E34 discussion weblog

[wjbell]

I'm trying out some discussion software I'm working on and set up a weblog for the e34 if anyone wants to post topics or comments there. Let me know what you think either there or here.

I thought it would be a little different than a messageboard and possibly can be another resource for people to talk BMWs.

http://weblog.belletc.net/bmwe34/

[632 Regal]

can I swear and post meaningless BS?

[pundit]

can I swear and post meaningless BS?

Don't you already??!!

[632 Regal]

I meant on the other site thing.

Don't you already??!!

its not very user friendly either

[wjbell]

I meant on the other site thing.

its not very user friendly either

Thanks for the feedback. What's not user friendly about it? I'd like to make it better...

[HDhandyman]

I don't get it? Is the rating system the only difference from what we have here?

[mattyb]

whats the point of that?

[wjbell]

I guess the point of the site I set up is to have another place to talk about the cars we are enthusiastic about. The point of posting a link to it wasn't about what's different, better or why you should post there, it was that we have another place that we can post to. The more e34 resources the better, right?

[wingman]

Good idea but a user rating? So if maybe one time I'm incorrect in a reply I can be rated as a ninkumpoop and forever banished to the 'He's-got-no-f**king-idea-and-can-only-make-snide-remarks-from-the-outfield-column'? Some of the dumbest replies have instigated the most entertaining stuff I've seen on this forum. I know some will like the 'experts only need reply' thing but I, like many others, also enjoy the social side of bimmer.info.

[wjbell]

Good idea but a user rating? So if maybe one time I'm incorrect in a reply I can be rated as a ninkumpoop and forever banished to the 'He's-got-no-f**king-idea-and-can-only-make-snide-remarks-from-the-outfield-column'? Some of the dumbest replies have instigated the most entertaining stuff I've seen on this forum. I know some will like the 'experts only need reply' thing but I, like many others, also enjoy the social side of bimmer.info.

That's (what I think is) the beauty of the rating system I'm come up with. It simply isn't a one-person-decision that lables you as a good or bad poster. It's set up to rate a person on what the majority of the community thinks, and because of this is unlikely to be abused.

First, the rating scale is from 0 to 10. Zero being the worst, ten being the best. Every new user starts out at 3.

It takes being knocked down to 1 (or maybe 0, I forget) to not be able to post topics. But even if you are 0 you can still post comments to the topics.

Now to knock someone down a rating point it has to be "flagged", or rated down by three users. And one user can't rate it down three times, there's security features for that. So three seperate users have to agree that it is a bad post. And it also has to be consecutivally[sp]. So if two people rate it down, but one rates it up, it's only got one negative rating now. So two more people have to agree that it's a bad post.

So all this has to happen to rate someone down even a single point. And it takes three points to knock them down to non-posting status, and that's provided they haven't built up any positive ratings.

So this rating system isn't really a way to rate users or give anyone good or bad status(brgging rights) but rather a way for the board and users to snuff out the abusers and stop abusive postings. Kind of a self-regulating abuse system. I think it's a nice system and would like to see how it operates in a real world board.

Edit: Also, on a busy board, seeing a users rating under his topic on the index page, is a quick indicator on whether or not a users topics are usually worth reading or not.