[rudra]

Hello everyone,

  today i had this idea while i was talking to HR on the matter of spammy posting.

  How about making a special counter that only counts and uniformly scores a post if it gets atleast one upvote from staff or sponsor (3 from normal users might be another way to promote).

  It could be used as a veto power by a staff/sponsor only to give a new but very good user a better spec vps from the pool sooner. The giveaway manager himself could exercise that power too.

I think this would go a long way in solving the problem of huge amassed score over a long time mostly accumulated by lazy posting.

i really like all the systems already in place to discourage rampant spamming. I think this would greatly add to that existing mechanism set in place by our cool admin Dynamo.

What  do you say ?

[tiwil]

How about making a special counter that only counts and uniformly scores a post if it gets atleast one upvote from staff or sponsor (3 from normal users might be another way to promote).

So it only counts when people post and get an upvote from staff/sponsor or 3 upvote from normal users? The only thing I think is, for what is that special counter?

I mean, if the special counter used for monthly post requirement, then it'll be very hard to accomplish 20 posts/month because of this. Or if it's used for another thing, what is that? I still don't get that from my head.

[Sn1F3rt]

I would agree with you @rudra provided the implementation is as easy as it seems to be. The staff/sponsor will have to continuously upvote posts they consider worthy of being taken into account. However that way it would lead to an increase in a lot of reputation for everyone, which would otherwise make it difficult to judge who's a good poster and who isn't.

Definitely it would play a great role in solving the problem of spamming and low-quality posts that are going on of late, but then it implementation part of your idea needs a little modification.

I would still agree with you on this matter, provided another system can be designed on top of MyBB which takes into account the upvotes, keeping the reputation system intact . That way it would be a win-win situation for all, I believe.

@tiwil: I agree with you on the fact that it would be very difficult to achieve that every month. But in another perspective the staff as well as you would be able to judge yourself that how good a poster you are, here at this forum.

Regards,

[rudra]

this second score need not be public though. it could be staff only. I have no intention of openly judging that way. I also believe that will further reduce activity here. Discourage a lot of people Not good.

it need not disturb the current system either.

But now that i think about it and discuss about it with you, i see multiple problems.

More work for staff is one. ensuring consistency over it all is an0ther.

not a good idea.

[LightDestory]

I joined the forum this month and I don't know how much this "point system" works. But I can't agree with your idea. The only upvotes that you could get would be from staff during their routine of moderation & checking. For example I am active on Programming & Hardware section, I wrote a little article about P++ but it wasn't successful. I tried to help on problem such as printer but it was unsuccessful as well, I didn't get any feedback.
If you force the use of "upvote" every post will be a "If you liked, upvote please!", and for section of "low activity" such as programming will be a great hit, for users like me that posts mainly there.

[Sn1F3rt]

@rudra: Don't get discouraged though. Your idea is certainly efficient in controlling the spamming and the low quality posts being made of late.

I was concentrating on making the idea feasible. Take for instance, I make 30 posts in a given month. Now according to your system, the staff consider which of my posts are really worth the standard of the forum and mark me accordingly. Now I should be aware which of my posts were considered eligible, so that I'm aware of the aspects where I need to improve.

Taking this example into consideration, there should be an internal system which will show me the number of posts I've made, in contrast to the ones approved. This way things will work out efficiently.

The only problem here is that you'll have to develop this system yourself.... Cuz there's presently no MyBB extension that supports this.

This will also go a long way in increasing the quality of stuff that's posted here so that only the eligible members are considered to be given a VPS which they retain so long as they comply with the standard of posts here in this forum.

Regards,

[rudra]

@sohamb03

thanks. But actually that has a very high potential of failure. Freevps ran for such a long time. Still there were only a handful (much less actually. not full) users like that. I think trying to be too critical was partly responsible for the way that site went.

As i said, maintaining consistency in everything would be a major challenge. Also it will only increase the burden on staff members.

See , there is no point in not giving the vps. Even at our current situation, we have so many vps unclaimed.

Qlso who is gonna set the standard and who is gonna teach/guide even if we assume that i am willing to listen. just too much work.

I thought about a special score used internally by staff only. but somehow it will have to be uniform n automated. not possible.

So i come back to my previous position. we need to find or make reason so more new people join us.

Also remember that a low/mid tier vps is not that costly anymore. The ones we get here. Even an indian average college kid can afford it. The fun is in competing for the stuff and talking to eachother.

May be we just need to keep doing our personal best and keep an eye so that it is not all weeds.

all type of synthetic weed killers are proving to be harmful. mind you.

hehe

edit.
thanks for the feedback @LightDestory

[Sn1F3rt]

Yeah @rudra. I agree that consistency has to be maintained for such a plan. However, I don't have anything to argue, if you yourself wish to discontinue this idea. All I've to say that it was a really good idea.

However, there's something on which I don't agree with you. That's when you say that "there's no point in not giving the VPS". I truly understand your logic, but giving away VPSes just because they aren't being claimed, isn't a good idea.

Everyone is working hard to maintain their post count and quality so that they might retain their VPS. This is where competency is built and I like this aspect very much. Just because VPSes are lying unclaimed, you shouldn't give them away to anyone who makes low-quality, absolutely worthless and off topic posts. This isn't a solution anyways.

Affordable doesn't mean that everyone would like to get it, as you say it's the competency involved and the urge to get a freebie for your hard work. Not every average child can afford it, even that it's worth only $3-$5. I would best testify this, coz honestly I myself can't. I am financially unstable and hardly manage to pay for my education. I am a self tutored genius. Whatever I've learnt till date is on my own. I could never afford a professional course. That's exactly why I'm here so that I can get one, and further enrich my knowledge in Linux administration.

Anyways let's forget that. My intention in writing all this is that when you state something, make it universal, don't limit it to your surroundings. Remember some Indians cannot even afford two meals a day, we're fortunate enough that we can.

Regards,

[deanhills]

@rudra  With reference to your suggestion in your OP, I'm with @Sohamb03 on this one.  The suggestion is not practically feasible.  From many points of view.  We would need totally objective minded Staff to check those all of the time.  I've got more than enough work to do as it is.  To create that counter in its own right will be extra load on Dynamo.  There is a long list of projects that @Dynamo has on his list already.  Like one that I really favour over this one is a project to create post4vps own VPS panel for VPSs that come without a panel, so users can get their own panel for the VPSs that don't have panels.  Now that project I'd rather see Dynamo worry about than more points,.  And it's not as though with myBB you create the points counter, and sit back and it works straight away.  Dynamo will have to support the technical working of that counter. The staff will have to answer all of the feedback inquiries about the counter.  I'm sure you can remember all of the feedback that we got from the last counter, particularly when it wasn't working as it should.  myBB is not perfect by any means, and to create the counter he already created, the support involved took a lot of his time.

From another point of view we have a very SMALL community of members here.  I'd say most of us who have been around for a few months have a pretty good view of how long every one has been around, and the quality of their posts in the Forum.  For all of the Giveaways this year, and particularly the almost 8 months I've been the Giveaway Manager, the most members who participated in a single Giveaway have been five.  So it's not as though we have a huge number of members competing in any of the Giveaways needing a special vote system.  I know the Forum so well by now, like I go through every post that is made (well almost 99% of them any way).  Almost at a glance of the VPS requests, I can immediately see who is going to get which VPS.  In cases of doubt, I'm always closely in touch with Dynamo. Like there have been cases where the person won the VPS because of complete absence of competition, and I thought the person may not be deserving of the VPS. Those kind of doubtful cases.

One thing I really agree with you is the concern about lack of number of new members.  But this month I feel happy as we have at least two new members who have been involved in the Forum in a meaningful way. I've read great quality posts, and that always make me happy. I haven't seen that before, so we have reason to celebrate this month.  As it stands we may be getting three new high powered games server VPSs with the next Giveaway.  So the new members stand a great chance to get a really good VPS.  

Hopefully the added activity of our new members this month will motivate others to join.

[Honey]

Though personally Its appreciatable that you've spent sometime pondering over this, however, the solution is not in any way possible, any solution that involves staff interaction is not that much practical/feasilble as we don't have that many staff, and even then, promoting posts could become something of an opinion, whereas one might consider it spam and other may consider it an actual post. + Even though you did add the user involvement part, honestly I dont think any of us are suited to constantly up vote other posts, this is not reddit, we are here mainly to read and comment on posts/make our own posts.