Implemented [Suggestion] Thread voting / rating feature

Erik

Well-known member
As I'm browsing through the suggestions forum, I constantly find myself liking posts that I agree with and want to voice my approval for. While this is great (and intended behaivor) it would be really great if you could create a thread voting feature where users can "upvote" a thread.

This would be really helpful for this very forum, where users could vote on suggestions and then you guys could see the most-requested features/issues. Not only that, but it would allow forum owners to create a Digg- or Reddit-type section in their community where users can vote on news/stories/threads/whatever. A simple sorting option would allow you to bring the most-voted threads to the top, etc.

I would think this would be relatively easy to implement, as simple as adding another field to the database table and writing the code to increment votes, as well as the required permission handling. :)

Also, this should be an option you can turn on or off forum-by-forum, not implemented globally.

It would also be nice if you could provide administrators the ability to turn downvotes on or off. I know a lot of people would want the ability to downvote a thread but the concept of a downvote has inherent negativity that I'm sure a lot of communities would want to avoid. :)

Thoughts? :)
 
Upvote 41
This suggestion has been implemented. Votes are no longer accepted.
A real thread like or rating system is better than getting first post likes to double duty for this purpose.
But xenforo already has First Post Likes ... so this is a more attainable goal.
 
this seems pretty stupid to me if the first post is the gauge of anything about how popular a entire thread is. Threads get more interesting as they go along, it's a overall kinda rating, that's the whole point of it being called a thread rating.

Why is this is even debated alongside personal likes for posts, that's something else entirely.
Of course, you can rank the most liked threads, but is it going to be the most entertaining thread on the forums?

Not saying Kier is un-entertaining, but if you ranked xenforo threads here using likes as your base all you would have is kier threads, because let's face it, he only has to announce he mowed the lawn to get 400 likes.

I like your post, so I clicked I like your post. This thread has been entertaining for the last 7 pages, so I'm gonna go like the boring guy who started it. Yeah that makes sense...

5 star thread is a five star thread , shown with stars at the top of the page.
All this "like" based stuff will only encourage people to click like on every inane post in a thread to boost the overall rating of it, which is what they call ur doin it wrong.

In Kiers defense... He mows the lawn like a boss.
 
A real thread like or rating system is better than getting first post likes to double duty for this purpose.
But xenforo already has First Post Likes ... so this is a more attainable goal.

Personally I see no relation between the two, as far as the overall rating of a thread by its content Vs the posts liked in it. Again, I'd come back to examples like admin started threads scoring high with the overall likes (as they do, for ass kissing, announcements or whatever reasons) taking a high rank in any sort of method that totals threads based on the likes given in it. It's skewed from the get go.
 
Would just like to say that this is the exact feature I'm looking for. I think this would be a tremendous addition to Xenforo -- a simple +1 or -1 on a thread. "Likes" on posts are great, but I think the ability to upvote or downvote a thread is extremely important. It lets the community decide.

I run VB 3.8+ (I own a Xenforo license but have not decided to convert my forums over yet) and I think "Thread Rating" is a waste of time... doesn't immediately separate a 5-star thread with two votes from a 5-star thread with 102 votes. Like Slickdeals, Reddit, etc. I'd like to see threads be given a number/rank of how good it is. +38 or -6... it allows the users to select quality.
 
I used thread ratings with vB 3.8 to develop a widget (vBAdvanced module) displaying the "best threads" on the forum. I used a customized thread search that sorted threads based upon the average rating and the number of votes. Most threads in the list had just one or two votes. Several really good threads had 5 or more votes. I was able to influence where threads appeared in the list because the vote totals were low (and my vote would strongly influence the average). This was a really good feature for one of my forum sites and I'd love to have it available again as I migrate that site over to XF.

Post likes are great and allow members to communicate appreciation to other members for a laugh,smile or helpful comment, but a thread rating is a separate thing. Your forum might have several threads on the same topic with members showing appreciation in each of them, but it's likely one thread will present or explore the topic "best".
 
IMHO its vital to be able to identify good and bad quality threads. For many reasons:
  • For forum users its good to see what threads are crap or quality.
  • We can reward members for good threads.
  • For admins as we can then batch delete bad threads.
  • For promotion of good threads on widgets like @cwe explains above or to feature good threads in a slider.
  • Email digest addons will send send awful threads to your members inbox which turns them off. Its really bad marketing and makes email marketing barely useful.
  • Automatic social media promotion addons can promote a low quality thread automatically and if it then gets shared with a lot of negative comments this can cause quite some turmoil.
  • I can think of new features building on thread quality. For example an option to display good threads at the top of new posts, while displaying bad threads at the bottom.
If XenForo would identify quality threads then this would open up a lot of avenues to promote quality threads, while keeping bad threads under the radar.
 
@Brogan Are you saying that we will get thread upvoting for all thread types including the discussion type?

it would allow forum owners to create a Digg- or Reddit-type section in their community where users can vote on news/stories/threads/whatever.
The suggestion is for all threads. What has been implemented is new suggestion threads with voting. But normal threads are untouched. So the suggestion has not been implemented I am afraid.

I would love to see Discussion thread voting implemented.
 
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There is very little difference between Suggestion thread Type and what a Discussion Thread Type with upvoting would look like. The only differences seem to be that Discussion Threads would have:
  • No forum tabs OR forum tabs but no 'Implemented' tab.
  • Upvoting is for the Thread. Not for the first post. So it would make sense to place the votes next to the thread title instead. But no big deal if placed at the same location.
  • Discussion Threads Voting would need a setting in admincp so the admin can turn it on/off.
Please consider implementing this.
Because it would have massive benefit to be able to measure the quality of threads: Consider how much more effective we can make email digests, or Search Engine Indexing. We can surface our best threads. We can consider deleting or improving our worst threads. Something that is not possible now. Sites migrating from other platforms could import their thread ratings, the same way reputation can be imported into likes.

I may well be wrong, but it seems to me a small step to take with very large improvements for communities.

Also: I and a few other admins need thread ratings to be able to upgrade to XF2. Discussion Thread Voting would fill that gap.
 
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