Forum Comment Rating

With some forum posts going many pages deep and for many months, I was wondering if there has there been any thought on instituting some comment rating system so that the more liked comments are easier to find. 

I was thinking a combo of what engadget has for comments in conjunction with a way for readers could select an excerpted version of the thread with only the top ranked posts. 

We already have something similar to this if you mouse over "Forums" and then click the "Today's Hot Topics" - http://www.chess.com/forum/hot_topics.html

Hey Patzer,

Thanks for the follow up. I think you misunderstood my suggestion. While I think the hot topics forum is a great feature, my thought was about long threads such as this one on iphone apps that is over 190 posts and 9 pages long. If I wanted to know the most valuable posts to the thread, I would have to read all 9 pages. Whereas, if there was some "condensed" version of the thread, or at least a way to reorder the thread based on the merit of the posts, alot more of the information would be available quickly. 

Heres another example of what I mean. I like the daily puzzles. But these posts quickly fill up with "first" posts or "easy" posts. These posts are useless to me if I am looking for thoughts on why a partiuclar move was better than another, which I am. If there were a rating mechanisms as noted in my first post, which ordered posts on merit rather than the time posted, I think you could add value in these types of discussions. 

Put simply,I was thinking about a way to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the forums, without changing how people post (eg require only substantive posts or deleting posts that were not). There is likely a way to accomplish this (my idea aside), but I think the forums are becoming more and more noisy and that squanders a valuable source of information and insight-- its users-- that chess.com leverages for free.

Thanks again for the link.

-tbt-

Yes, but this begs the question of what is signal is what is noise, which is not an objective classification. Even the "first" and "easy" posts were considered signal by the people that posted them. This "valuable source of information and insight" you are talking about is the same source of what you consider to be noise. Chess.com could leverage that and turn the forums into a large exercise in group think, but it's not clear to me that such a system would be an advantage.

ichabod801,

While your and my idea of value might differ on some things, I think generally users agree on what is valuable. 

For example with my iphone app thread, about 6-7 pages into it is a great link that runs to a personal blog that reviews many of the apps in the app store. If I were a new reader, unless I made it to that post I would miss that great link.

And ichabod801, if a solution were created , I think that it should be an optional-feature, so people like you who are aghast of potential "group think" could simply ignore the feature, whereas I could really use the feature to get the highlights of the threads I care about. We both win. 

-tbt-

Nevertheless an edited account of the debate as suggested would be helpful surely; any one specially involved or interested could always do their own editing.

This idea has been floated a few times, in these threads (and the wishlists):

what-to-expect-from-chesscom-forums

daily-puzzle-comments2

site-trophies-and-top-blogging

rewarding-points

voting-posts-up-and-down

The prime candidate is Loomis' thumbs up/thumbs down rating (similar to digg.com).

One of the main issues is that there is no mechanism to reference individual posts.

Artfizz,

Thanks for the links and a talking about the technical problem. Thats a huge impediment.