Site Feedback Forum Features.

[fermonos]

Two features I think the forum would massively benefit from.

1. An upvote system, this would allow people to vote on thread replies. For example, I ask for some help. 10 people reply, out of 10 replies one has a really good upvote ratio showing that the information within this reply is accurate and good. It would look something like this.

2. When someone quotes you, you get a notification. Would massively help keep track of what people have said in response to you. I see myself trying to find many threads I've replied and posted on to see what responses I've been given back. Somewhat annoying and time wasting.

 

[Slow_Mobius]

Two features I think the forum would massively benefit from.

1. An upvote system, this would allow people to vote on thread replies. For example, I ask for some help. 10 people reply, out of 10 replies one has a really good upvote ratio showing that the information within this reply is accurate and good. It would look something like this.

2. When someone quotes you, you get a notification. Would massively help keep track of what people have said in response to you. I see myself trying to find many threads I've replied and posted on to see what responses I've been given back. Somewhat annoying and time wasting.

I personally have mixed feelings on the first one. I actually agree and think that it would help to see if others agree with a particular point, but I can also see people upvoting things they like that isn't necessarily good HR. But I feel like that could be patrolled by mods, and it might help focus the forums to have something like an HR meter instead where people can upvote something that is good HR or downvote bad HR.

I m surprised your second point isn't already a feature. That would help a lot

 

[swilow]

The thing with point 1, people may wind up voting for things that are dangerous and create a certain legitimacy to misinformation. I don't think its a great idea; if someone posts something and it is against HR principles and dangerous, simply saying you 'dislike' the post doesn't help all that much; you would need to rebut it so people understand why the information was incorrect, and having a feature where you can just dump your opinion and run without qualifying it is not especially informative or useful. Usually, as a discussion progresses and people contribute their opinions, a sort of objectivity does emerge that is entirely dependant on the discussion itself taking place. Simply lodging a binary opinion doesn't enhance or further harm reduction IMO. Being able to very rapidly assume the value of a response may cause people to overlook important things that haven't been upvoted. Why does a discussion forum like Buelight need to be about subjective opinions; safety is more about establishing objective facts and adapting your behavior in light of them.

With point 2, Bluelight did have that feature (or does). Earlier this year in fact. I think it was removed, maybe people were douche-bagging it up, but it felt unnecessary to me. Regular notifications for things I would have encountered in time anyway. That said, I do not know if the feature became opt-in or was removed entirely, or just doesn't work for me but it was operational and than one day it wasn't. Perhaps an admin or some famous guy can explain it.

 

[fermonos]

I'm very sure people are not going to upvote dangerous replies, and if it did happen. That happens already, if something what upvoted and another user things it's legitimate advice. Then all you have to do is quote the upvoted reply and respond to it. Simple.

I'm positive that it would cause my good than harm.

 

[alasdairm]

i think one-click features like fb 'like' and forum votes reduce the depth of knowledge on the forum and turn people from focus on quality to focus on quantity.

we've discussed this a few times and i've yet to hear a truly compelling case for doing it.

alasdair

 

[fermonos]

Okay, so 1 is a bad idea whatever.

2 isn't, why not add it?

 

[alasdairm]

the version of vB we use doesn't have native support for quote notification. we'll consider adding it via a hack but it's not going to be at the top of the todo list.

alasdair

 

[swilow]

^Did the quote notification @whoever feature get turned off for some reason? It, um, did exist didn't it?

I'm very sure people are not going to upvote dangerous replies, and if it did happen. That happens already, if something what upvoted and another user things it's legitimate advice. Then all you have to do is quote the upvoted reply and respond to it. Simple.

I'm positive that it would cause my good than harm.

I like the idea of trying to spread some positivity and of course a dangerous post can be down voted. An issue I have found is that unless you are familiar with the forum, its hard to tell what constitutes a trusted member. Someone may have 1000 'likes' but what does that mean in the broader context of that particular forum?

I think if people do not know what they are talking about, of course they may vote for a reply that is in fact dangerous. This sort of thing should strive to avoid as much subjectivity as possible.

I think Ali has made a similar point to what I tried to. Simply voting for something doesn't really contribute very much. Drugs are illegal, there is abundant information on the well known drugs, but for the newer and rarer chemicals, there is really only user reports. We need to be having open and extensive discussions looking at multiple different nuanced perspectives rather than simply GOOD or BAD. I just think it would dilute what is a discussion forum, above all else.