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blackfive460

harrrrrry Thinking about it some more -- rather than auto-deleting posts with "Thanks" and other pointless content, we ought to automate asking the poster to choose a reaction instead.

So have a minimum character count...

Hang on, haven't we been here a couple of times before?

harrrrrry

blackfive460

I don't remember ever having a minimum character count on giffgaff, though I've seen it on other forums.

That's not really what we want here (or indeed in any of the other forums that do it). All it does is encourage people to find other, more longwinded, ways of writing a pointless post.

What we need is to encourage people to use "the reactions, the whole reactions and nothing but the reactions" -- unless they have something additional and useful that needs saying,

blackfive460

harrrrrry I don't remember ever having a minimum character count on giffgaff, though I've seen it on other forums.

harrrrrry

No, we never have had a minimum character count on giffgaff but it has come up as a suggestion as being one way to cut down on the quantity of pointless posts a few times before.

I too have seen it elsewhere and it does make a real difference.

I'd be all for it; say minimum 250 characters, but like other suggestions on the same lines, it's never going to happen.

Despite saying that it's quality that counts, all I can think is that what giffgaff really want on the community is just quantity irrespective of quality!

endorphin

blackfive460 harrrrrry a minimum character count wouldn't work anyway, gamers would just cut and paste longer replies (than they do now).

harrrrrry What we need is to encourage people to use "the reactions, the whole reactions and nothing but the reactions"

You would only get that behaviour by rewarding use of reactions; for now people think they get payback for replying no matter how short their reply which has lead to what we see now.

harrrrrry

endorphin

I've never greatly studied payback rules, but it seems logical that doing the right thing (ie, giving a reaction where appropriate) needs to earn more than a pointless "thanks" post. Indeed, a member whose posts consist mainly of pointless posts ought to be "rewarded" by earning negative payback for it.

But the problem with rewarding reactions is that people will start to put a reaction on every post they read, regardless of merit -- and that too needs to be detected and demoted.

endorphin

harrrrrry But the problem with rewarding reactions is that people will start to put a reaction on every post they read

Quite! It's difficult to get people to behave properly with rewards on offer.

mrjeeves

harrrrrry

Don't forget that quality of posts is heavily weighted in payback.

giffgaff have a data science department who analyse the quality of posts and, presumably, rank them.

blackfive460

endorphin Quite! It's difficult to get people to behave properly with rewards on offer.

And therein lies the cause of many of the problems that we see in the community.

Whatever the 'rules' are, as long as people believe they'll get paid, they'll keep on doing it and as long as giffgaff are happy with the way things are, nothing will change..

harrrrrry

mrjeeves data science department who analyse the quality of posts and, presumably, rank them.

That may possibly ensure a reduced payback for those who post unnecessarily. But unless it's made clear that pointless posts can, or preferably will, reduce payback, it won't actually stop people making them.

mrjeeves

harrrrrry

It probably won't stop most of them anyway as people who don't know about payback or don't care about it will still say thanks.

Does this mean we should also stop the thanks messages on the service updates threads or the payback update threads or the announcements?

harrrrrry

mrjeeves

Announcements should be read-only, like announcements are on all other sensible forums.

endorphin

harrrrrry Announcements should be read-only

Yes! There are rarely any replies with substance posted there and even then there is usually little interaction from the OP.