Forums Re-Imagined...

[taha116]

Well please ignore the fact that the below link is of a hosting companies forums and read everything.
http://forums.x10hosting.com/

What i am showing you is how much more active they are (relatively speaking) and what you may not notice is that being an active member is 10 times more rewarding than it is with HG. I use thier forums every day and do you know why?

The forums are more strictly organized, they cover more subjects better, and also have a credit system. Take a look at the VB commerce section as well. Although i do not care much for it the real deal is the Ads and offers section were ppl may post for help or offer help for credits. The credits are from a VB MOD and adding them shouldnt be too difficult for HG.

Why should HG do this? Because it will improve the already good feedback. The forums are a great form of support for more then just such simple topics. I use those forums for soooo many things like:

http://forums.x10hosting.com/scripts...ressed-js.html

http://forums.x10hosting.com/compute...ing-linux.html

http://forums.x10hosting.com/program...t-show-ie.html

http://forums.x10hosting.com/compute...computers.html

Although i am a complete nub these awnsers these ppl give are very helpful, I can thank them by adding to their REP or sending credits to them so everyone wins.

Now i know it would be a big change but i strongly believe it would be for the better. It would make me stick here easily. It would improve your feed back and honestly is itself a good reason for people to stay. Not just awesome support from staff but awesome interaction with other members.

Again i know it would be difficult but you really need to change the theme you use. Something with larger dimentions for the forums, I know the way you integrated the top menu and the footer is nice but id rather have the nicer forums any day.

_______

Ppl might be wondering how do you get credits? You get credits for every topic and post you make and somtimes on a per word basis as well.. You also get bonuses for your first topic of the day etc.

[esl]

HG tried rep on this forum for a short while. Didn't work out.

[Taubin]

I personally wouldn't like a rep system implemented. Just my personal opinion, but, most forums I've been on that have them, turn into a war of sorts (not saying that would happen here). And, people who make good recommendations, or, correct answers are overlooked because they "don't have enough rep and therefor, don't know what they are talking about"

Just my 2 cents

[kmaw]

I think users' post number is a pretty good indication. I haven't been a big fan of the 'rep' system on other boards either.

[citawds]

I haven't seen a reason to change the way the hostgator forums are setup here. I find that most questions are usually answered in these forums by fellow members. There is a wealth of knowledge and experience on these forums, I feel confident that if I need help I will most likely find an answer here without a lot of juvenile antics.

Considering the wide range of questions posed here I've been pleasantly surprised with the quality of answers posted.

Want to acknowledge someone that helped you, make a post so stating I'm sure he/she would appreciate a kind word of thanks.

I'm not sure what the credit system does for you, do you receive some sort of monetary discount on your accounts?

Thanks

Steve

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by taha116

I can thank them by adding to their REP or sending credits to them so everyone wins.

Now i know it would be a big change but i strongly believe it would be for the better. It would make me stick here easily. It would improve your feed back and honestly is itself a good reason for people to stay. Not just awesome support from staff but awesome interaction with other members.

Again i know it would be difficult but you really need to change the theme you use. Something with larger dimentions for the forums, I know the way you integrated the top menu and the footer is nice but id rather have the nicer forums any day.

_______

Ppl might be wondering how do you get credits? You get credits for every topic and post you make and somtimes on a per word basis as well.. You also get bonuses for your first topic of the day etc.

So, your suggestions are: different design, different organization, psyche-credits for posts (boosted for certain criteria so the equations come out ??? somehow different from post count), and other points/reps to make the forum "more rewarding" (in good feelings? cash? credits towards hosting?)

My meta-input is that it's a lot easier to digest and discuss more single-ply suggestions (and probably for HG to consider and accept/reject)--tossing so many in together may impact the discussion of any of them.

That said, "better organization" would be a great subject for discussion and consideration, IMO.

But useful information is probably the only criterion that really matters for most forum members. Successful fora each offer something unique; with this one, that's the ability for customers of all skill levels to exchange useful, specific information about every aspect of hosting sites here.

Here's a long answer about rep.

As Evan observed, we did have rep and thread ranking for about a month last year. Had they been introduced during a "normal" period, they may have worked out, but by coincidence it was during a real crisis that brought out the best in HG and the worst in some of its customers.

An explosion at the Planet knocked out some of HG's unmanaged dedicated servers--fewer than 200 servers, out of HG's 9,000, or just 186 customers, out of a zillion. This outage brought some of them to the forum for the first time; they were understandably upset and frustrated. But as repair/restoration efforts continued, posts in the threads about the outage got more and more fevered (in several cases fueled by alcohol). Some of these new members had been HG customers for years, but were in no mood to learn about the rest of the forum or the nuances of forum behavior or why, after warnings, they began to receive negative rep points.

The public complaints about both server outage, and forum, were fairly extreme, so lord knows how bad the private ones were. All while HG was exerting heroic amounts of time, energy and resources to get those 186 customers' servers back online.

Ratings and rep can turn into a game-theory driven mess in any forum. Even without getting that far, company-operated customer fora face certain realities that other types of fora don't. HG has allowed a lot of leeway here, as well as a surprising amount of HG-directed criticism...but I'm guessing would prefer to minimize customer loss over its forum, rather than its actual business.

Steve has again put it well: a post of thanks is really a better way to bestow rewards. Certainly if some post deserves a negative of any kind, the person who thinks so should go to the trouble of explaining why.

When member-to-member criticism here is legitimate, it's about attitude or expectations--not lack of knowledge, where someone watches soccer (and whether s/he does), or choice of pizza topping. It's not criticism to: disagree with facts; suggest alternative approaches; illuminate errors; discuss more realistic expections; or even, in many cases, to explain why an attitude may be objectionable.

Requiring human-language input for positive and negative reactions tends to encourage feedback based more on specifics than on personality.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I was both one of those 186 customers and tied for highest rep count when it was discontinued.)

[taha116]

wow.. First off... when i read the explosion thing i almost laughed when i started the sentence but realized you were serious when i remembered your a veteran.

Honestly i guess the Rep part isnt that useful, So i wont push that but i really think atleast the credits would be awesome.

The credits can be exchanged unlike posts, they are like a currency almost. They are earned like i said through posts and donations. A member may donate to another member. I may request help with some graphics for 200 credits, and that person who helps me may in turn pay 100 credits to each person who goes to his video game review site and writes a 750 word review on a game and so on... This wont stop free help though. I ask for free help all the time and get it, but somtimes i need something major wich i cant expect som1 to do for free.... like create a modification on my already custom script... I am actualy paying someone 1000 credits to add spam, flood and badword protection and controls to my custom shoutbox. The site that made it no longer supports it. No1 would randomly offer to do it. Thats allot of work.

So fine no rep, but credits, hell yah those would be great!