Reconsider adding an upvote system

What do you want to see here? Some more categories, forums, and mods? Hmm...
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Titanoboa
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Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by Titanoboa »

I remember this being mentioned as an idea every now and then, back when this forum was more active. It was always shot down, in my opinion with very good reason, because there was always the risk of turning some important discussion threads into popularity contests rather than a place for legitimate arguments.

We don't really use this forum in the same way anymore. Other than the support requests or dev exchanges, there are mostly announcements of some sort. "I've made this", "signups for this tournament is open", "this release is available", etc. There's very rarely a good opportunity to just say "ok cheers!" ... I mean you could post it, but people don't do that. We've gotten used to being able to show our reactions without having to write anything, through social media.

We don't need to add the negative counterpart. There's no need for "downvotes".

I'm not sure when and where, but I'm sure I've seen a "thanks" system on some forum at some point. That would be perfect for us. It doesn't have to be eye-catching -- just visible if you know where to look. Somewhere on the post, a link to leave a "thanks", and then some kind of display like "this post received x thanks" and a way to see who left them. It doesn't need to be shown if there are 0 "thanks".

So please reconsider adding an upvote system of sorts. It'll do us good.


I can predict at least one response that'll come up if I don't address it, so as for implementing it: yeah I know Tank isn't spending a lot of time here at the moment (and that's fine, he's still very generously keeping it afloat nonetheless), but he doesn't need to do all the work does he. I'm sure we can put our heads together to do all the legwork, then hand over our near-finished work to him to install. (This should be true for our custom forum theme as well, by the way. I've tried to nag where I can to make it happen but there hasn't been any progress there lately).
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sinewav
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Re: Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by sinewav »

I don't think anything like that exists for phpBB3 (the software running this forum). Can you find an extension that does what you want? Is it easy to install? Will it break the forum in the future if the code base isn't updated?

I think the biggest reason why this forum doesn't have "upvotes" is because it's not designed to. Like, fundamentally at it's root. A quick search found one mod that added a like button. It was written in 2013 and seemed difficult to implement.

A better idea is maybe directing users to a different platform such as Discord. There is a newer game I was following a couple years ago and used to post on their forums regularly. But then the forum's RSS feed broke, and I pointed out to the maintainers that it could be fixed by removing a single line break. They didn't do it. Then they eventually closed the forums altogether and pushed everyone to Discord. (Bad idea, IMO, but this is how some games exist.)

There is an Armagetron subreddit. It's empty.

I don't know what exactly you're trying to accomplish.
Last edited by sinewav on Sun Jun 14, 2020 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Z-Man
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Re: Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by Z-Man »

I'd be in favor of such a system. Mainly because I've seen the benefits now, in fluff spam reduction.

Example: At work, we use Microsoft Teams for chat, and Friday afternoon someone writes "I'm off, have a nice weekend". Of course, with @all, so everyone gets notified. And because it's Microsoft and they have a mandatory screwup quota to fulfill, a notification in Teams means that you get a popup and the program icon changes, but then you have to look for yourself what it was that notified you. But I digress. Without a reaction/like/upvote system, everyone else would now be compelled to reply 'you too!', also @all, of course. Marketing still does that. But everyone else just gives the original post a thumbs up, which gives all the signals you want to give with none of the obnoxiousness.

Well meaning message floods are not a problem we currently have. However, giving a thumbs up to a post is still a low threshold way to show that you care, giving the poster less of a feeling they're talking to a wall. I definitely would leave it at a relatively unambiguous thumbs up/like/star/plus.
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Re: Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by sinewav »

Z-Man wrote: Sun Jun 14, 2020 10:44 amHowever, giving a thumbs up to a post is still a low threshold way to show that you care, giving the poster less of a feeling they're talking to a wall.
I combed through the extensions on the phpbb site and did some more general searching. I found two options:

"Who Visited This Topic" simply lists who as visited a topic but does not show which posts they viewed. This lets you know you are not talking to a wall, but nothing else. The extension is on the official phpbb site and I assume it has a minimal level of support.

"Post love" functions the same as a like button, but is not officially supported. However, the project seems to have steady development over the past few years and the installation instructions look easy enough.

AFAIK, the only one who can do this is TankProgram, so we'll just have to wait until he show up.
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Re: Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by kyle »

Z-Man wrote: Sun Jun 14, 2020 10:44 amExample: At work, we use Microsoft Teams for chat, and Friday afternoon someone writes "I'm off, have a nice weekend". Of course, with @all, so everyone gets notified. And because it's Microsoft and they have a mandatory screwup quota to fulfill, a notification in Teams means that you get a popup and the program icon changes, but then you have to look for yourself what it was that notified you. But I digress. Without a reaction/like/upvote system, everyone else would now be compelled to reply 'you too!', also @all, of course. Marketing still does that. But everyone else just gives the original post a thumbs up, which gives all the signals you want to give with none of the obnoxiousness.
That is a good point, and teams is very limited with what you can actually do. I prefer the way slack has reactions, basically you can respond with any image under the sun (and including the sun) This gives a better diversity of how one feels that way than simply a thumbs up and thumbs down (MS Teams does not even have this).
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Tank Program
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Re: Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by Tank Program »

I've made a note to look at the extensions Z-man linked in more detail when I get a chance. At a quick glance it looks doable, but not quick to do. I need to set aside a day at some point for this stuff.
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Re: Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by Z-Man »

Tank Program wrote: Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:15 am ...extensions Z-man linked...
I did nothing of that kind, that would have been work! sinewav did.
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delinquent
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Re: Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by delinquent »

I used this in the past, and it's still used widely in various forms:

https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/thanks_for_posts
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Titanoboa
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Re: Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by Titanoboa »

If there's a way to turn off ratings, then that's perfect.

We don't need a competition type thing, or a reason for people to hoard "thanks". I.e. I don't think we would want a "thanks" counter on people's profiles.
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Re: Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by delinquent »

https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/ ... pic/124656

You could concievably create an extra role and assign it only to forum moderators, who would then be able to distinguish useful posts. Common users would be then unable to access this feature.
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Titanoboa
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Re: Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by Titanoboa »

Well, see, no ... all registered should get to leave a thanks, I just meant we shouldn't be keeping scores if we can avoid it.
Seeing who thanked you for your post is enough; having a total thanks counter is kind of optional I guess, but having posts rated based on how many thanks it gets relative to the most thanked post wouldn't be a good addition at all -- that's not what we're after.
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Tank Program
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Re: Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by Tank Program »

Z-Man wrote: Mon Jun 15, 2020 10:39 pm
Tank Program wrote: Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:15 am ...extensions Z-man linked...
I did nothing of that kind, that would have been work! sinewav did.
Oops! This is still on my to do list...
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Re: Reconsider adding an upvote system

Post by sinewav »

Just wanted to contribute some new knowledge. One of the plugins I posted below was forked and has active support:

https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/exte ... r_posts_2/
https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... &t=2259046

I've seen it in action on another board and it's nice and subtle. It adds a "thumbs up" icon to the standard set of post buttons and appends a small print message to the post with the names of those who approved. See attached image. It also keeps track of how many times you've thanked someone or been thanked. I believe it also has a rating system that can be disabled, or something like that, I didn't look at it too closely. That other forum I visit seems OK with it and I don't think most people even notice.
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