Suggestion List of members with the most positive comments

[pauldw]

It seems like looking at the ratio of good reaction scores to total posts (and screening out people with only a few posts since there wouldn’t be much statistical relevance in those cases) would create a decent metric showing how helpful any given member’s posts were seen by the community. Of course, one can just look at any given person’s two numbers and calculate it. But that’s a person by person thing. It might be interesting to have a list somewhere on the site listing perhaps the hundred most positive ratios, as that might make it easy to go through those people’s posts and see interesting things we might’ve missed. On the other hand, if such a list would just create bad feelings, it might not be worth it.

 

[rhwestfall]

But not what I want to know.

you are asking for an answer that involves subjective and objective input....

 

[letterboy]

you are asking for an answer that involves subjective and objective input....

I think that's on full display in how this is difficult.

Right here in this thread.

There is no "easy" way to make it so that it is fair to threads or users or posts. My evaluation of what a like is, is different from yours and most everyone else here I'm sure.

It is not to say anyone is wrong, or right.

It's like the "what's off topic" discussions that come up. Me making a post correcting your spelling is seen as off topic to many, where I see it as being helpful. This portion of the post, many will see as off topic and shouldn't be here - but it's related so it should stay...

Why should my years and thousands of posts be held differently than anyone else's? If we're gonna limit what posts "count" we should limit the posts to the core forums - basic and advanced.

 

[Akimbo]

On scuba related topic:
Who are the Top 10 member currently?
What are the Top 10 for the most "like" post?

Currently xenForo does not provide the tools to answer that. I can't even guess what a database query would look like, not knowing how the database is structured.

My guess is @Dr Simon Mitchell leads the likes to posts field by a longshot. He's currently at 2,398 likes to 657 posts or 3.65:1.

The Reactions score to Posts ratio in diving related forums "might" be a useful general indicator. Let's say we could pull that database query off. Would it be that useful to most readers?

Based on my limited memory alone, wouldn't most of @Dr Simon Mitchell's posts be waaaay over the heads of most readers? @Duke Dive Medicine is another another one of our thoughtful medical moderators with a 2,974 Reaction score to 3,033 messages. That is a very respectable ratio but, in my opinion, is not proportional to the value of his posts to the great majority of our readers.

@drrich2's Reaction score 8,286 to 9,860 posts. I contend that he is far more helpful to ScubaBoard's readers interested in dive travel than our medical gurus. I might rate well with the few members interested in commercial diving and diving history but I bet most of our readers would say "who the heck is Akimbo?".

We may be asking more of Reaction scores than a computer algorithm is capable of producing. I would be more interested in other member's choices from all experience levels for the most useful poster — providing it was backed up with links that support their opinion.

 

[Centrals]

Based on my limited memory alone, wouldn't most of @Dr Simon Mitchell's posts be waaaay over the heads of most readers? @Duke Dive Medicine is another another one of our thoughtful medical moderators with a 2,974 Reaction score to 3,033 messages. That is a very respectable ratio but, in my opinion, is not proportional to the value of his posts to the great majority of our readers.

@drrich2's Reaction score 8,286 to 9,860 posts. I contend that he is far more helpful to ScubaBoard's readers interested in dive travel than our medical gurus. I might rate well with the few members interested in commercial diving and diving history but I bet most of our readers would say "who the heck is Akimbo?".

Educational posts are good but only to a certain extent(to me only). The reply on "Deep Stop" was very good especially to tec divers.
Special post such as 'saturation diving', "commercial diving" etc etc has very limited appeal to me. "Who the heck is ..."
"Richard" speaks with a language that I have no problem to understand.

 

[Akimbo]

Educational posts are good but only to a certain extent(to me only). The reply on "Deep Stop" was very good especially to tec divers.

Good point. I'm not suggesting that member's picks be limited to "education" posts. It would be fine with me if the thread began with a description of where that person is the most useful to the OP. It could be obtuse like underwater archeology or photographing slugs to really basic stuff like finding a diving course.

Diving is too diverse for a one-size fits nobody solution. A criteria like "this member's posts help me because..." may be as good as we can get.

 

[tursiops]

Diving is too diverse for a one-size fits nobody solution. A criteria like "this member's posts help me because..." may be as good as we can get.

Nice point. Perhaps the criterion in indeed "helpful" posts rather than "good" or "favorite" or "like". Since there is no reaction for "helpful," this would have to be done with nominations.

 

[Akimbo]

Since there is no reaction for "helpful," this would have to be done with nominations.

How do you envision a nomination process?

Conceptually I'm fine with a thread of one member's opinion with links to posts that illustrate their conclusion. I think it would be very interesting to see a thread like this from a new member/long time lurker.

Only about 20% of the people reading ScubaBoard are members. Saying we don't care about lurkers/"Guests" is like saying we don't care about getting more members since that is where new members come from.

 

[lowwall]

The Reactions score to Posts ratio in diving related forums "might" be a useful general indicator. Let's say we could pull that database query off. Would it be that useful to most readers?

...

We may be asking more of Reaction scores than a computer algorithm is capable of producing. I would be more interested in other member's choices from all experience levels for the most useful poster — providing it was backed up with links that support their opinion.

Here's a quick pass about how I would design this. I have no idea how much of this is possible within the frameworks of xenforo or if this is ultimately worth doing even if it is possible. But I think the exercise is helpful.

First you have to decide what you are trying to do with this. I'm going to define the goal as "build something that uses likes to show readers a particular poster is considered helpful or knowledgeable in this area".

Now that we have the goal, we can see we have two problems to solve and one constraint to apply.

Let's start with the constraint. You should only be using scores for posts made in the forum (or forum group) the thread is posted in. This is vital to making the score meaningful to a reader For example, my positive scores primarily come from the basic, advanced and regulator forums. I think we can agree that none of these should apply if I were to post in the rebreather or instructor forums, areas where I have zero firsthand knowledge. This also takes care of the pub poster problem, they get to display their pub data in the pub, but it won't carry over to the scuba forums. You'd have to spend some time thinking about grouping the forums, for example should all the travel forums be considered one group, but that's doable.

Problem one is the display. How are you doing to show this? They're a bunch of options, but in the end it comes down to displaying something in the author section or in the actual text. I'd choose the author section and include the ratio for that forum along with the total likes and posts along with a small set of banners for the top members like "Top 5% Like Ratio", "Top 10% Like Ratio" and "Top 25% Like Ratio". The label would be a link to an explanation and a list of the top members for that forum.

Problem two is determining the list. This is actually pretty straightforward now that we've defined the goal. Assuming that the poster has enough qualifying posts in that forum or forum group, I'd do it as (total positive reactions - total negative reactions) / (number of posts in the current forum or forum group since likes were added).

 

[tursiops]

How do you envision a nomination process?

Conceptually I'm fine with a thread of one member's opinion with links to posts that illustrate their conclusion. I think it would be very interesting to see a thread like this from a new member/long time lurker.

Only about 20% of the people reading ScubaBoard are members. Saying we don't care about lurkers/"Guests" is like saying we don't care about getting more members since that is where new members come from.

A nomination would have to come from a member. If a lurker wants to nominate a post/member/thread, then they would have to become a member.

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

I'm going to define the goal as "build something that uses likes to show readers a particular poster is considered helpful or knowledgeable in this area".

The challenge with that goal is that there are a lot of folks here that just like each other, are friends and so they just like each others posts. Then there are also folks who may be just funny and are "liked" but their posts are in no way helpful or knowledgeable.

Then you have the issue where certain clichés or groups feel that their way is the only highway.....which can be confusing for folks that are just seeking information or opinions... I think that's the main reason that a lot of "guests" or new divers never actually join the Board and submit posts is that they are concerned that if they ask a simple question that they will be ridiculed and railed on.