Loren Posted December 24, 2012 Share Posted December 24, 2012 It's very frustrating; how often community.invisionpower.com members on the feedback forum resist really really good recommendations/feedback that would benefit all forums that run IPS. I'm not going to point any fingers, but some of them definitely are in this thread, resisting every little piece of feedback just because they can with very little reasoning. It's like a bunch of fanboys saying IPS can do no wrong and quite honestly I'm getting tired of it. IPS makes mistakes just like every other company, the difference is they have us to suggest changes in a positive direction. Were driving in the front seat, they make the car, our feedback is important to the future of their company. The other part that bothers me about many of these sort of replies, is that many of these counterarguments never even address the problems that are up for discussion. Many of you say OH we just need excerpts then, well what about the entire SEO problem that many posts in this thread mention? At the risk of becoming what I seem to think is a flame war... Everyone is entitled to their opinion. You do not have to agree or disagree - it is "their" opinion. So let's just get this topic back on track to feedback that can improve the "Best Answer" feature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat206 Posted December 24, 2012 Share Posted December 24, 2012 Forums inherently are not all that great for pure Q&A anyway. Most of the time a "best answer" is really only useful for archival purposes.. that is, a person who stumbles on the forum post sometime in the future via search. The idea is to filter the signal (the answer) from the noise (the discussion). To do Q&A well you need rules. That the first post is a question, but *every* reply is an answer. In a forum setting this may not be feasible because often you need replies to clarify or discuss an answer as well. Stackoverflow tackles this with a threaded format that is at most two levels deep. See here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13950642/why-does-a-function-prototype-with-no-parameters-compared-to-the-actual-functio The other thing is in that a forum setting there are often multiple answers to the original question, but at what point is it acceptable to choose a "BEST" answer. In the stackoverflow setting it is the users that choose the best answer by upvoting the response.. but then it is assumed that all replies to the first post question are answers. However, with a forum setting that mixes replies with answers you need to denote an answer from a non-answer before you could choose a "best" answer. An ideal approach might show anything that QUOTES a REPLY to the main topic (not to be confused with quoting the main topic) as discussion that gets nested immediately below the reply. The presentation of the discussion reply could be just the first line of text that expands fully with a click. That way you have a clear separation between answers and discussions. Then for every question you could allow more users than just the person creating the topic to help choose a best answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Management Lindy Posted December 24, 2012 Management Share Posted December 24, 2012 I think these things tend to result in flame wars because they are presented in the most dramatic :hyper: way possible. Suggest a different position for the answer, it doesn't make the feature "completely unusable" and create an end of world scenario. Calm down. Make a suggestion or don't use the feature. No need to get all worked up. :smile: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rimi Posted December 24, 2012 Share Posted December 24, 2012 Not really opinions, more like conclusions based on how features were implemented. No. They're opinions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weppa333 Posted December 25, 2012 Share Posted December 25, 2012 seo speaking, the best to handle "best answer" feature is simply a link, after the first post of course, which tells "jump to the best answer". maybe with an excerpt, but I wouldn't be in favor of it on my own board. just my 2 cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aiwa Posted December 25, 2012 Share Posted December 25, 2012 ?? The best answer is controlled by the topic starter. Random people reading can't mark the best answer. It seems you may have a misunderstanding of the best answer feature in terms of marking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weppa333 Posted December 25, 2012 Share Posted December 25, 2012 indeed, topic edited (i don't use the feature and it kinda shows :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aiwa Posted December 25, 2012 Share Posted December 25, 2012 The only problem with an excerpt is you almost have to strip BBCode and HTML from the post content. Otherwise you may truncate across a tag and cause all kinds of wonkyness. There are checks you can do, but adds resources to process it every time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weppa333 Posted December 25, 2012 Share Posted December 25, 2012 I've seen this way of working on another board (not a commercial board, a very SEO friendly Q&A type board custom built for the purpose) A simple link to the "best answer", and quite cleverly, thru a redirect; which means that even if the best answer lies on the same page (and could have been linked with an #anchor), it makes "a click" and improves the exit page ratio of your board (nowadays, SEO is also thru the eyes of the inevitable Analytics code that is spying on you and on what your users do with your board) So it solves two problems a) the "best answer is not "polluting" the SERP of the thread ( I agree that having the entire block abiove the fold change when someone elects a "best answer" is not very SEO friendly) b) it actually improves the exit ratio ( Analytics code "think" and sees that the surfer has requested a second page, which is veeery goood) funny thing is that this second page might actually be the same page just a couple of posts below. But it's a refresh, it's another request, and it makes this page not be an "exit page". PS I've not looking into this but I believe this could be fixed by a template edit, or some mild coding at most. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Bond Posted December 30, 2012 Share Posted December 30, 2012 I think these things tend to result in flame wars because they are presented in the most dramatic :hyper: way possible. Suggest a different position for the answer, it doesn't make the feature "completely unusable" and create an end of world scenario. Calm down. Make a suggestion or don't use the feature. No need to get all worked up. :smile: Suggestion: Make Best Answer content an excerpt. Position is good. The "Go Read the Full Post" button implies Invision intended for it to be an excerpt. If the system presents the full post, why have the full post button? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MGBrose Posted December 31, 2012 Author Share Posted December 31, 2012 I think these things tend to result in flame wars because they are presented in the most dramatic :hyper: way possible. Suggest a different position for the answer, it doesn't make the feature "completely unusable" and create an end of world scenario. Calm down. Make a suggestion or don't use the feature. No need to get all worked up. :smile: IPB restricts editing so I can't change the first post or the title. But to me and my community best answers in its implementation is unusable/useless. I've seen this way of working on another board (not a commercial board, a very SEO friendly Q&A type board custom built for the purpose) A simple link to the "best answer", and quite cleverly, thru a redirect; which means that even if the best answer lies on the same page (and could have been linked with an #anchor), it makes "a click" and improves the exit page ratio of your board (nowadays, SEO is also thru the eyes of the inevitable Analytics code that is spying on you and on what your users do with your board) So it solves two problems a) the "best answer is not "polluting" the SERP of the thread ( I agree that having the entire block abiove the fold change when someone elects a "best answer" is not very SEO friendly) b) it actually improves the exit ratio ( Analytics code "think" and sees that the surfer has requested a second page, which is veeery goood) funny thing is that this second page might actually be the same page just a couple of posts below. But it's a refresh, it's another request, and it makes this page not be an "exit page". PS I've not looking into this but I believe this could be fixed by a template edit, or some mild coding at most. Brilliant idea! Makes a hell of a lot more sense than an excerpt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opentype Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 By the way: the best anwer feature in Apples discussion board: Pretty much a use that reflects all the points mentioned in this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ajouz ♞ Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 it is a modification which promote a post , but ips restrict it to best answer future . it can be use for other things like ads or announcment or faq , so I think if there a way to allow admin to add different titles that will make it more usable . Best regards . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adriano Faria Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 I liked it inside first post... Should also be truncated; today it shows the whole post content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3DKiwi Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 By the way: the best anwer feature in Apples discussion board: Bildschirmfoto 2013-01-12 um 14.06.52.png Pretty much a use that reflects all the points mentioned in this thread. I like this. Much better than the half finished thing we have with IPB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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