10 replies to this topic

[niner]

You may have noticed that when someone votes in a poll, but doesn't post a reply, the thread receives a "bump"; that is, it moves to the top of Active Topics. This causes a lot of people to read the thread, only to find that it contains nothing new. It adds noise to the already crowded Active Topics list, and pushes threads that actually contain new information off to the next page. We can easily turn this bumping off, so that a thread is only bumped if it contains a new post. Before we do so, we'd like to know if a majority of forum readers would like us to turn off the bumping, or leave it on.

[Annan]

Do Active Topics bumps from poll votes annoy you? YES
Should we turn off bumps from votes? NO

I think that bumping should still happen. It's possible for a thread to be only a poll or for the majority of input to be votes and bumping allows these to remain visible. However I agree that this is a problem on the Active Topics page.

It might make sense to either:

Use different icons for a poll that's bumped because of a reply or because of a new vote.
Only bump it within it's current forum section while keeping it's position in the 'Active Topics' page. Active Topics would be ordered by 'last reply' and forum sections by 'last vote or reply'

Edited by Annan, 23 May 2010 - 11:00 AM.

[e Volution]

Yeh this has bugged me for a while... I was going to post a thread about it but I couldn't come up with an ideal solution. I agree a little with Annan, it does annoy me, however I am certain the bumping has resulted in at least one revival of a thread either through someone commenting (not noticing it was just a poll vote bump) or just me not having seen the thread before <--- ultimately the poll bumping became a net-positive to me. I think a compromise would be best, I like Annan's idea, it bumps the thread in the subforum but not into active topics, only if/when someone comments does it then hit Active Topics... Or perhaps there is an even more ideal solution we could think of.

[Shannon Vyff]

I'm completely surprised by how neck and neck this poll is so far. I initially was bugged by the poll bumping the threads, but as it also encourages people to post in the same thread, this is good for our search engine results. Also when we have longer threads it can be useful for people to read over what has been previously written about on the same topic--this helps to keep from having many threads about the same topic and having people miss important points on said topic.

[rwac]

I'm going to suggest something in between. How about we limit poll votes bumping active topics to something like one a day.

So we don't have a flurry of votes keeping the poll on top of the active topics.

[Nootropic Cat]

I'm going to suggest something in between. How about we limit poll votes bumping active topics to something like one a day.

So we don't have a flurry of votes keeping the poll on top of the active topics.

Good idea. I voted no as I don't do a lot of trawling through the archives and have read a lot of interesting threads I wouldn't have known about otherwise thanks to them being bumped.

[niner]

I'm completely surprised by how neck and neck this poll is so far. I initially was bugged by the poll bumping the threads, but as it also encourages people to post in the same thread, this is good for our search engine results. Also when we have longer threads it can be useful for people to read over what has been previously written about on the same topic--this helps to keep from having many threads about the same topic and having people miss important points on said topic.

Yeah, I am too. I expected it to be more like 90:10 in favor of shutting off the bumps. Annan and rwac have offered some really good ideas. Sadly, I think our engineering team (who have done some brilliant work, btw) has kinda unraveled. Thus I don't know if we have the capacity to implement software mods. (With any luck, I'm just imagining that...) While we're on the topic of software mods, if we could make the behavior user-selectable, that would seem to please everyone. I'm personally in favor of anything that can filter out things I don't want to see, because the forums are wonderfully successful, but that means there's a LOT of threads to get through. Keeping the signal to noise ratio up is important to the quality of the forums, but I also appreciate the positive aspects of the bumps that some of you have mentioned.

[caliban]

niner is right, please vote on the motion, not on a version that might be feasible if the software was different.

Also, we obviously give much more weight to the views of ImmInst Members compared to registered guests.
So if any Members feel strongly about the issue, it would help if you posted in addition to voting.

[The Immortalist]

niner is right, please vote on the motion, not on a version that might be feasible if the software was different.

Also, we obviously give much more weight to the views of ImmInst Members compared to registered guests.
So if any Members feel strongly about the issue, it would help if you posted in addition to voting.

I think the poll topics getting bumped by votes is very annoying. It disrupts the active topics section and it helps cause more important action and teams topics to get moved to the next page. Not only that but the teams forum is one of the lesser used forums so it adds more to the problem. I filter the forums I see in the active topics section. I encourage everyone else to do so as well these are instructions on how to do so, I recommend to filter everything else and keep the Imminst forum topics and the teams forum topics in. http://www.imminst.o...ons-t28751.html

[chrono]

I say keep it. I don't think it gets in the way (but then again, I'm not worried about streamlining my active topics page to the maximum extent, either).

I think the annoying part is that it updates the "last post by" to make it look like the last post was made when the last vote was cast. More than once, I've wondered how I apparently posted on a topic that I haven't thought about for months.

[chrono]

I think the annoying part is that it updates the "last post by" to make it look like the last post was made when the last vote was cast. More than once, I've wondered how I apparently posted on a topic that I haven't thought about for months.

In the new Invision version, threads with new posts are made bold. In addition to updating the last post date, a poll vote bolds the title, and pops up the little orange "go to first unread post" arrow.

Is it possible to get rid of one of these actions, so there's some way to distinguish a bump vs. new post? I keep getting tricked ~_~