Bump thread by votes

[sbj]

Who of you visited page 46 of this node? Nobody? I thought so.



We can create suggestions but the second our suggestion falls to page 4, 5, 6... it is very unlikely to be discovered again. There are hundreds of suggestions buried deeply.

What I am suggesting is to bump threads by votes. So when a thread gets magically a vote by someone, it gets bumped to page 1.

But obviously this can be abused and newer thread's don't need to be bumped anyway. So it would be nice if we could put a threshold in ACP like 90 days. And when a thread gets a vote by someone after 90 days, it gets bumped to page one just like if someone has posted something.

There could be also a different threshold, like a thread gets bumped after 10 votes (or whatever we set in ACP).

People are lazy, if they agree with you then they will either like the post or upvote you. But this means that the thread is still not seen by others because it is not on page 1. Having a bump system would increase votings and make people discover stuff they haven't seen before. There are probably a lot of great suggestions which I have never read or considered. Having it bumped by someone could make me see it. Of course this example is based on XF suggestions node. But think about all the different type of forums you guys have where this can be used.

 

[sbj]

Now, since the rush is over about XF 2.2, user interactions slowed down as expected.

For days I am observing page 2, 3, 4, 5 of the suggestions forum to see how many new votes are coming and going. You can see from the view numbers that nobody reads the suggestion once it is not on page 1 anymore (page 2 is also still good).

I really believe that a bump system would bring activity and more votes to XF. People read the new posts. If a suggestion is not on the new posts page, it basically is gone from sight. Nobody will actively use the pagination and go through all suggestions.

But sometimes some people do, they search something they want, and then to support that, they upvote. And that should bump the threads. Those stuff should come to circulation again. Otherwise they sit buried in the deep thread list..

 

[beerForo]

I feel like that would be a lot of bumps. And then you have mistake votes that are taken back, and it bumps. And people will be looking for replies not votes.

However I did suggest this:

Lack of interest - Count a Vote as a Latest Update in Question/Suggestion sort

This could be OPTIONAL. I think Latest Updates (in the filter bar) should include votes. Use case: I go to the Suggestions forum here and click Latest Updates. Popular. Newest. And I still don't see my suggestion even though it just got a vote. Because it is new (low vote count) it is buried...

xenforo.com

Which is to update it in forum view in the Latest Update selection since you can toggle different selections. So it would only be "bumped" in forum view, unless XF has a better way, but I agree votes will go unnoticed.



I feel like alerts will help this. Old content voted on, and a user decides to reply due to the vote, etc.

 

[beerForo]

I'm going to vote for this hoping they just figure out a better way.

(Side note: I was making the post above and hit enter and it kept posting with the enter key, so I deleted them. Not sure if a bug.)

 

[sbj]

I feel like that would be a lot of bumps.

If you read carefully, I am suggesting to have a threshold otherwise the system will get flooded. So, the bump only happens say if a thread is older than x days. The most voting happens if a suggestion is on page 1 or on the new posts. Perfect example is this thread I created. This thread had 1 vote since Wednesday and once I bumped the thread with a 2nd reply, now at this very moment it has 3 upvotes. Gained 2 votes within an hour compared to last 3 days. Why? Because it got seen.

And then you have mistake votes that are taken back, and it bumps.

This problem can also be solved with threshold. Allow bumps only if a vote is active for x hours. So a thread doesn't get bumped just because I voted. Only like if my vote stay for 6 hours, bump it. One can even take it further and introduce locking, like once bumped after 6 hours, one cannot take the vote away for a week. Otherwise I can bump it, take my vote away, tomorrow vote again and bump it again, and so on.
The system needs to be a bit smart obviously, so a flood check/spam check must be included.

And people will be looking for replies not votes.

Not sure what you mean here. Obviously a vote is not a reply. So a vote bump is like adding a bump information on first line. Like the line. So "last bumped by a vote: a moment ago".

Which is to update it in forum view in the Latest Update selection since you can toggle different selections. So it would only be "bumped" in forum view, unless XF has a better way, but I agree votes will go unnoticed.

You mean you are suggesting a brand new tab called bumps? You mean a "last voted" tab which basically is what you say. So we can see in that new tab which threads were voted on newly. That could be an alternative way, but I dont like tabs, specially on mobile phones. Tabs are bad for discoverability.

I feel like alerts will help this. Old content voted on, and a user decides to reply due to the vote, etc.

That would be spam. Imagine me replying to my own thread everytime because someone voted on my thread.ß

 

[beerForo]

I tried to read all that but went back to my beer.

 

[kolakube]

This would make for a nice touch. In addition to a threshold (every X upvotes bumps thread, ignore downvotes) there is also a check in place that won't bump the thread if you try to "game" it by downvoting then upvoting again.

 

[beerForo]

On a serious note I agree we need to know when someone votes, and other people need to know. I just don't know the best way, maybe you have it here. I did upvote.

 

[arn]

Hmm...

I'm not sure what I think about this.

Won't this just mean that popular suggestions will be more visible? vs. Right now, more discussed suggestions are more visible. It sort of seems like you want it to be more popularity based... reddit-ish. But in that case, I think the system would have to be more nuanced.

What about fixed-order? Where nothing bumps a suggestion? Or random order? I'm just thinking aloud.

edit: I guess https://xenforo.com/community/forums/xenforo-suggestions.18/?order=post_date is fixed order

arn

 

[sbj]

@arn

With a threshold like I proposed, new suggestions won't get bumped. With "new" I don't mean the thread creation date, I mean when the last reply was cause the last reply is the key to bump threads right now to first page.

And popular suggestions tend to have more replies than other suggestions usually. So, they are most of the time in the "new" category and get naturally bumped by the replies they get.

For example this thread right now. This thread was sitting at 1 votes for 3 days, now look, it has 6 votes. Why? Because I bumped it with a new reply and people replied to this thread.

So, this thread wouldn't get bumped by new votes. Unless this thread goes without a reply for say 90 days. After that if this thread gets a reply, it gets bumped as we know. OR what I propose, let it get bumped after 90 days when someone votes. Because with a voting system, people won't use the reply feature as much as they will use the voting feature. But voting has no effect on the thread, it just goes unnoticed.

So, it is not popularity based with a threshold. Even if it is, it is better to have activity than no activity. Imagine this thread is a popular one and gets bumped by a vote every day. Okay. But imagine another non-popular thread gets magically 1 vote. Now this non-popular thread which was sitting for over a year deep in the thread list, has the chance to be seen once more after a year. Even if other threads get bumped much more because they are popular, now this non-popular also gets his chance for once in its lifetime. I believe with a smart solution this can be really effective. But it needs flood-checking and thresholds, otherwise the system can be abused.