22nd April 2011: Updates and New Features

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Mystara
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22nd April 2011: Updates and New Features

Post by Mystara »

Hello,

Updates

I have done some work in fixing up the template that we're using for the forum. This update has included a few bug fixes and a number of very large simplifications. There shouldn't be very much noticable on the user end.

In time, I hope to move to a nicer template that complements the template for the main site. However, I'm waiting on other things happening before I'll do that.

New Feature

A new feature has been added to the forum: the ability to 'thank' a poster for a particular post.
Newly registered users don't have access to this feature. Everyone else does.

You can 'thank' a poster by clicking on the little "thumbs up" icon in the bar that sits atop each post. You cannot thank yourself, of course.
At present, the details of who thanked who isn't made public. In due course, this information may become available. It may also be used to give special permissions to users on the forum and may even replace the "post count" awards system that we presently use to assign 'ranks' to people.

At present, all it does is give us an indication of the posts you like.
Mashibinbin
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Re: 22nd April 2011: Updates and New Features

Post by Mashibinbin »

This seems to have got me confused I'm sorry. My indication of a threads liking was always either someone stating "I'm glad you brought such and such" up etc or a massive post count assocaiated with it. I'm not sure what 'thanking' will do. After all, you may have one post read loads of times, have no additional posts replied and no 'thanks' - where would the position here of said post? Likewise, how does a post with lots of thanks but no replies fare? Like I say, I'm confused....
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Mystara
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Re: 22nd April 2011: Updates and New Features

Post by Mystara »

A good question.

Firstly, a high post count is not indicative of a post being liked, for several possible reasons:

1) The thread contains updates on an ongoing process mostly from one person (e.g. http://www.knightmare.com/forum/viewtop ... f=1&t=2603)
2) The thread acts as a running collection of related posts (e.g. http://www.knightmare.com/forum/viewtop ... f=39&t=818)
3) The thread has spawned arguments or discussion (e.g. http://www.knightmare.com/forum/viewtop ... =25&t=2891)

Additionally, even if a high post count was indicative of a post being liked, it would be impossible to determine which post in that thread was liked. It certainly might not be the first one. For example, there are a lot of replies to this thread on castle locations. But in my humble opinion, the best post in that thread is the one from Canadanne on 28 Feb 2011, which is about midway through that thread. It's certainly the only post in that thread to be thanked.

Secondly, it's not easy to quickly tell how many posts in a thread are along the lines of "I'm glad you brought such and such". Nor is it easy to track to which post they refer.

"Thank" (which really should be renamed to "Like") allows you to directly indicate that you like a particular post, regardless of where that post is located within a thread. It also allows you to independently mark your liking or disliking of multiple posts within a thread.

So to answer your question, thanks show what posts are popular. Post counts only show how much activity is in the thread, which may or may not be related to whether it is liked or not.
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