, who already have a lot to deal with.

Auto-moderating the first handful of posts a user makes is why I don't really contribute to that iso site, it takes too long for my posts to appear on the site.

 

[Seriel]

Auto-moderating the first handful of posts a user makes is why I don't really contribute to that iso site, it takes too long for my posts to appear on the site.

That's also another problem with this idea :|

 

[hobbledehoy899]

Auto-moderating the first handful of posts a user makes is why I don't really contribute to that iso site, it takes too long for my posts to appear on the site.

Same here.

 

[gamesquest1]

When i say auto moderating im talking about the idea of letting the gbatemp comunity self moderate, not the manditory moderation of new memebers, that i agree would add a huge workload onto the staff, sorry for the mixup in terms XD

 

[Subtle Demise]

It would be nice to get the thread titles cleared up.
A thread with only "help" or "could you beliefe" or "watch this" isn't as clear as it should be imho.
If users with a "first" post like this could get a hint that this is not the way as it should i think they know where they are.
Means ...... they are be watched and couldnt do whatever they want to.

I think that there are (at the moment) less mod's, admins and supervisors and to much "new" users.
As i wrote before i'am a longtime GBATemp user without an account, now with an account and there where better times!

Today there are to many respectless people against other users or with scatology that i never seen on "open forums" before.
(Sometimes even the supervisors or mods are using that scatology speech!)

So i think it is time that we all step back and thing about how WE act sometimes here on GBATemp!
And maybe help by reporting thinks we see or read and dont agree with (what not may be right every time!)

Otherwise there are new users with an URL in theyr signature that leeds to a "walloftext" where everyone can do wathever they like to!
(Yesterday there was antisemitic wrotings on that walloftext 30 to 40 times repeating! Today this walloftext is empty again!)
That's something to watch over i think (i'am german so i kow what i'am talking about!).

......but let's be realistic! Even with 1000 Mod's, Admins, Supervisors...... it would be VERY VERY hard to get this in line

Scatology is a really good album though! One of the best industrial records of all time.

Seriously though, shitposting once in a while in the right areas isn't hurting anything. I probably do it more than I should, usually under the influence; but I never got so bad that bI needed to be suspended or anything.

 

[InsaneNutter]

I think simply been a lot more strict and promoting a healthy community would improve the overall quality of the forums a lot.

A recent example is Margen67, he took way too long to be banned. The type of posts he makes generally promote a negative community attitude, which then attracts more like minded people who think it's acceptable to behave like that. Slowly but surly the community goes down hill and becomes more poisonous.

They are some great people here, however certain people are just spamming the forum all the time which drowns out the many quality / constructive posts others make.

That's my opinion anyway from the point of view been a more casual member of the forum.

 

[tbb043]

I know I haven't been here long, but I see a lot of new threads popping up with questions that have been asked to death. I think there should be some sort of penalty for that. Like the first time a warning and on and on from there. Just gets annoying having to filter through 10 pages of bs to get to what you are looking for.

How about instead there should be a strong penalty for being a dick to this sort of poster. "UGH this again, use search you fucking n00b" is a much more useless post than anything it's responding to. Maybe if searching is so easy (hint, it's not always that easy here) they could help the person by searching for them instead and just post a link to where they "should" have looked. "Hey, this has been asked before look here [link], it's probably what you're looking for" is a much better response.

 

[Madridi]

I personally have expressed several times how disgusting things on the temp have become, and urged the staff to take a stance on this.

I'll try to keep my opinion short:
While noob postings might be annoying, I don't see that the main issue with the temp. The main issue are are those elitist self-entitled people running their mouth thinking they run the place. What I recommend is to have more strictness over here, whether it's with those off topic postings, or people acting like assholes

Tl;dr: you behave like an ass, you're outta here

 

[VinsCool]

I honestly think that we need more staff moderating here. More good people would give a real help.

 

[Chary]

I honestly think that we need more staff moderating here. More good people would give a real help.

The mods should give the Contributors power to delete threads so we can HAVE MORE DELICIOUS POWER AHAHAHA help clean up.

 

[petethepug]

You have to keep in mind. Becuase this forum is used for gaming, it's going to be used to ask stupid questions such as; "I like mouses", or "I like systems" posts. But avoiding that thread and moving on here...

I do agree with some of this but I find it a little silly that you cannot post a question/tutorial in the ask section until you have 100 posts. It will not change the fact that people will make less intelligent posts, or intelligent posts based on how many posts you have. In matter of fact awnsers are awnsers when it comes to those posts. If there is a really stupid awnser then it will be removed ovoisually. But other awnsers that explain how to do it, and maybe are a little wrong. You will have to wait for a few more responses, and do the research on your spare time. And if you make a tutorial with only one post, it's likely you know what your doing. If you actually know what you will be explaining on their, and how you present the information .

The like ratio will not encourage anyone to post more, or less. In matter of fact I barley care about the system. A like is simply a post a user likes on this forums, and goes to your stats. It doesn't matter whether your post count is higher than your likes, or vice versa;

It will change merely anything.
I think a better idea would be replacing the badge system based on how long you have joined the forum. This would also include ranks probably such as "Veteran", or "Elder" along with the badge to represent your new badge with your rank.

The Edge Of Forum System I can completely agree with, I have to say the EOF is a very let's say "scary place" similar to where gangsters probably hang out. That area is normally not meant to be kept clean. I have been bullied on there a few times indirectly, and directly. But I guess if the content gets so out of hand people are beating people up verbally. I guess it could be moderated.

 

[Subtle Demise]

A recent example is Margen67, he took way too long to be banned. The type of posts he makes generally promote a negative community attitude, which then attracts more like minded people who think it's acceptable to behave like that. Slowly but surly the community goes down hill and becomes more poisonous

I liked margen, he may have had some unpopular opinions but I wouldn't say he was trying promote negativity. As to when/why he was banned, it's not a good subject for public discussion.