Tiered Forum System

Aethios

I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, and I'm not even sure if it would totally work here, but here goes:

I think you guys should implement a tiered system similar to the one used on Slashdot. (For those of you who play WoW, the WoWhead website uses a similar system.) The way it works is quite simple. The original topic stays at the top. When someone posts a reply, the reply is shown as a child of the original post. As more people reply to the original, they chain down below each other. If someone replies to a reply, it's shown as a child of that reply rather than a child of the original. This would make threads easier to read, as their would be no need for the constant quoting, especially when people do it in chains and then it takes up 99% of the post, just to reply with a single sentence.

To make it even more interesting, there is a point system. If someone says something worth reading, vote them up (and pay 1 point). If they are trolling or just being stupid, vote them down (and pay 1 point). You earn points from posts you make that get voted up, and you lose points from posts you make that get voted down. You can also add modifiers like "Funny" or "Flamebait" to the post's header (but I would consider this optional, as it would be difficult to implement here, I think).

EDIT: I'd also like to add that you should probably reward one point for starting a new topic, to prevent the system from going zero-sum and failing. However, you would probably want to put a time limit on this... say 1 point per hour maximum, to prevent spammers from hoarding points.

On Slashdot, they have specially chosen moderators that add the "named" modifiers to posts, but points can be given by anyone who has a positive score (they call it karma). It's a good system, IMO, and rewards people who make good posts. I think you should also set up a system that if their score/karma goes too low, they are unable to post until it goes back up on its own (say, 1 point per day, for example). People will be more considerate about what they are saying when they post if they know that they will be losing points.

You can also set a "threshold" (that can be customized for each account) to hide certain posts if they go below a score of your choosing. This way, when people mark a post for trolling, it's automatically hidden and won't spark a flame-war. It will also make the forum easier to read, as it will eliminate a lot of the garbage posts, especially off-topic/spam/flaming.

Taera

Hmm, we'll toss it around - no promises, though!