Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to have to browse a 100+ page forum thread to find relevant information? I'm sure you have. How do you find anything relevant in the nearly 800 page long CEMU thread other than the first post? Until now, this seemed like an impossible task.

But no more! Today, we are proud to introduce Featured Posts, a custom made forum add-on that we believe will help improve the quality of forum content by enabling a simple new feature. From now on, you will be able to mark relevant posts within your own threads to highlight the better content:

By the simple act of clicking this button (which is positioned next to the Like button), you will be able to build a list of posts within your own threads which will remain displayed on the first page below the first post:

Note that you can click the table headers to sort the list by number of likes, by date, or alphabetically. Every time you mark a post as Featured, the author's "Featured Posts" count will be increased by one:

When you look at someone's member card, the number of Featured Posts will be a good indicator of the quality of the content produced by this person. In addition to encouraging quality over quantity, we are convinced that this add-on will be used in a variety of manners, such as:
• Pointing out new release posts in a homebrew/translation/romhack/emulator project thread
• Marking a post as 'best answer' to a question
• Highlighting useful contributions in general
And much more... it is up to you now.

In order to prevent abuse, we have disabled this feature in the EOF and the introductions area. Moderators also have a 'Clear' button that will clear the entire list of Featured Posts in a thread if necessary. Please keep in mind that you shouldn't use this feature in opinion/debate threads to designate posts that best match your own opinion. Moreover, while you are able to mark your own posts as 'Featured' within your own threads, make sure you do this wisely and only when relevant. We will be on the lookout for abuse but if something slips past us, don't hesitate to report anything suspicious.

Thank you for being part of our community!
The staff @ GBAtemp

 

[YugamiSekai]

Just.... Beautiful.... *cries in Spanish*








NOW CAN YOU FINALLY FIX THE WII U SECTION

 

[Foxi4]

That's a brilliant feature, whoever came up with this is a genius.

 

[Procyon]

Finally, no more browsing 22560 pages in USB Loader GX, or just browsing it, since OP left

 

[Costello]

That's a brilliant feature, whoever came up with this is a genius.

you wouldn't have said that if you'd known it was me

wait... are you trying to get me to mark your post as Featured? flattery wont work!

 

[Deleted User]

After reading, I went and marked a few helpful posts from some threads I've made in the past as featured. I think this is a great idea!

 

[Foxi4]

you wouldn't have said that if you'd known it was me

wait... are you trying to get me to mark your post as Featured? flattery wont work!

I'VE BEEN DISCOVERED! SMOKE BOMB! *Disappears in a puff of less than impressive smoke*

 

[Steena]

The idea sounds amazing, but I don't quite understand why can you only do that to your own threads.
Take one of those massively fast moving new threads over at the 3DS or WiiU section whenever some scene news hits, those progress like 30 pages a day.
I would think those are the threads where this feature would be most useful for readability purposes.
Isn't that a ton of work for a single person to handle?

Also take the ongoing threads that are not started by the own app's creator, like Nintendon't (I believe that's the case anyway). If they just quit browsing the site, or simply don't want to spend hours curating it anymore, such a massive thread would get nothing out of this cool feature.

Possibly, I can see the downside of too many posts being featured if it was up to everyone. Maybe set it up so you need X number of markings proportional to posts to get it featured (with the OP having the option to moderate it singlehandedly?) I just think it'll be a huge burden to a single person the way it is right now.

 

[mashers]

This is an excellent idea. Thank you for implementing it. It's an excellent strategy for improving the quality of postings on the temp

 

[Deleted User]

The idea sounds amazing, but I don't quite understand why can you only do that to your own threads.
Take one of those massively fast moving new threads over at the 3DS or WiiU section whenever some scene news hits, those progress like 30 pages a day.
I would think those are the threads where this feature would be most useful for readability purposes.
Isn't that a ton of work for a single person to handle?

Also take the ongoing threads that are not started by the own app's creator, like Nintendon't (I believe that's the case anyway). If they just quit browsing the site, or simply don't want to spend hours curating it anymore, such a massive thread would get nothing out of this cool feature.

Possibly, I can see the downside of too many posts being featured if it was up to everyone. Maybe set it up so you need X number of markings proportional to posts to get it featured (with the OP having the option to moderate it singlehandedly?) I just think it'll be a huge burden to a single person the way it is right now.

You can give other users permission to alter your threads, so I'd imagine that if you give them editing permissions, they can also maybe mark posts in that thread as featured.

 

[T-hug]

Staff can also mark so I wouldn't worry about it for now.

 

[mashers]

@T-hug
Your card next to your posts says you have two featured posts, but your profile says that you haven't had any posts marked as featured. Not sure if this is a bug in the plugin or if it's just due to testing the feature and then deleting the featured posts. Thought I should mention it anyway.

 

[T-hug]

@T-hug
Your card next to your posts says you have two featured posts, but your profile says that you haven't had any posts marked as featured. Not sure if this is a bug in the plugin or if it's just due to testing the feature and then deleting the featured posts. Thought I should mention it anyway.

I think they are from staff forum posts so they won't show to regular members as you don't have access to the board they are from.

 

[Costello]

@T-hug
Your card next to your posts says you have two featured posts, but your profile says that you haven't had any posts marked as featured. Not sure if this is a bug in the plugin or if it's just due to testing the feature and then deleting the featured posts. Thought I should mention it anyway.

good observation, but it is not a bug, simply the posts were made in a section you cannot access. They do exist I can assure you

 

[Bubsy Bobcat]

I really wish this feature was added a while ago when I still helped out a lot in noob threads

 

[mashers]

@T-hug @Costello
Thanks guys. I did wonder after posting if they were in a staff-only section. If it's not too much trouble, would it be worth adjusting the plugin to reflect this? For example, if the number of featured posts visible to the user is less than the total number of featured posts, the tab could say something like "Plus x more featured post(s) you do not have sufficient privileges to view". Just wondering if it would save confusion, and as I said only if it's not too much trouble.

The other thing I was wondering about was whether it would be worth adding something to the site rules about Like/Featured Post begging. I can see threads getting cluttered with posts like, 'Please feature my post!'

 

[Costello]

I really wish this feature was added a while ago when I still helped out a lot in noob threads

all the more reasons to continue helping out in noob threads

 

[mashers]

To be perfectly honest, I feel that the noob threads are examples of where this might not be a useful feature. Those threads have no specific topic, so having a load of assorted featured posts at the beginning might not help to navigate them. This is particularly the case when considering that the post which is featured will more than likely be the answer to a question, which won't make sense out of context (i.e. when separated from the question).

Having said that, I have never been a fan of general 'noob' threads. I think they're ungainly, and because the questions aren't separated into topics it's impossible to tell without trawling the whole thread whether your question has already been asked. This means that you're likely to get the same questions asked over and over again. As I said above, I don't think featuring answers on the first page will help since it will be difficult to tell what question they are actually answering.

 

[Justinde75]

Wow, this is a really nice way to mark important posts on threads, like advices, posts from the op, or updates

 

[dimmidice]

because the questions aren't separated into topics it's impossible to tell without trawling the whole thread whether your question has already been asked. This means that you're likely to get the same questions asked over and over again.

It definitely won't be useful in the noob questions thread. But i also don't understand why having questions get repeated is a bad thing? Not when it's isolated to one thread. The noob thread is basically there so people can ask questions without having to make a new topic constantly. You shouldn't ever have to trawl through the entire topic for any reason. It's just a "ask question gets some answers (hopefully)" kind of thing.