How do long-lived posts work on this Community Beta?

Shinjusuke·Feb 24, 2014·9 votes·769 views

On GD, a post remains on the front page (and can be dredged up by necro'ing) as long as people keep posting in it.

Do you have to continually receive upvotes to remain on the front page?

What if I want to continuously receive feedback on a thread over a long period of time? Do new people have to consistently stop by and upvote my thread?

What if I'm fine with the discussion/thread only having the same visitors, even if I want to get more viewership? Will I have to have the thread constantly garnering new attention in order to have it remain easily viewable to those who would be new attention?

The hypothetical situation I fear is thus:

1)Make thread

2)Thread over time receives tons of upvotes or something (we'll say like 300+)

3)Upvotes slow down as there are less and less people who can still upvote it

4)Thread drops in page ranking over time as it cannot continue to gain new upvotes, even if it's a hot topic.

5)Thread falls behind first page

6)Thread stops receiving new members

7)Thread disappears.

Is this how Community Beta works or is there some safeguard against this?

17 Comments

PendragonFeb 24, 20147 votes

I think this is a really good conversation and something I'd love to chat about. Looking at this from two different angles

The same people who have seen the discussion once continuing to follow it

Right now the only way for you to easily keep track of threads you've read is either to bookmark them, or get notifications about replies to your posts. We definitely think there needs to be more ways to keep track of evolving discussions that you're interested in, and we hope to bring new mechanisms to do so over time.

Lots of people in GD do that now by just checking the front page every now and then. Since it's not really easy to get old content to the front page, we'll definitely have to solve that problem another way.

New people following the discussion once it's not highly visible

This is where it gets tricky and I'd like to get more opinions. I generally think that most of the quality and diversity of discussion comes in the first few hundred posts, after which most of the major points have been made and the discussion tends to stray off into side conversations. If we solve the previous problem then I think that people will still be able to keep track of those side conversations however - it will be a lot more difficult for new people to discover the discussion.

My hope is that if the topic becomes relevant enough again for the discussion to shift substantially, that it would actually be appropriate to repost the same, (or an adjacent) topic and have a different discussion.

tl;dr We still want to have some ways through searching to find big meaty old topics, but we are currently not planning on optimizing "new people finding old topics once they're not highly visible" but definitely think we need to solve "I want to follow this discussion for awhile once it's off the first couple of pages"

Thoughts?

Sir ArmaMalumFeb 24, 20141 votes

As long as a favoriting feature of some kind is released I will happy with just that. Even more so if the OP can initiate an "update alert" so that why I (if I was OP) could do small edits here and there and not bother anyone, but then I could push the "updated" button to alert followers about a new section, a huge re-write, or simply a section edit I wanted opinions on. The last example being the most important for me as I have 4 guides out currently and am planning on at least 10 more.

As far as new viewers finding old content I think there's a whole other avenue available to pursue. Why not go through the actual person posting? I think having the profile tool that we do now is awesome, and I see a lot of potential for it still. Specifically for this, why not have each member of the CB have their own "front page"? A page we can customize ourselves (like 5 posts or so) with what we want people to look at. All our own posts, and they can be as old as ever, but be ones we want feedback on or simply just want viewed. This has flaws like anything, like being the best tools for downvote fairies and trolls, and sounding a lot like facebook, but my point stands that the profile tool can be another way to chase after older content and other features (reputation system!!!). XD

Thank you (and Bob LLama of course) for popping in!

Edit: Bolded for a subtle tl;dr

ratcharmerFeb 25, 20141 votes

I generally think that most of the quality and diversity of discussion comes in the first few hundred posts, after which most of the major points have been made and the discussion tends to stray off into side conversations.

I actually think there's a lot of good points mixed in with the later discussion, it's just usually really hard to find them, so they tend to get overlooked (both in community beta and the old forums).

It's sort of awkward because it feels like if you don't get your point in right at the very beginning of a discussion then no one will ever see it, which encourages posting knee-jerk reactions instead of giving well thought-out feedback.

Bob LLamaFeb 24, 20144 votes

Howdy Shinjusuke,

Rest assured, this isn't the plan! We will indeed be rolling something out that directly addresses this. I can't comment on when exactly, but it is something that's on our radar and we know it's important.

ShinjusukeFeb 24, 20141 votes

That's good.

My major concern is like Sir ArmaMalum, in that I want to start threads about new Champion/Item ideas, etc (working on building up my Riot Internship application), and The "posts losing importance after the first 100" Pendragon pointed out earlier doesn't apply in this case, as every iteration of the idea I'd be looking for more feedback, preferably new feedback from new sources which requires the thread be readily visible should it stay popular.

Without shedding too much light, is this a case you can pretty easily say is not going to be an issue in future versions of the forum?

I know Riot is heading towards this Community Beta structure, but I'm hesitant to post a long, continually updated thread if it's just going to get buried if i'm not constantly getting new people into it...

Bob LLamaFeb 24, 20142 votes

Hey Shinjusuke,

Well, Pendragon had a good point in what he was saying: beyond a certain point, all the major points have been made within a discussion, and it would become an impenetrable wall for any new people. It's far more appropriate and useful to create a new post with the update (like we did with the community beta update). You could even link back to previous iterations of the post.

But imagine what it would be like to be a new person clicking into a discussion that's months old and has hundreds or thousands of comments. Where do you even begin? Sure, some people who are super interested and have tons of time might want and be able to, but it comes at the risk of alienating a far larger percentage of possible viewers.

And remember that everyone who posts wants their post to have visibility. Things need to fade away in order for new and relevant stuff to surface. You can always create a new post when there's a relevant update to be made.

It's just a slight shift in perspective: rather than making a single "living document" that contains every comment ever made on the matter and could potentially scare people off, it's about serializing it into chapters as new stuff emerges, and allowing the conversation to renew with new eyes and new blood.

ShinjusukeFeb 24, 20142 votes

So in my referenced case of for example a champion concept, the suggestion would be to make an entire new thread after X amount of time?

While I recognize everyone deserves viewership (and I don't mean to start an argument about this subject here, but), isn't that the BIGGEST complaint for the new forum vs GD? That people don't won't have equal chance of viewership?

In the event of the Champion Concept thread, what if the goal were to get viewership from many members of the community and hopefully some people who have some say-so at Riot in Champion Design?

People are more prone to go see "what's up" with a thread when the thread has a crapton of views and upvotes, because it means it's something being frequently and thoroughly discussed. Where would the benefit be in starting a new thread about a slightly updated version of the same concept when the current concept has 500 upvotes and 100+ pages, thus showing an interest in the subject by many people?

I guess my point is, getting people's attention, and getting Riot's attention, requires work. It'd feel like punishment to have to restart a thread regardless of how popular it is or how much work and discussion has gone into it simply because it's older than a few days/weeks.

People rarely read any comment past massive wall of comments, you're right, but when the current format shows the top comments on a subject like this, how does a new thread on a subject help encourage new feedback, when people are likely to make some of the same comments that were made in the previous iteration of the thread since comments from the first thread would no longer be visible in the new thread?

An example (since that was kinda wordy):

Thread 1: Blahblah, super champion.

Q: does 70 damage W: something E: something R: something

top comment: "Q does too much damage, needs to drop down" Q is lowered to 50 damage// thread gets 500 upvotes// Blahblah reaches a state most in the thread agree is best// thread gets old and dies, despite continued iteration on Blahblah//

Thread 2: Blahblah, super champion, v2

Q: does 50 damage W: something E: something R: something

top comment, from a different poster who didn't read first thread: "Q does too much damage, needs to lower"// people from old thread don't feel need to look at new thread// Q is lowered to 30 damage//

This wouldn't help discussion a whole lot and might end up in the same vein of comments being posted instead of providing new points. While I recognize it's for a specific issue (Namely, potential game concepts), can you see how this might be detrimental for those of us looking for continued feedback on the same subject?

HellioningFeb 24, 20141 votes

Let's assume I'm a forum goer, and I see a thread with a whole bunch of upvotes and a whole bunch of comments. Personally, I don't think 'wow, that thread is huge! I don't want to put in the effort of having to read through everything, so I'll just ignore it.'

I think 'that's either an amazing thread full of great ideas or a bunch of people circlejerking over things already said. Let's find out!' Assuming that it is the first option, I WILL, in fact, read through the vast majority of the thread, and then reply with my opinion, regardless of whether it was said or not, and then I will proceed to join into the discussion.

Am I not statistically significant enough to matter? I understand that I'm probably in the minority, here, but if I want to see those huge threads that have tons of posts, will I be able to? There is the 'best' option but that assumes that it gets enough upvotes during the initial surge.

If the idea is 'if you want to continue to topic, make a new thread' well, that's just gonna make the number of threads on this forum explode, with people making new threads every time theirs drops off the first page. People will use threads in order to respond to other threads that have fallen off 'hot'. This makes the discussion difficult to follow.

Meanwhile, in GD, if a thread goes on for a long time, it shows up on the front page every time it gets posted in. Sure, this leads to posts with nothing of substance, which exist solely to draw more attention to the thread, but I feel that's a necessary evil.

Sir ArmaMalumFeb 24, 20142 votes

This has been brought up before, and as someone who has a champ concept or two out along with a collection of Guides in the works I am very much with you in that fear.

However, there is some hope, can't find the post right now (sorry) but there is a WiP feature of favoriting posts. so far it's soon(tm)'d but they are working on it!

But as of right now, yes, you have to continuously get upvotes to not get buried via "Hot" ordering, and eventually land yourself in the "Best" ordering of the community you're posting in to continue getting feedback.

Bob LLamaFeb 24, 20141 votes

I think you're referring to this comment.

Sir ArmaMalumFeb 24, 20141 votes

lol, I see what you did there. Should I not be blabbing about stuff like that? I apologize if that's the case.

Bob LLamaFeb 24, 20142 votes

Hey no worries, you've done nothing wrong. AFAIK I'm not your dad and I'm not going to tell you what to do. And if I am in fact your dad, then you're the smartest toddler on earth and I'm both amazingly proud and worried you're here to destroy us.

Sir ArmaMalumFeb 24, 20141 votes

LOL, well apparantly you've been unknowingly paying college tuition for the past 3 years.....sorry about that! (World domination after graduates, a'course ;D)

Also, I found it, it was on this post. It was you again as well actually. And like I said before I have a lot of posts out already that will be running into the same problem that was pointed out in the OP, so I'm simply very excited about this possible feature XD

JackAquaFeb 24, 20142 votes

I usually see normal threads last ~2/3 days, 'good' threads about a week and hyped threads about 2 weeks.
It's kinda sad, when you think about it :(

RoaranorFeb 24, 20141 votes

They have 3 sorting features. I think the sorting feature you're looking for is "Best". This displays post in order of their overall popularity. Time is only included for the "Hot" section I believe, which is the standard setting.

ratcharmerFeb 26, 20141 votes

As a semi-related comment, it seems like the community beta randomly switches me between sorting methods when I jump between sections.

Is this intended?

RoaranorFeb 27, 20142 votes

I think your preferences are saved by page, unless you go through and manually clear them from your browser or log off of the site (Not sure how this is handled). For example, if I go to my site feedback sub-c, it will be set to Hot by default. If I go to Help & Support, it will be set to Recent because that's what I had it last set to. In this way, you can browse specific sub-communities differently if you prefer without having to go back and change them every time.

I could be wrong though.