best replies should appear first in a thread.

[Zoomic]

I have this habit of reading through many replies to a thread before I will respond. At the course of reading through few pages of a thread before replying, I discovered that;

• The earliest replies get more attention and earn more merit
• Some of the replies from pages 3 upwards are repetition of what others said in pages 1 and 2.
• I also understood that some of the quality contributors sometimes arrive late and their replies get buried easily

I therefore propose that, if possible, the arrangement of replies to a thread should be based on the number of merits that reply earned in that very thread. This will tend to sort the quality replies to appear in the first page no matter what time it was made. Even if the reply appeared on page 7, just 1 merit to that reply will send it to page 1. This will also help researchers to meet the most relevant posts in the first page, without having to search through tones o replies.
This sounds good to me but it may not go well with some other persons, I decided to drop the suggestion here. Although, I don't know much about the SMF version of the forum, but with the way people complain about it, it seems it doesn't allow some certain things to be incorporated to the forum.

[NeuroticFish]

And who or what decides which are the best replies? Because it's clearly neither the length nor the rank of the poster that could be added into the equation.
I hope that you don't expect somebody (moderator?) would read every post and give it some points/ranking, right?

PS. You already said that the first posts get most merits and imho this makes the rule you've proposed somewhat annihilating itself.

[Faisal2202]

You do have good thinking, and I have also observed that too, but not everything is about merits. Sometimes, I try to make the first post to see how many members agree with my point of view and how many don't. Because when there are 10 or 20 posts that are mostly made on some topic, then I make mine. I don't get to know anyone's thoughts about it. Like, what do they think about my reply?

That's why I try to make posts that will remain on the first page.

And talking about your suggestion, I don't like it, and I don't want it to be implemented. Because this would become some sort of discrimination. Because not every member tries to copy others' replies, but unintentionally their context ends up the same. And that's not fully true that only the first two posts make good merits, I have seen many threads where people get merits even on the second and third pages.

The point is, we are here to add value and to learn from others, but yeah, merits also matter, and we cannot ignore that fact. But our first priority should not be based on merit.

[robelneo]

There is a modification for this already

Best Answer In fact other forums are already implementing this, if I have a forum I will never implement this as it will not encourage diversity in response readers will just focus on that one reply disregarding all the other incoming replies that could be better than the best reply and besides discussion begets new discussion within a discussion, if you have this it will discourage that.

[m2017]

I have this habit of reading through many replies to a thread before I will respond. At the course of reading through few pages of a thread before replying, I discovered that;

• The earliest replies get more attention and earn more merit
• Some of the replies from pages 3 upwards are repetition of what others said in pages 1 and 2.
• I also understood that some of the quality contributors sometimes arrive late and their replies get buried easily

I therefore propose that, if possible, the arrangement of replies to a thread should be based on the number of merits that reply earned in that very thread. This will tend to sort the quality replies to appear in the first page no matter what time it was made. Even if the reply appeared on page 7, just 1 merit to that reply will send it to page 1. This will also help researchers to meet the most relevant posts in the first page, without having to search through tones o replies.
This sounds good to me but it may not go well with some other persons, I decided to drop the suggestion here. Although, I don't know much about the SMF version of the forum, but with the way people complain about it, it seems it doesn't allow some certain things to be incorporated to the forum.

It's an interesting scientific forum research you did, though. What is the sample? How many topics have you looked at to come to these conclusions? I'm willing to bet not much.

You touched on a very interesting topic and it would be great to conduct a full-fledged study on this topic. For example, by automating the process, because manually, by a person, it will take forever.

But nuances arise. How to evaluate the usefulness of posts? Merit is not a 100% objective measure of usefulness. Especially in the hands of merit sources, who sometimes throw away merit in batches left and right, which casts doubt on the usefulness of certain posts.

The idea of ranking posts based on merit seems interesting (moving posts with merit to the front pages), but wouldn't that disrupt the natural flow of discussion on the forum and create confusion in the sequence of posts? That is, it will turn out that the answers to the questions will be in front (the first pages) of the questions themselves. In my opinion, this will create chaos with posts.

[SamReomo]

Well, it won't be justified to to make someone's reply on top page only because that reply received merits. Sometimes there are very good replies to a post that doesn't receive any merits and those replies are mostly on page no 1 or 2, but if whatever you said is implemented on forum then all those replies will be further away from those 2 pages.

The merits can't justify that how good someone's reply is because merits are sent by members and everyone has difference in their opinions. Let's say if someone agrees with another user's opinion then that person may send the user a merit for that contributive opinion while if others don't agree with that opinion may send merit to someone else's opinion which is totally different from 1st user's opinion.

I believe such kind of system will create much trouble in forum and won't be helpful at all. The ones who make contributive replies will get discouraged if their replies don't appear on the place where they have posted those replies. Such kind of system will be totally a failure if it's implemented on mega-threads as they have thousands of pages and if even a single user receives a merit then his/her post will somehow disappear because it will move to those pages where the replies have received merits.

[aioc]

The best replies may not end up at the top or get the most number of votes, some of the best replies happen after the first or two pages and those who voted may think that they voted for the best replies when there are better replies that will come and missed it, we have the merit system and a post getting merits sometimes happen along the discussion, could be after the end of the discussion, if you create a poll for this I don't think many will agree on having the best reply voted show up on top.
 

[Zoomic]

But nuances arise. How to evaluate the usefulness of posts? Merit is not a 100% objective measure of usefulness. Especially in the hands of merit sources, who sometimes throw away merit in batches left and right, which casts doubt on the usefulness of certain posts.

You have a great observation here. I admire your sense of reasoning. As you said, this could cause another problem whereby we may have a group of people who may agree to keep one another's post on the first page. They may keep sending merits to the posts to keep them at the top even when the post quality does not worth it.

The idea of ranking posts based on merit seems interesting (moving posts with merit to the front pages), but wouldn't that disrupt the natural flow of discussion on the forum and create confusion in the sequence of posts? That is, it will turn out that the answers to the questions will be in front (the first pages) of the questions themselves. In my opinion, this will create chaos with posts.

Disruption of the natural flow of conversation is your strongest point and I do no think I have a way off it for now. Thanks for your seasoned contribution.

[snowpega]

--snipe--

somehow I do agree with you because if the thread goes work like this will not be good. The reason as OP is saying all the post of the threads comes on the first page and it doesn't matter even if they do a late reply and somehow get merit. in this way, other people who are coming to read the thread they will not read other posts that don't get any merit. Those posts will be considered as shit even posts have valuable knowledge right?

in conclusion, I would say it is the best way as it is now. In this way, all the members have the same respect as merited ones. There will be no judgment like which post should be read or not to be read. I think it sounds well.

[Frankolala]

I don't buy this your idea OP, because the reply to a post should be based on first come, first post. Not all replies without merits show that it is not quality enough. A post might be quality to me and not quality to the other person. What matter most is that the discussion is flowing and people are learning and contributing based on the OP or based on the contributions by forum members above.

If the merited post are put on the first page, you will see that the discussion will be zig zag and can set confusion on newbies or members that are trying to learn from the thread. It will kill the fun of the discussion in the forum.

[DYING_S0UL]

The first point you pointed out, I completely agree. No deny on that. Sometimes it's not even the first person it's the user. As you become a known person in this forum, and when others who knew you previously, see you comment something good, they simply give out merits.

Even if they arrive late or reply late, that doesn't matter. Those who are really dedicated dig all the way from page 1 to page 10. Even I sometimes read several pages before replying. I think what matters, is the important of a post. If it were useful in any way, you'll see much constructive reply from almost all the top users.

On the other hand, if it were a spam post or shitpost, there won't me much activity anyway. And you won't need to read all the pages.

The thing you are asking for is good but somehow not necessary (My opinion). It may create a mess in that thread. When it's sorted based on dates, it helps a lot in finding a comment and replying to it. But if you sort it based on merit or in any other ways, reply will get scrambled. Who knows where my comment would be. How would others find my comment in a thread where he/she wanted to reply! Is my comment worthy or useless. Who would determine that!

[taufik123]

The idea of ranking posts based on merit seems interesting (moving posts with merit to the front pages), but wouldn't that disrupt the natural flow of discussion on the forum and create confusion in the sequence of posts? That is, it will turn out that the answers to the questions will be in front (the first pages) of the questions themselves. In my opinion, this will create chaos with posts.

Disruption of the natural flow of conversation is your strongest point and I do no think I have a way off it for now. Thanks for your seasoned contribution.

The natural flow of the discussion will be disrupted and the flow that has been sorted according to when the post was made will look messy if it refers to the system that OP wants to implement.

There is also no definite standard as to whether the best post will appear on top or not, as the parameters of a post will be determined by how relevant the comments made are or also by the members involved in the discussion.

Just need to follow how the discussion goes and see whose posts or responses are really relevant and deserve to be given merit or something else.

OP is good enough to give his ideas, whether they are implemented or not is for the forum developers to decide.
We see that the Bitcointalk forum currently has a good system order, as well as the implementation of the merit system, and the latest is the use of the sign (OP) as a marker that the member is an Original Poster, and it has been 1 year since the OP sign (SMF patch) was implemented and initiated by PowerGlove.

Identifying the OP at a glance (SMF patch)

[hugeblack]

Topics can be rearranged using

 - Show Most Recent Post at the Top
 - add each user who spamming to your ignore menu.
 - Using UserScript to make a specific account replies first
 - Rearrange topics according to merits .

These are 4 simple ways will be enhanced by the quality of replies but I do not think that there is an indication of the quality of replies and changing the arrangement of topics will be a little more difficult to track discussions.

[Ndabagi01]

• The earliest replies get more attention and earn more merit

I agree with you but this does not happen in all cases. And this also depends on the person meriting you on how they tend to relate your post to their own opinion on the post, whether it’s worth giving merit or not.

• Some of the replies from pages 3 upwards are repetition of what others said in pages 1 and 2.

This happens but not in all posts. If you will take your time to go through the replies until the last page, you’ll hear different opinions and views on people no matter how slightly different it is. That is why some users get merited in the later pages than the first page.

• I also understood that some of the quality contributors sometimes arrive late and their replies get buried easily

This is left for the OP to follow up on the replies of people on his post. If he seeks to really get answers to what he asked while creating the thread, he won’t neglect it and continue to interact with the people on that thread until maybe he finds the perfect answer to his question. Those that go through replies can also see a good reply in one of those pages and can easily merit them, hence the reason why some later post have more merit than the first page of reply.

[DVlog]

Topics can be rearranged using

 - Show Most Recent Post at the Top
 - add each user who spamming to your ignore menu.
 - Using UserScript to make a specific account replies first
 - Rearrange topics according to merits .

These are 4 simple ways will be enhanced by the quality of replies but I do not think that there is an indication of the quality of replies and changing the arrangement of topics will be a little more difficult to track discussions.

Do we have a benchmark of how we will determine the quality of a post? Sometimes comments that look stupid at first glance can be valuable if you look deep enough. People have different approaches and points of view to judge a topic and react to it. Someone's comment might just share his points of view and it doesn't add any real value to most of the forum members.

BTW i am familiar with point number 4. How to use this use scrip?

[EL MOHA]

The idea of ranking posts based on merit seems interesting (moving posts with merit to the front pages), but wouldn't that disrupt the natural flow of discussion on the forum and create confusion in the sequence of posts? That is, it will turn out that the answers to the questions will be in front (the first pages) of the questions themselves. In my opinion, this will create chaos with posts.

It will definitely affect the arrangement of the thread and it’s post, the replies was arrange in such a way that it looks more like a chat group where they follow sequentially. But if you bring those replies up base on merit then you will have a disorder. I have notice that most replies that actually get those merit more are the replies that sometimes correct the mistakes from  other members replies, so if you arrange them base on merit then the replies that were corrected will be bury down.

This idea wouldn’t work out because if there is no merit then which of the posts comes first and or will the moderators be given another very hand work to fish out the best replies? The whole concept is good but surely one can’t be implemented. The best thing is if a thread is related what you are interested in then find sometime and go through it. You Might even find something helpful for you without it been merited to take It up the post ladder

[LTU_btc]

No, no, no and one more time - no! No offence, but I think it's bad idea. Like most here already said, posts should be shown in chronological order - from start to the end. I'm not sure what's point to show one post out of context alone on the top. It's same like book - you don't read it from 54th page, you read it from 1st page to the last page.
 

[Smartvirus]

Is merit an absolute determinant of what a quality post might have been or identifies best replies, let alone a thread?

I think not. Most of the things we work with here on the forum are subjective and time bound. You wouldn’t expect a reply made at 12noon just to be repasted at an earlier time let’s say, 9am just because it had merits on it while others didn’t and it’s perceived to be the best response.

If is boiled open your year a little I’ll say, merits attracts more merits and people tends to merit posts that already had merits on them. Also, users as well do follow up certain users posting style and merit based on discretion.

That doesn’t make the posts any better from the rest.
It’s just normal to scan a thread by reading through in such for response of interest and when satisfied, you’ll be good to go unto the next.

[PX-Z]

Best Answer In fact other forums are already implementing this, if I have a forum I will never implement this as it will not encourage diversity in response readers will just focus on that one reply disregarding all the other incoming replies that could be better than the best reply and besides discussion begets new discussion within a discussion, if you have this it will discourage that.

I doubt this current forum software is compatible to that upgraded version. Also, there's already merit system which work the same for this. It could be more helpful if there's a sort feature of every thread's reply, the most/least merited reply, oldest/newest, etc..

[UchihaSarada]

Best reply with you can be not a best reply with me. Because you have your knowledge that is different than me. What you need, what can help you can be different than what can help me. A post is helpful with you can not be helpful with me because I already know about that knowledge.

If a best reply is only based on its received merit, it is not correct too. Received merits can be emotionally distributed by merit sources and how thin or deep their sourced merits is at a time they click on Merit. Received merit can be from farm accounts too so it does not good to use for choosing a best reply.