Liking comments

Is there a way we could get a liking system implemented for the comments on a climb? Often times the first post is just "Fun Climb, enjoyed myself" or something else just as banal and requires you to scroll down a fair bit for the beta that is actually useful in the comments. It would be awesome if we could up vote comments much in the same way we can up vote pages. It would allow for the good comments to rise to the top and the useless ones to sink to the bottom. It need not even show how many up votes a comment has as long as it sorts them appropriately.

We're considering adding a "like" or a "thumbs up/down" feature to comments and forum posts (and improving them on routes and areas).

Nick Wilder wrote:We're considering adding a "like" or a "thumbs up/down" feature to comments and forum posts (and improving them on routes and areas).

CJC wrote: please don't. this +/- thumbs up/down or 'liking' crap ruins forums. it's the laziest most impersonal form of interaction possible.

it also keeps track of the persons history as well so its not a facebook type "like". I'm alllll for it, lets see who is posting.

The thumbs up/down adds a social component to the forums that I'm not entirely sure is a good thing. We could easily sum up and display all the thumbs up/down for a user (or even if we don't), but that could make people could feel quite ganged up on by the crowd. Sometimes that's deserved, but we don't want to make a popularity contest out of MP, and we do want to remain open to unpopular points of view.

This might be solved if we just have a "like" button (with no dislike), but we need to think about it more.

As for comments, it's probably a good thing, since there's a lot of valuable information in them and a thumb up/down system would make it easier to find the good stuff.

Ty Morrison-Heath wrote:It would be awesome if we could up vote comments much in the same way we can up vote pages. It would allow for the good comments to rise to the top and the useless ones to sink to the bottom. It need not even show how many up votes a comment has as long as it sorts them appropriately.

If this is implemented, I'd like a way to disable it too. There are lots of climbs where there is a relevant discussion in the comments, and reordering by "likes" would make them really disjointed and hard to follow.

If a ranking is added, maybe just have some scoring next to the comment to guide those looking to skim comments?

The swiftest path to mediocrity is elevation of popular opinion, in my opinion.

johnL wrote:Could a certain # of thumbs down hide a post? That would be ideal.

I think this would be a very (and perhaps the only) useful purpose of implementing such a system to this forum.

matt davies wrote:The swiftest path to mediocrity is elevation of popular opinion, in my opinion.

I like this comment.

MojoMonkey wrote: If this is implemented, I'd like a way to disable it too. There are lots of climbs where there is a relevant discussion in the comments, and reordering by "likes" would make them really disjointed and hard to follow. If a ranking is added, maybe just have some scoring next to the comment to guide those looking to skim comments?

Probably wouldn't be too hard to implement...just add a pulldown box saying if you'd like to sort comments by most recent or by votes. Think Amazon with their review system.

In case anyone is wondering where the crazy dude's off-topic rant went... I deleted it. This topic is useful to me, so I'm using my master-of-the-mp-universe powers to stop it from being hijacked.

Thanks, Nick. (Fascist!)

I would like a thumbs down button for comments on the route pages to get rid of all the comments to the effect of: "Climbed this with my bro, Bud, and I wore my favorite shirt, also I lost a contact lens here, can you return it for me?"

The separate issue of like/dislike on the forums, I am ambivalent about.

I'm also fine with the forums the way they are. I do think sorting comments on routes according to relevance would be great improvement.

There should probably be a minimum threshold for upvotes before they get sorted, so that one individual can't go around and upvote all his/her comments and get them to the top. Maybe a minimum of 3 upvotes before a comment gets moved up. The minimum could be raised for more popular route's pages, so that all the comments don't suddenly shoot to the top due to high traffic to the page.

There's also the issue of maintaining continuity among the comments. Sometimes people post back and forth to each other a couple times, and if one of those posts got upvoted out of it's original position, the flow of posts wouldn't make sense anymore. You could move the entire series of related comments, but then you'd probably need to implement a "Reply to" system ala Reddit which would be a-whole-nother can of worms.

Anyway, exciting possibilites for changes, but there's a lot of things to consider. Here's hoping everyone can be nice and it all works out in the best way possible for the (not at all communist) community :)

Instead of sorting history with this I'd rather see my history condensed. Instead of 20 pages of "re", "re" I'd rather just see the single topic.

And I'd like a pony.

kBobby wrote:Thanks, Nick. (Fascist!) I would like a thumbs down button for comments on the route pages to get rid of all the comments to the effect of: "Climbed this with my bro, Bud, and I wore my favorite shirt, also I lost a contact lens here, can you return it for me?" The separate issue of like/dislike on the forums, I am ambivalent about.

Couldn't this be accomplished with a flag, similar to the forums? More work for admins I would assume, but I'm not a fan of a group giving comments thumbs down and it disappearing.

It would be fantastic if comments with over the top beta could be hidden unless clicked on. Straight No Chaser is a prime example of gear beta overload.

If you use a thumbs up/down icon, could you...

A) NOT make it identical to Facebook
B) PUT a Tape Glove on it?

Nick Wilder wrote: As for comments, it's probably a good thing, since there's a lot of valuable information in them and a thumb up/down system would make it easier to find the good stuff.

This would be incredibly useful for the popular areas. Would also make it easy for area admins to find the good comments easier and put them into the descriptions.

Also I hope that some sort of "notifications" view is built so that we can see when someone comments on a photo or an area/route/etc. Sometimes lots of good information or questions are lost due to the original submitter not knowing of these comments.

Not a big fan of the forum likes/dislikes since I think this just perpetrates more forum bashing.

and please do this:

Tits McGee wrote:B) PUT a Tape Glove on it?

I'm not a fan of the feature as I've seen it implemented on other forums. I agree with CJC that it tends to dumb down the conversation further. I also think it usually turns every single thread into a popularity contest, with everyone trying to get in the "best" one-liner as determined by the voters. Ick.

On the route pages, though, it may be a good idea. Enough down votes on inane, off-topic bull and that junk is hidden. This sounds like an actual useful feature.

Other forums have instituted this idea. Rockclimbing.com's worked out so magnificently it caused a shit storm before combusting. It basically entitles the one-upsmanship supposedly being cracked down on here.

I don't have a problem sorting through what is useful or not to me in the route comments. I am also not so deprived of my own faculties that I need to know what people who like to use "like" buttons like before making up my own mind.

Yeah, actually I feel similarly to OC. I don't really want a like button. What I truly would appreciate is the ability to hide comments on the route pages on an individual basis for the purpose of printing.

Nick Wilder wrote:In case anyone is wondering where the crazy dude's off-topic rant went... I deleted it. This topic is useful to me, so I'm using my master-of-the-mp-universe powers to stop it from being hijacked.

Fascists win again!