Sneak preview of posts...

z201205

Quite often I visit threads that have an unread message in only to find that its contents are things that don't add to the substance of the thread. For example, "thanks", "me too" or such "non-content" posts. It would save the disappointment of opening the thread only to find such "trivial" posts.
So, in order to minimise this disappointment and make the most of people's time and effort, I wonder whether there could be a sneak preview of the contents of a single unread message: I wouldn't expect the preview if there were more than one post to read as you'd hope one of the posts would be worth reading 🙂

endorphin

z201205 it's a neat idea; giffgaff would have to weigh up the cost of implementation against the following:

how many threads will have a single unread response, ie how often will this facility be used?
how much of a sneak preview should be displayed: a few words, or sentences or, in its entirety?
assuming you want the sneak preview to be displayed by hovering over the 'number of unread replies' count; it how would it responsd if there were more than 2 replies? Would it show nothing?
if, after having read the sneak preview, you wanted to see more or reply you would still have to go into the thread

harrrrrry

z201205

Better still would be to find some way of encouraging members to do what they're intended to do -- ie, to use one of the reactions instead of making a pointless post.

That won't happen of course, but we could possibly auto-delete pointless posts that only say "thanks" or other such timewasters.

blackfive460

harrrrrry That won't happen of course, but we could possibly auto-delete pointless posts that only say "thanks" or other such timewasters.

That's where community self curation using reactions could be a winner.

Something else that I doubt will ever happen.

z201205

harrrrrry but we could possibly auto-delete pointless posts that only say "thanks" or other such timewasters.

That be a great idea. And let us perhaps flag them as pointless and educators do that.

harrrrrry

z201205

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.

Deleting the message results in a soft-deleted message and that creates havoc when redisplaying the thread starting with the first-unread message (because the first-unread message can't be displayed). It's bad enough when messages are soft-deleted for essential reasons, but we really don't want to make the first-unread pointers any more user-hostile than they are at the moment.

Hmm, jumping to a soft-deleted message is actually worse than jumping to a "Thanks" message because you have to scroll past 9 unwanted messages instead of just one 😮

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.