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yadayada

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Since alot of smart people with interesting information post on this forum, which makes it basicly like some kind of online database or learning tool. But there can also be quite a bit of noise. The general discussion subforum shows 463 pages, and I am sure there is interesting stuff somewhere in there, posted in maybe 2010 that I havent read yet. Same thing for future posters, who will never read alot of v interesting stuff that is being posted now.

 

So why not make a sub forum with a best of thread? For example ericopoly made a bunch of interesting posts about options. And I am sure there are many others, why not put them in a sub forum where they are easy to find? Seems like a pretty easy change right?

 

Only difficult part is how to decide what should be in the best off part. that can probably be more work.

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"alot of smart people"...we all make spelling errors, but that one had some irony to it that I couldn't help point out. 

 

My thoughts a easy system that would allow a reader to sort through the increasingly high volume of posts:

1. some sort of peer rating ability on posts would be great.

2. it would be even better if the average rating (or count of high ratings) of posters were maintained

3. it would be even better if their were some type of feedback loop, where in the rating of any given post, the ratings provided by posters who themselves have a high count of high-rated posts, or a high average post rating, are more heavily weighted.

 

A few people have voiced similar opinions, but others have voiced the opinions "all posts and posters are equal" and "Parsad is doing the best he can" (which is true). 

 

I believe the last time one of these threads started one individual made a fairly large donation to Parsad and challenged others to do the same.  I must confess I never donated anything, though if a reasonable fee were to be charged to all readers I would be willing to pay. 

 

edited to fix formatting of auto-numbering

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yeah i think there is alot of pricing power he has. Can easily make the fee 50$. Getting close to 100$ and you might lose alot of people.

 

One negative about a rating of individual posts is that people are mostly sheep to some gradation. You are more likely to upvote if a post has alot of upvotes already.  And it might deter people to post stupid things. Which can sometimes get interesting replies (or might not be so stupid after all).

 

It also might deter people to post criticism on ideas being posted here.

 

But I like the idea of rating posters in general.

 

And english is not my first language :) . Usually dont pay that much attention to spelling anyway when posting.

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yadayada- i seemed to remember english wasn't your first language but wasn't certain.  I was terrible at foreign language coursework and admire those who excel at language.  No disrespect was meant; I misspell words all the time, and would not even be able to string together a coherent sentence in a foreign language.  I was merely pointing out the irony of that particular misspelling. 

 

I do agree with you though in general some sort of tool to help a reader sort through the large volume of posts would be valuable.

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I actually prefer not having a rating or "star" system on posts. That way I can judge the merit of individual posts without any pre-conceived bias about the quality.

 

Another downside is that participation is usually pretty low and unhappy people are more motivated to vote than happy people, so if there are 5 people who dislike you and rate everything you write 1/5 star, it soon looks like everybody hates you. It can also encourage groupthink if every time someone with a unpopular opinion gets -15 votes, soon enough you get an echo chamber of the majority. Places like Stockhouse have ratings, and it rarely tells you much about the real quality of anything in my experience...

 

One way around that would be to have only positive voting with a limited number of votes, like 1 gold star per user par day. So when you like something, you could vote for it and next to the post it would say "X people gave this post a gold star" or whatever. The limited number of votes would mean that they are worth something (otherwise, people would just vote for anything and everything and it wouldn't mean much), and you could have a feature that ranks posts by gold stars  to see the Best Of.

 

For negative stuff like spam or things against the forum guidelines, you can already use the "report to a moderator button". This keeps it to the serious stuff, rather than thumbing down random stuff you mildly dislike and making everybody feel bad because they don't know why they are getting anonymously downvoted...

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Just read all threads. :)

I learned the most by posting some ideas and reading the Ask Packer and Ask Eric Threads 10 times.

 

I just did the same thing.  ;D

I'm about a quarter of the way though the general section and I started with the 3 "Ask" threads, Packer, Eric and Kraven.

 

There's some gold in those general sub-forums, especially from '09 -'10. Shows just how smart this forum is. 

 

So far I'm about mid way through 2010 and I found the strategy about the members who used preferred shares early in '09 hugely enlightening.

 

After general I'm going to start the investment ideas section.  It's time well spent for me.

 

 

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Just read all threads. :)

I learned the most by posting some ideas and reading the Ask Packer and Ask Eric Threads 10 times.

 

I just did the same thing.  ;D

I'm about a quarter of the way though the general section and I started with the 3 "Ask" threads, Packer, Eric and Kraven.

 

There's some gold in those general sub-forums, especially from '09 -'10. Shows just how smart this forum is. 

 

So far I'm about mid way through 2010 and I found the strategy about the members who used preferred shares early in '09 hugely enlightening.

 

After general I'm going to start the investment ideas section.  It's time well spent for me.

 

That's what I did when I first joined. I went through the whole archive. I highly recommend it to new members.

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I actually prefer not having a rating or "star" system on posts. That way I can judge the merit of individual posts without any pre-conceived bias about the quality.

 

I agree. When you meet people in person they don´t come with a rating attached, but once you get to know them you develop your own opinion of them. I don´t see any reason for having a ratings system. 

 

I always find it funny when I´m reading something here and I´m thinking to myself "that´s typical Eric/Kraven/Parsad/Gio/Packer/etc." about guys I´ve never even met.

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You can do this easily yourself. Instead of a sub forum start a thread. Reserve the first few posts for yourself for later use. Ask people to recommend interesting topics/posts and add links to them into the first few posts.

 

This is a good idea and doesn't make any more work for Parsad. This could even be done by several people as long as there isn't too much overlap and the threads could be pinned to the top, or just bumped every week or so. People should be choosy and pick ones that stand the test of time though.

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I actually prefer not having a rating or "star" system on posts. That way I can judge the merit of individual posts without any pre-conceived bias about the quality.

Totally agree with this.

 

This is why we don't have one...the options are available, but I chose specifically not to activate them years ago.  There are no revered auteurs on here, just plain people, rich, poor, happy, sad, funny, unfunny, good-natured, ill-mannered, but all willing to learn and share.  I don't want to make new members feel like they have to write something transcendent to simply feel like part of the group.  Everybody has something to offer and we can learn something from anyone!  Cheers!

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I actually prefer not having a rating or "star" system on posts. That way I can judge the merit of individual posts without any pre-conceived bias about the quality.

Totally agree with this.

 

This is why we don't have one...the options are available, but I chose specifically not to activate them years ago.  There are no revered auteurs on here, just plain people, rich, poor, happy, sad, funny, unfunny, good-natured, ill-mannered, but all willing to learn and share.  I don't want to make new members feel like they have to write something transcendent to simply feel like part of the group.  Everybody has something to offer and we can learn something from anyone!  Cheers!

 

+1 for No changes!

 

This place works perfectly and someone interested in "successful culture" could make a case study of it.  People that consistently and continually go over the line end up removing themselves.  You can't ask for more than that in life.  Well, you can...but

 

 

 

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I agree about no ratings for individual posts. Imagine if everything that someone said at a bar or over dinner was constantly rated, it would influence the conversation.

 

I think that ratings for conversations would very a very good idea. It would be nice to prioritize which old topics to read. The challenge is how to set it up so it is a positive likes rating only (agree this is better that number of stars or negative ratings) and at the same time avoid the bias of a long thread compared to a small one.

 

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