Scratch

cygene · 2011-07-23 18:16:34

I hate people who just post bump or some other useless thing in a forum topic to make that topic move up and get noticed. The whole reason for the recent forum system is to show user which topics has added information since the last visit. If every change is just a bump, then the whole system is useless. One way for Scratch to counter bumping is to add a minimum length to a post to make sure it is useful info. For example, before a user can post something, it must be more than 250 letters, 20 words, and/or 2 sentences long. This might not completely stop it, but it gets the users who want to bump to do more work and this might discourage them. Writing:
"bump" is easier than writing
"bumpidy bump bump bumpidy bumpy bupmy. qwert rrtekjdhfkjds sdgfkdshakf dsfhkjasdfe sdjakfds"
of course, users can copy-paste but that still involves more work than just writing bump.

lilacfuzz101 · 2011-07-23 18:19:50

Well, for Show and Tell forums most people don't wind up posting what they like about the project being advertised on the forum thread (they use the comments section on the page) so the only way to get it noticed is to bump the thread.

It's not really a big deal unless people do it excessively and then it just gets flaged as spam.

And there are other short responses that would get caught up in the filter. Like "Thanks" and "+1" and "^this" among others....

Last edited by lilacfuzz101 (2011-07-23 18:31:20)

cygene · 2011-07-23 20:57:38

Well, other short responses are also unhelpful, though. Thanks could be expanded to thank you for doing so and so... There can also be other ways to filter out bumps, like having a database of useless words (item 1 would be bump) and if a post is short and contains a word from the database, it would be cancelled

Harakou · 2011-07-24 10:17:53

The point of the system is to know when a thread has new posts. It doesn't necessarily have to be particularly long to be relevant, and bumping within reason is a good way to get a topic that still needs attention to be noticed, such as a Show and Tell topic, or a question in AAS that the person still needs some help with. While spam posts or excessive bumping can be a little annoying, it's better just to flag those posts.

Sidharth · 2011-07-25 20:56:31

Do you not think it would be cumbersome for a Community Moderator to look at Every thread, Every page, Every post and delete the ones that start with "Bump"? Automating this would also be very cumbersome, because people will B U M P or BU MP or BUM P or _BUMP_ or b.u.m.p! or ... you get it, right? Yeah, so, just tolerate it. It only takes a few seconds to scroll past it.

Besides, it's a cool idea smile