Re: Forums

On 6 January 2012 15:53, Matthew Wilcox <mail@matthewwilcox.com> wrote:
> I'm not entirely convinced of the merit of +1 for posts because simple
> votes don't tell you what it is about the post has been up-voted. Was
> it the idea, the witty retort, the explained implementation precisely,
> part of the message, the whole of the message? I think it's much
> better to actually talk.

Well, it doesn't have to be as simple as up-votes and down-votes. It
could be possible to supply context, in the same was as Slashdot lets
you mark posts as insightful, funny, etc. You could have "+1 good
idea", "+1 good explanation", etc.

I agree that talking is better in general, but when you open up
discussions to more and more people, you run the risk of the too much
noise making conversation unwieldy, and some an up-voting system can
help to streamline the discussion and encourage people who might not
otherwise contribute to at least be able to express an opinion.

> A tagging system might be nice, but I think that's more of a symptom
> of mailing-lists not having decent grouping capabilities and/or the
> full archive search being outside of the mail client.

I think they also have value as a way of developing an ontology. If
I'm a newbie and come along with an idea, I may not know the
particular terms the group usually uses to discuss the topic. Having
the ability for more experienced users to tag discussions can help
categorise them and ensure the right people see them.

They can also be useful in providing more flexibility about what types
of discussions you want to follow. I may be participating on the CSS
forum, but mainly interested in discussions around 2D transforms and
animations, so I can register to filter my view on those tags.

> Frankly, I've never liked StackOverflow for discussions. That's not
> really what happens these, it's generally just a pile-on about very
> specific problems people have.

Sure, like I said it wouldn't make sense to clone StackOverflow, it's
certainly not a perfect system, but there are ideas there that could
be worth considering.

Thanks,

Jon

Received on Friday, 6 January 2012 16:30:44 UTC