Thread Reviews: Quality Control & SEO.

[Alpha1]

Just like media and resources can be reviewed, it is useful to have thread reviews.

While posts have likes, the evaluation of posts does not necessarily apply to the whole thread.
It is very useful to have reviews of threads, because this will show which threads are of high and low quality.
For example, I would like to delete low quality and promote high quality. If a thread receives dozens of 1 star reviews then most likely there is a serious problem with the thread.

Google punishes sites for low quality. With Google's Quality standards now enforced it has become very important to measure quality and to identify low quality pages:
https://static.googleusercontent.co...s/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf
Its not just a matter of usability and quality control, its also a matter of SEO.

Additionally it would be great to display rich snippets in Google results. Similar to this:



It would also add a new content stream for latest reviews in the same manner as XFRM and XFMG.

Of course such Thread Reviews function needs to be optional as its not for everyone.

 

[Martok]

Essentially this is a duplicate of this:

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/suggestion-thread-voting-rating-feature.363/

Whilst the OP in that talks about it as a sort of upvote feature, the thread does go on to talk about star ratings. Anyway it does appear to be basically the same thing and I guess that if the developers do decide to implement a thread rating system, they'd add in what they think is the most beneficial one for forums.

 

[Alpha1]

This is definitely not a suggestion for upvotes or downvotes and not the same. Reviews are a content type with text. These can be moderated, reported, warned, spam cleaned, IP traced, etc.

Its irrelevant if a suggestion thread goes off track into other suggestions. Because many of my suggestions that were marked implemented had discussion about different features in the thread. For example my bounced email suggestion was implemented. It had discussion of integration with external email providers (with bounce management) in it, which was not implemented because it was not what the main suggestion was.

Let's say that XF 2.1 has thread up/downvoting and the suggestion you link to is implemented. Then this current suggestion would need to be posted again.
Its not without reason that we need to post one suggestion per thread.

 

[Martok]

This is definitely not a suggestion for upvotes or downvotes and not the same. Reviews are a content type with text. These can be moderated, reported, warned, spam cleaned, IP traced, etc.

Its irrelevant if a suggestion thread goes off track into other suggestions. Because many of my suggestions that were marked implemented had discussion about different features in the thread. For example my bounced email suggestion was implemented. It had discussion of integration with external email providers (with bounce management) in it, which was not implemented because it was not what the main suggestion was.

Let's say that XF 2.1 has thread up/downvoting and the suggestion you link to is implemented. Then this current suggestion would need to be posted again.
Its not without reason that we need to post one suggestion per thread.

The other thread didn't just talk about upvoting/downvoting, it went on to talk about 5 star ratings. Admittedly your suggestion does go on to include written reviews as well as star ratings (apologies that I missed that, I skimmed it and the focus of my eye on your post was the star rating shown in Google).

Are there any forums that you know of that actually have written thread reviews? I haven't seen any myself in the various forums I've used. I'm also wondering as to whether users would actually write (quality) reviews of threads when it's enough of a job at times to get them to write quality posts. I can see that some users may use thread ratings (simple click and choose a star rating) as they are quick, I'm not so convinced they'd use thread reviews (though happy to see positive examples of this if you have any).

 

[Alpha1]

Yes, people like to give their opinion on threads. At least when it concerns information oriented sites. It will be less useful for social chatter sites. Thread reviews are given mostly on popular threads, stellar threads and really bad threads. This does leave a significant number threads without rating, which we solve once every few years by organizing thread review projects through social groups. This allows us to delete a mass of low quality threads.

We also use advanced post reviews.

 

[Martok]

Yes, people like to give their opinion on threads. At least when it concerns information oriented sites. It will be less useful for social chatter sites. Thread reviews are given mostly on popular threads, stellar threads and really bad threads. This does leave a significant number threads without rating, which we solve once every few years by organizing thread review projects through social groups. This allows us to delete a mass of low quality threads.

We also use advanced post reviews.

Do you know of any sites that have the feature you are suggesting? It'd be useful for people to see how it is being used.

 

[imno007]

Yeah, would be helpful to see an example, because I'm having a hard time visualizing it. Seems like it could make for a less than intuitive implementation. I mean, people can already give their opinions of threads within the threads themselves. Where would you display written reviews of threads that were separate from the threads themselves but also intuitively linked to them, while also not seeming just...superfluous?

 

[Alpha1]

Do you know of any sites that have the feature you are suggesting? It'd be useful for people to see how it is being used.

Not sites that I can post here without breaching the rules.

Where would you display written reviews of threads that were separate from the threads themselves but also intuitively linked to them, while also not seeming just...superfluous?

Good question. In the exact same locations as on media and resources.

Reviews Tab:


Sidebar widget

 

[imno007]

Right, but those are products or services, etc. Seems like it would be a very niche site that would require this kind of thing within the forums/nodes themselves...?

EDIT: I'll just add that if they did implement this for the core forums, I don't imagine most people would have much need to pay for the addon. So it doesn't seem likely.

 

[Martok]

Not sites that I can post here without breaching the rules.

Could you PM any sites, please? Thanks.

I too was struggling with visualising on how this would all work, so seeing it on a real site would be useful to see how it is done there (as well as see how users are using the reviews).

 

[imno007]

Could you PM any sites, please? Thanks.

I too was struggling with visualising on how this would all work, so seeing it on a real site would be useful to see how it is done there (as well as see how users are using the reviews).

Well, I think he gives us a fair idea of what he has in mind with the Resources pics. I can see how it would be helpful in some certain circumstances. For example, Resources here has tips & guides and template modification sections, and you can see how that kind of thing would be helpful on some regular forums. But again, I don't think it's likely to be implemented, because it would probably undercut sales of the addon. Maybe a stripped down version...?

 

[Alpha1]

You could say the same about reviewing media. Members can already post replies and discuss the media. Yet, XFMG has reviews for it. For threads its more relevant to post reviews than it is for media.

I will describe it in another manner. We used to host News Articles in the forum. The concept is that someone posts an interesting news article and the community discusses it,. Much like you see on many forums. After @Bob 's Article management System was released to us, we moved News Articles from forum to its own content type. This has reviews implemented in the same manner as XFRM/XFMG.

What started happening quickly is a change in member behaviour. Instead of just discussing the article, we were getting reviews about the quality of the article. While this is something that we did see before scarcely, the number of reviews and the extensiveness of reviews was new. The exposure of new reviews in the sidebar does play an important factor because members just browse new reviews and go to articles like that.

The point is that it increases activity and if members are presented with an interface to write reviews about content, then some of them will. The result is a new content stream.

 

[Martok]

You could say the same about reviewing media. Members can already post replies and discuss the media. Yet, XFMG has reviews for it.

Maybe I'm missing something, but where are the written reviews for Media? I know there's star ratings but I don't see a written reviews section. There are comments which are intended for discussion (which I guess you could post a review in) but there's no tie-up between a comment and a review given by a user (and you can make a comment without giving a star rating and vice versa which you can't do in the RM).

What started happening quickly is a change in member behaviour. Instead of just discussing the article, we were getting reviews about the quality of the article. While this is something that we did see before scarcely, the number of reviews and the extensiveness of reviews was new. The exposure of new reviews in the sidebar does play an important factor because members just browse new reviews and go to articles like that.

Couldn't this be done with the current RM? Essentially people could write articles as a Resource. There is then an associated discussion thread to go with it as well as reviews and ratings of the resource.

I'd still like to see this in action somewhere to help see the usage and value of it. I'm assuming that no commercial (not bespoke) forum system has this (except maybe XenForo's RM if that might meet these needs)?

 

[Alpha1]

aybe I'm missing something, but where are the written reviews for Media?

Here you go: https://xenforo.com/community/media...meplay-trailer-youtube.1036/#xfmg-comment-916

Couldn't this be done with the current RM? Essentially people could write articles as a Resource. There is then an associated discussion thread to go with it as well as reviews and ratings of the resource.

The XFRM is not intended to be an articles system and does not meet the legal requirements for such. AMS has hundreds of features and many layout options. I prefer it to WordPress. I would not be able to do the same with the RM.

I'd still like to see this in action somewhere to help see the usage and value of it.

I will send you a message.

 

[Alpha1]

The May and August Google algorithm updates are all about Page Content Quality Rating. These game changer updates can have a massive effect on SEO. More information here:
https://static.googleusercontent.co...s/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf
http://www.thesempost.com/google-search-quality-rater-guidelines-updated/

Here is how the august update affected a lot of sites (data from SemRush):



Google has a team of content quality raters which can highly impact your ranking. Its not a trivial SEO thing.
Which is why it is important to proactively identify low quality threads and deal with those. Thread reviews are one method to do that.

If Thread Reviews would be in core then it would be much easier to add functions to bulk deal with low quality content.

 

[dethfire]

Google has a team of content quality raters which can highly impact your ranking. Its not a trivial SEO thing.

Just to be clear, these human google site raters are only evaluating sites in order to check see how the google algorithms are doing. They don't have a direct effect on ranking. Of course implementing what they are looking for likely will, once the algorithm comes back when you've made changes.

 

[Sperber]

Was wondering from day one, why XF doesn´t ship with a thread ratings system and wanted to add a suggestion now - but seeing this well thought suggestion, utilizing the same already available scheme as with XFMG or XFRM, blows my mind. This would be a real game changer and I can´t really understand, why this isn´t considerated by now. Few will say, because of the number of votes but I doubt that this should be the only argument. Alfas suggestion just makes sense, especially with the rich widgets encouraging users to click the search result in Google far more frequently. Isn´t it exactly that what we all strve for? Attracting more users, getting them involved by highlighting good quality content?

Definitly a +1!

 

[Mr Lucky]

Would thread reviews have to wait until a thread is more or less finished?

What I mean is a thread is constantly added to by posts and replies to other posts so at what stage should it be reviewed. There would be no point in giving a thread a great review, only to find it suddenly goes bad.

 

[Sperber]

So what? If you feel you want to change your review/rating, than just go ahead. But most discussions I would leave a review are not those 2 or 3 posters existing for 3 hours. Obviously it´s those mid and long term discussions.

Edit: and btw, even threads containing a single post can hold so much valuable information, that of course I coud opt to rate that thread - for a good reason.