keeping track of the good stuff, how do you do it?

I'll post up how we do it later, but do you keep track of the good information so it does not get lost?

 

User generated content, I assume you mean?

 

I mean some threads are better than others, some posts in threads are better than others. How do you keep track of the better ones?

 

It depends on how good of a discussion it is, if its extremely popular I will sticky it or I will give the title a color.

Cheers,
Randy

 

Occasionally someone starts a truly awesome thread. To keep track of those I've tried a few things:
In a regular forum where everyone can post

• Open Sticky: collects tons of non-important information
• Locked sticky: people have no place to post a follow up questions unless they want to start a new thread, and they usually don't. Not too friendly.
• Locked sticky with link to discussion thread: it is rare they go to the discussion thread, they do occasionally start up a new thread.

I've used each of those methods with limited success.


What works best for me is a reference section that only staff can post to but everyone can read. When someone creates a really awesome thread I copy just the first post into the reference section and post a link to the other thread. If there is truly awesome follow up posts in that thread those are also copied into the reference section.

That seems to do several things:

• The original thread is untouched by mods which is friendly (except I cross link the 2 threads)
• Full control over the reference section so everyone understands no one can post there, which for some strange reason everyone seems to accept as opposed to a locked sticky.
• The threads in the reference section are a table of contents/index - everyone can find the good threads easy.
• The person feels pretty honored that their post/thread was good enough to be put in the reference section. That in turn encourages other people to write awesome posts/threads so they might get their posts into the reference section.
• And..... much fewer stickies :thumbup:

I've seen an articles section where only staff can post, sometimes with a link to a discussion thread. But it is not quite the same as starting a thread in the normal area and copying the first post in the reference forum.

It seems the differences are subtle, but to the end user those differences seem quite large.



What do you think of my method?

 

You know, I really like that method a lot!

 

Thanks Lynne.

Thought for sure people would scratch their heads and think all those methods would work equally well. I am glad you like the idea.

 

I have Featured Posts on the index page to highlight the best current threads.

 

you mean at www.yoursite.com? and your forums are at www.yoursite.com/forums?

What selects the best current threads?

 

No, on the forumhome; I'm using this mod:
Feature Threads - vBulletin.org Forum

Unfortunately, you have to select each thread manually. It would be great if it was automated, by replies that day or thread views, but I would also want to be able to exclude certain threads (like the forum games).

There's also this one, which has more features than I need but is not in the Modification Graveyard:
e-steki Featured threads 1.0.1 - vBulletin.org Forum

 

Now I understand.

I'm after a multidimensional filing system. Since many are familiar with vB lets use that as an example. The following would all have the exact copy of the first post in another thread, on another portion of the site, and a link to that thread. In an ideal world they might include an instructional video because that transcends certain barriers such as language differences.

In addition when good posts are made to the discussion threads a copy of those would go into the reference section with link to that post in the discussion thread.

Reference -> Basics -> Thinking of a name for a site, things to consider and steps in buying it.
Reference -> Basics -> Finding a host & examples of how much resources are needed (connections, bandwidth, disk space).
Reference -> Basics -> Pointing the name to the hosting account & how long before that will take effect.
Reference -> Basics -> FTP clients discussions.
Reference -> Basics -> PutTy type discussions for backups


Reference -> Manual -> Installing vBulletin
Reference -> Manual -> Downloading the vBulletin Package
dot dot dot...


Basically my method is to re-create the online vB manual in a reference section with peer discussions taking place in other sections of the forum. Right now the vB manual allows comments (sort of) like a blog but does not lend itself well for asking questions, especially because there are no links to reference as the manual is navigated vBulletin Manual (no matter where you are in that online manual the url does not change)

-------------------------------------

Or another example would be a reference section for the Miserable Users mod over on vB.org. In theory AA could have a section/thread like this where only copies of the good posts are with links. If a discussion thread on a mod is 1000 posts long the maybe 10 might be good to keep as reference, and of course post number 2 of the reference thread could be reserved for updates and information as they become available (latest version of mod is 1.1.1, works on 2 sites with 3.8.3)

AA -> Reference -> Miserable Users -> copy of post #1 at vb.org with link
AA -> Reference -> Miserable Users -> Latest status of MU mod.
AA -> Reference -> Miserable Users -> copy of post #100 at vb.org with link
AA -> Reference -> Miserable Users -> copy of post #535 at vb.org with link
AA -> Reference -> Miserable Users -> copy of post #1039 at vb.org with link

I'm not advocating changes to AA, vb.com, vb.org I'm just sharing my approach to how I've been filing things away on my forum.

 

all uniquely awesome ideas if i do say so myself

 

At first glance it looks like it would take much time to maintain, but it is not if the information referenced is on your own forum.


What I'm trying to do is preserve the magic of unfettered peer discussions while having the easy reference methods of a blog or locked sticky, without cluttering up a forum with sticky threads.

For some reason blogs seem like a way to present information and allow comments (if enabled) but does not lend itself well to peer communication like a thread discussion.

 

Abomination, your ideas are truly ingenious. Thank you very much for sharing your method of organization. I wonder if perhaps it could be turned into an article. What do you think?

 

I keep asking myself if this is ingenious or not. Is it interesting enough for an article? Probably.

This method could be considered 'public bookmarks', a list of links to good information with a copy of the pertinent information in case that was deleted.

I'll work on making an article. Is there a good example I can use somewhere? No matter what 'real' example I use it will sound as if I'm suggesting a site should make changes to how they organize things and that is not the intent.

 

I don't, other than archived (undeleteable threads)