New Forum Issue: Default sort type

DavidZemon

Default thread sort is by vote, not date. This isn't StackOverflow, it should obviously be sorted by date, not votes.
As an aside, I love the voting system . Something I've wanted in forums for a long time.

Tor

I agree about date which is the only usable option. I don't see much point in a 'vote' level at all. And sorting on 'vote' doesn't work for an active forum, only, as you say, for stack overflow style 'forums' where the only thing you use it for is for looking up answers at a later time.

-Tor

Heater.

It does not work on stack overflow either. Many times I have found the most up voted answer there is either downright wrong on not the optimal answer which is got a lower vote. 

DavidZemon

@Heater, you must be looking at some really obscure topics lol. I'd say for probably 98% of the questions I've looked up, either the answer with the most upvotes or the accepted answer is exactly what I'm looking for. I do ignore most anything with less than 10 votes though.

Heater.

Big mistake. On occasion I have seen very low vote answers that happened to be the most efficient or robust or general purpose or accurate technique. I just assume nobody understood them so they did not attract votes. Or perhaps they arrived later and nobody noticed. 

Bump

Yeah, I was really interested in how this feature would be adopted by this forum community. Sort stuff and different vote/date/topic manipulation is all fairly easy.
Some posts have been conversational, where a single 'answer' isn't the best for the overall goal of a discussion; however sometimes an individual may want a very specific concise answer, as is the case of stack overflow since you mentioned it.
We'll keep an eye on it for certain and see if it ends up causing more harm than good, and adapting as needed to fit usage.

jmg

Some posts have been conversational, where a single 'answer' isn't the best for the overall goal of a discussion; however sometimes an individual may want a very specific concise answer, as is the case of stack overflow since you mentioned it.

Some forums have a *solved* tag for the title, and a link to the 'correct' answer.
Certainly, default choice of sort by votes is broken/dumb, and should change to date sorted.

Heater.

I see no way that a random collection of up or down vote button pushers randomizing the flow of a thread can ever have any positive effect. 

Bump

Indeed. We can essentially breakout the 'solved' or 'highest voted' or some form of answer and display it separate from a date-sorted discussion below. That is not outside the realm of possibilities.

SRLM

Indeed. We can essentially breakout the 'solved' or 'highest voted' or some form of answer and display it separate from a date-sorted discussion below. That is not outside the realm of possibilities.

Intel has something similar for their Edison product. Posters have the option to select a correct answer, and that's promoted to right below the question. I like that feature.
https://communities.intel.com/thread/76562

DavidZemon

We'll keep an eye on it for certain and see if it ends up causing more harm than good, and adapting as needed to fit usage.


If you're aware of the fix, why not change the default sorting to date right away. Users are already upset with so many changes and you know how to make one of those changes go away. If you/Parallax want to try out vote sorting down the road, it seems like later would be a much better time than now.

Electrodude

Indeed. We can essentially breakout the 'solved' or 'highest voted' or some form of answer and display it separate from a date-sorted discussion below. That is not outside the realm of possibilities.

Could such posts be displayed both at the top and where they belong chronologically?
EDIT: This is my second post on the new forums, and I still have 0 posts.  

DavidZemon

EDIT: This is my second post on the new forums, and I still have 0 posts.  

It's a subtle hint

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

I can't for the life of me imagine why "sort by vote" is even an option, let alone the default. Posts that are sorted by vote get moved way out of context, and the arc of the narrative gets completely obliterated, leaving only lame non sequiturs for readers to puzzle over.
Bump, unless you're contemplating the eminently saner route of a complete roll-back to the old forum, this needs to be fixed -- pronto.
-Phil

koehler

I can't for the life of me imagine why "sort by vote" is even an option, let alone the default. Posts that are sorted by vote get moved way out of context, and the arc of the narrative gets completely obliterated, leaving only lame non sequiturs for readers to puzzle over.
Bump, unless you're contemplating the eminently saner route of a complete roll-back to the old forum, this needs to be fixed -- pronto.
-Phil

I actually had thought it would be great in every forum, as it allows high quality responses to bubble up, a la slashdot.  However I now see that it is just as easily abused/mis-used and can subvert that process depending upon discussion type.

I agree, some of these complaints that seem to be an easy fix should just be fixed. At this point its pointless to try and instill some sort of orderly process. 
Flip the switch on some of the universally agreed upon issues.

Heater.

Koehler,
Slashdot has quality responses? Haven't seen that it some years:) 
I think slashdot is a different use case. It's not a forum.  It's a comment on a news item site. 
On comment site you expect to basically just have a bunch or random comments thrown at the wall, the action on any story only occurs for a few hours or days and then it's all forgotten. Like people shouting at a foot ball match.
On a forum we expect to have topics to discuss and then a long thread of debate.
Sure some of those topics are just questions that get a few quick replies and we move on. stack overflow style. Some topics are long lived, like a discussion of some ones project or use of a particular device or product etc.
Having posts randomized by votes makes sense for slash and stack overflow, not a discussion forum like this.     

localroger

Yeah after kuro5hin, metafilter, and this place, I find reddit almost impossible to use because of the vote based sorting and hiding.  Not a good place to go.

localroger

Another observation -- if you get logged out, it returns to sort by votes every time you restart the browser, which is far more annoying than just having to log back in if you want to leave a post.

Publison

Another observation -- if you get logged out, it returns to sort by votes every time you restart the browser, which is far more annoying than just having to log back in if you want to leave a post.


What is the time period that you get logged out? 

localroger

Seems to have happened overnight.  I am pretty sure I was logged in at this machine yesterday but wasn't this morning.  I suppose it's possible that I didn't actually post from this one yesterday though.  In any case the same problem obtains if you find yourself on a different computer.  Things look relatively normal when logged out except for the wacky post order.  Sort by votes really should just be disabled.

Publison

On the old forum, when I was logged in as a Moderator, sometimes it would stick, sometimes, not. I don't think I got an answer for that, or not even asked the question.
I'm not sure what the timeout is on this forum.

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

I haven't been logged out by the system yet. It may be a client-side thing if the log-in details are held in a cookie that the browser expires automatically. Also, there's a check box when you log in that signals that you want to stay logged in.
-Phil

jmg

Another observation -- if you get logged out, it returns to sort by votes every time you restart the browser, which is far more annoying than just having to log back in if you want to leave a post.


Wow, that has to @Bump the priority of removing the silly sort by votes default.I thought it was at least with a work-around, but I think I have not logged off/on