Wedge

OK, this is the last idea I have .

For today. :)

Another idea for a feature.

This feature would not be meant as any indication of "value" per se, but simply as a way to see an activity level over time of members. It's an idea that may be another little feature that Wedge has to offer over other forums.

Since I muck around with electronics I'll compare it to an oscilloscope trace. The more often the trace goes across the screen the more the screen is refreshed and the longer the trace seems to persist. The less often the trace sweeps, the less the trace seems to persist. Same idea here. The more active you are over a time period, the higher your "persistence" is.

I will define a valid input to the tracking algorithm as a post per day, not simply logging in. So, it's a tracker of active participation, not passive participation. Only one post per day is needed to count.

Let's say it works with a simple moving window over time. Say the time period is two weeks for this example.

So, that's 14 days, and at least one post per day fills the bin with a "1". More posts don't matter here. So if you post once each day for 14 days, you would have a persistence of

14 posting days / 14 = 1.00 or 100% persistence

That's max forum persistence (duh).

Now, if you skip one day in the moving two week window, you have this -

13 posting days / 14 = 0.92 or 92% persistence.

and of course if you skip 7 days out of the 14 you have 50% persistence.

I would envision the Admin could make the window any size they want, depending on the forum they run. You could make it a month or six months. The same concept applies - it gives an indication of activity in the window. Whatever the window size is, everyone sees it something like this on the profile display -

4 Week Persistence

{some tidy little neato visual indication}

I would come up with a neat visual indication for this feature, there are many possibilities for that.

OK so the post count has to stay in some form, more ideas -

Option A

Don't show the exact post count number (except when someone views another member profile). Show a bar that goes from Zero to the post count of the highest posting member. On that bar, show a dot. The dot is where you fall on the range of post counts. The graph should not be so precise you can read it down to +/- 1 post - it's just a rough indication of your standing in the post counts. You can even make it a logarithmic graph.

Add-on: If you hover over the bar graph you can get the exact post count number if you really want it.

Add-on: Show tick marks where every post count group star is awarded on the graph. People are always asking about those set points anyway.

Option B

Show members a bar graph when they look at other profiles on the forum threads that is relative to their own post count total. Each member will see a different bar for other members based on a relative comparison of post counts. In this mode, members don't see any bar on their own profile but, OK dammit, they will see their own post count.

Now, if John has 250 posts and Mary has 1000, then John sees a bar length of +750 on Mary's profile or you could show something like "4x" because she has 4 times as many posts. If a third member Jack has 100 posts, John sees -740 bar on Jacks profile or 0.13x.

Mary sees, when looking at John's profile, -750 bar or 0.75x, and for Jack she sees -990 or 0.1x.

So, in this mode, you see a relative standing in relation to the other member's post counts - not absolute numbers (but they are still in the member's profile to view). Also, as suggested above, you can hover over the bar for the exact post count total.

Well I'll keep posting and try try to motivate you. :cool:[1]

1.	and of course get my post count up :lol:

Oh boy - that's got to be kindof entertaining to visit.And then there's karma, which I hate. There, you get into karma wars and it turns into a pile of muck - with little meaning. That's why, because my members want it, I refused to allow it unless they fessed up to the karma action, so I use the karma log mod. At least I can see who's making B.S. karma and if the reason isn't to my satisfaction it will be removed.

But - I do know the post count can be hidden. Perhaps if we all had it to do over again, if forums were just being invented, we'd keep post count away from prying eyes like PMs. People would be judged as they are, day by day, by the quality of their contributions.

I know, I'm a hopeless dreamer. :-/

Of course it could be wrong, it's just a starter idea.

But it's also wrong to look at a post count and determine how "valuable" a member is from that number, yet many people think it's meaningful. Any idiot can post 100 times, but the post count is the weakest indicator of meaningful activity there is.

For example, there is some measure of value if a post generates 15 responses, even if the post itself is bad, because it generates valuable corrections and discussion, so to that extent the person who posted the bad post should get more credit for generating forum activity - because the very activity is valuable.

Surely we can come up with something better than the simple integer called "post count".

All I would add is an affirmative to that. All I've ever used them for is to control new users; for example to not allow them to send PMs or something else. So it was more of a "new user control" than an overall need to do different things to different post count groups.

The guy running that electronics forum is very smart in the electronics field. But expertise in one technical area doesn't mean you can jump to another technical area and know everything you need to know. With these forums there's quite a bit of knowledge you need to really do things the best way. I've been doing it for quite a few years and I still come across new problems and solutions.

Case in point: My neighbor across the street doesn't know a lot about computers and so he calls on me to help him all the time with things such as Firefox, Windows, the PC hardware, all of which I'm fairly competent with. He thinks I'm like the best genius about it all there is [1].

But today he wanted me to help him do some sort of combining of trees operation with his Ancestry.com work, on the website, because his subscription runs out in 3 days. I looked at it and had to tell him "Truthfully, I don't have a fucking clue about how Ancestry.com works and I have no idea what you are doing or have done. You better ask them for the help". I was sorry I couldn't help but it would have taken me all day to come up to speed on how that place works, if even then.

1.	which isn't true at all