discuss Too Many Wasting Time Threads - Time to clean it up

[johnn]

Too many newbies are lazy to read. They just post here the questions and ask the members here do the legwork for them. Answering these threads are not helping them but make them more lazier.
- How to sell domain fast
- How to send outbound email
- How transfer names
- How to take payment
- Can I quit my job
Etc....

Totally wasting time in the names wanted section:
- One word dictionary - Budget $1-$1,000 - Good luck - You will get crap names because everything is dictionary word
- I don't see anyone here sell any name from this section in the $xxx range.
- Reseller pricing - What's that?

Nonsense Threads - Not in the break section:
- How many names do you have
- How much money do you have
- How many names do you sell per month
- Love.com was sold for $2,000 - Is it cheap?
etc....
Why do you care? Spend the time to learn rather posting these stupid threads which will waste your time and others.

Auction:
- How do you make money if you keep spending time to bump 200 times on a $2 name?
- What the hell is 600 hours after the last bid?

Appraisal
- Why keep begging in the appraisal section? "Anyone?" "Anymore Appraisal?" No one here know how much the name is worth.
- If someone appraises your name for $0 then you are dead in the water. Your name and price will be indexed on all the search engines.

Working Smarter not Working Harder and Stop Wasting other people time.

I am back to work!

 

[Ategy]

It does seem like some want to run that up for some reason, the Likes. Sometimes to get to some trusted status or something* One of the options mentioned before is just to discount the Likes from Break Room posts.

I gave you a like for that .. lol .. I agree 100%

But yeah .. I think we're more on the same page than you think. Although I would definitely "like" to see them go a step further and remove all like/thanks from all non-core sections as well as remove them from all posts below a certain length. And I'm sure there are other potential ideas as well. At the end of the day it's actually about turning likes into the tool it was intended to be with the goal to encourage quality content and community engagement.

The way it is now, it encourages one word non-personalised welcome posts and the sharing of good domain buys without any actual helpful content where anyone actually learns anything.

Don't get me wrong .. a huge number of likes are well deserved .. and I actually don't think what we're proposing will make as big a deal as some might think.


For my old forum (ages ago) I don't think there even was a like feature ... but I do know I actually went so far as to remove post counting in off-topic sections .. so in the end the people were posting in those sections because they genuinely wanted to .. which is fine and exactly as it should be .. but as you said .. that way it isn't possible for people to just post short posts or none sense for the sake of unearned "reputation".

Initially the "like" feature was introduced to forums exactly to reduce needless posts because a lot of people would just do "+1" everywhere simply to up their post count.

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

I certainly understand and agree with NamePros' policy of not "asking for likes" .. but I really feel strongly that all lists posts end with "If you actually found this list useful, please click 'like' or 'thanks'." .. I wouldn't even care if they made a separate system that didn't count as part of my personal "likes" .. like a "did you like the domains in this post, where the result would be localised to the just the post (and not my personal count total). I just want to know if people find my lists helpful or not .. and I'm not getting a clear answer either way the way it is now.

Currently, we don't have a rule that forbids it. However, asking for Likes in most places would be considered off topic, but asking for them in a thread where it makes sense or where Like-based feedback is beneficial, useful, or helpful is certainly allowed.

A good example is @alcy's thread:

• https://www.namepros.com/threads/get-feedback-on-whether-you-should-take-that-offer.1091406/

I would definitely "like" to see them go a step further and remove all like/thanks from all non-core sections as well as remove them from all posts below a certain length. And I'm sure there are other potential ideas as well. At the end of the day it's actually about turning likes into the tool it was intended to be with the goal to encourage quality content and community engagement.

Thanks for the feedback; we've added it for consideration.

 

[Ategy]

Currently, we don't have a rule that forbids it. However, asking for Likes in most places would be considered off topic, but asking for them in a thread where it makes sense or where Like-based feedback is beneficial or useful is certainly allowed.

A good example is @alcy's thread:

• https://www.namepros.com/threads/get-feedback-on-whether-you-should-take-that-offer.1091406/

I was sure there was a rule .. did it change?

Anyhow .. as for Alcy's thread .. that's ironically exactly the type of misuse I'm talking about. The people are simply posting their offer and getting a dozen+ likes added to their count without actually developing any discussion.

It's not as bad as the likes for one word posts as at least there is some information there. But likes should be reserved for quality posts where there is useful information ... and that isn't necessarily the case here. If however .. the person gave insightful reasons as to why they purchased the domain where others could learn from then that would be reason to like.

That being said .. the very fact they are sharing an incoming request I suppose could definitely be considered useful information .. but again .. the problem here is that people are asked to like/thank every single post as opposed to those that are actually helpful to them. So it's a bit of an illusion that it's not so bad .. it really should be that everyone thanks the posts that were helpful and then doesn't like nor thank for those that aren't.

Ideally a new forum should be created for this sort of thing (the concept of what he's trying to do is actually a really good idea aside from the way it misuses the like/thank feature). Then each domain should have it's own thread where within that thread people discuss the merits of accepting or refusing the offer .. from there those that bring up interesting points and reasons where people learn something then those posts should be liked or thanked based on the content. Maybe the forum could even be set up in a way where a simple Yes/No poll was auto-generated? That way both features would be used as intended.

Like for the daily lists .. I only want people to like/thank if they found it useful .. it's not a .. "like" me if you liked today's names and and "thank" me if you didn't. People should only be liking or thanking if they indeed got something from the information.

lol .. anyhow .. maybe it's just the former admin in me being ultra-anal about structure and keeping counts that count (in that time it was just post count .. but people saw it the same way)

 

[biggie]

Anyhow .. as for Alcy's thread .. that's ironically exactly the type of misuse I'm talking about. The people are simply posting their offer and getting a dozen+ likes added to their count without actually developing any discussion.

Hi


if..... 'likes' represent any measure of 'quality content' posted by the member receiving them -
then
threads like those, dilute the value and intent of giving a 'like' .

but you just have to understand the motive and shake your head
as to what others will do... to have more likes than you

imo….

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

Like for the daily lists .. I only want people to like/thank if they found it useful .. it's not a .. "like" me if you liked today's names and and "thank" me if you didn't. People should only be liking or thanking if they indeed got something from the information.

Likes, Thanks, and Dislikes can mean different things to different people, but ultimately, users decide how to use them, similar to the freedom of their use on other websites (e.g., Facebook and Twitter).

NamePros used to have a rep(utation) system that was akin to what you're seeking. There are certainly merits to it, and encouraging quality content and engagement is important, so it's a good idea for us to try to think of ways to support that without trying to force members to use them based on specific criteria, which wouldn't be feasible.

For example, we could weigh Likes more heavily in certain sections or have an option to rate posts after liking/thanking them.

 

[Ategy]

but you just have to understand the motive and shake your head
as to what others will do... to have more likes than you

Yeah .. but as @JB Lions also pointed out .. it actually isn't about "like count" .. Like are supposed to be used in a way that encourages people to post more stimulating, engaging, informative and helpful content.

... or have an option to rate posts after liking/thanking them.

That's what should be used to get the Yes/No answers in Alcy's thread rather than like/thanks.


When I ran my forum I guess I was a little more structured .. effectively exactly because of @JB Lions' concerns that some people will use any quick way possible to inflate their reputation. Back then it was post count, today it's likes .. either way there is quite a bit of quick non-helpful content generated at NP that gets rewarded with likes .. which ultimately discourages quality content because people no longer need to post anything of quality in order to improve their reputation/image.

While it's true we can all choose to simply ignore likes and other status icons etc .. at the end of the day likes do imply authority because most users assume if you have a lot of likes it's because people liked and typically agreed with the content you generated.

This isn't a music forum .. this is a forum where a lot of business is spun off from .. as such inaccurate/artificial "status" can most certainly be used in a malevolent way as @JB Lions mentioned about a user pumping his reputation to help make bad or fraudulent deals. I know most certainly I would be much more willing to make a deal, or pay though pay pal to a NP member with a high like count .. it isn't the only thing .. but it is a factor .. and sometimes in close decisions it could the deciding one.


Or maybe you should stop displaying likes and post count and instead display total character count .. the true measure of content (although not of quality .. but as of now you're admitting that Likes should not be interpreted to mean that either) .. I'd be #1 in character count for sure .. lmao!

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

you're admitting that Likes should not be interpreted to mean that either

Likes should be understood to mean many different things to different people. With that understanding, then you can decide whether you place any level of significance on them and how much. As for business deals, we do not recommend using Likes for that purpose; we have the Trade Reviews system to facilitate that purpose, but neither are a replacement for due diligence.

All things considered, it takes a lot of time to accumulate of a lot of Likes, so when members have a lot of Likes, you know they've invested a lot of time in the community. You can get an idea of where they spent that time using the Areas tab on their profiles.

 

[Ategy]

The Post Quality System (Likes, Dislikes, and Thanks) is designed to provide subtle feedback to members on the content they're producing, and then they can decide to post more content like that or change their posting habits accordingly.

This is more how I think likes should be treated ...
(Dying of laughter at the possibility @Support Team might be @Eric Lyon .. lol)

I understand a like system will never be close to perfect .. but it should at least try to be .. lol

I really like the potential of this combination ...

Might be time to consider limiting likes to posts with at least 50 or even 100 characters. I know there can most certainly be shorter quality posts .. but I think placing that minimum will be much more beneficial than harmful.
Just To give you all an idea of how easy it is, this entire sentence is actually 101 characters long!

One of the options mentioned before is just to discount the Likes from Break Room posts.

we could weigh Likes more heavily in certain sections

have an option to rate posts after liking/thanking them.

Last one should be "have an option to rate posts after PARALLEL TO AN OPTION TO liking/thanking them."
Definitely have both options available (when appropriate) .. but for this to work it people would need to rate the post or vote n/y (essentially technically a two option rating) separately. So you can "rate" to mean "No don't take the offer" while at the same time "liking" or "thanking" the post because the author of it added some helpful information. But it's important for users to be able to do one or the other or both or neither.

At the end of the day, the "rating" system doesn't even need to necessarily be binary to work (Y/N aka 2 choices) .. even standard 5 stars systems (probably easier to implement with less tinkering if it's an existing tool) could be used and simply be implied to show intensity of how much people like the deal (not the quality of the information in the post which would be for likes). This could also be used for domain buys.

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

I understand a like system will never be close to perfect .. but it should at least try to be .. lol

We understand what you're saying, but it's infeasible to get people to use a feature like this in a specific way. It doesn't scale, and therefore, it doesn't work. You can provide the tools, but you can't decide how or when they're used unless you can do so programmatically. However, if you can enforce it programmatically, then you don't need to enforce it at all because you can automatically calculate a rating without any need for members to change their behavior.

I really like the potential of this combination ...

We are going to look into doing something like that.

At the end of the day

This has been a fantastic discussion, but it's not really relevant to this topic: an improved rating system or use of the existing Like system is unlikely to improve the issues brought up in this thread. On the contrary, it may actually worsen the problems because there would be an added incentive to create new threads that get a lot of engagement, and there aren't many of those types of threads that haven't already been created many times before. Please start a new thread if there's anything else on this topic that you'd like to discuss.

Thanks.