3 votes were better for greatest

[bonito]

There is too much being lost. I for one seldom go past pg.1 of the latest. vote?

[enough]

1. I agree.

[Skip Intro]

2. Second the vote

although I realize it may have been done to prevent tampering from a passing swell of freeps

I'm all for a vote tho

[Mythsaje]

3. Unless you post at the right time

the posts come so fast that a good post might go virtually unnoticed unless it makes the Greatest page.

I think three worked better than five.

[eggman67]

4. I agree (n/t)

[LSK]

5. but with more people posting, the greatest might get flooded

What good is the greatest if its so full you cant find anything there?

[Nothing Without Hope]

24. I made several suggestions downtread. One is that we might have

"bonus" time for Greatest threads with high numbers of votes, and these might be put on a separate "Hottest Threads" page.

Please see what you think of my suggestions:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2038611&mesg_id=2039067

[ray of light]

6. I agree!

[MadisonProgressive]

7. Maybe we could compromise on 4?

The onus also needs to be placed on us. People have to remeber to vote for greatest when they read something that inspires them.

[lostnfound]

29. Yes, I thought 4 was good. nt

[Mr_Spock]

8. I thought 4. You got 7 though!

:rofl: What's the problem?

[MadisonProgressive]

9. Nobody is ever happy! LOL

[Mr_Spock]

17. I've been happy for several minutes at a time....

:rofl:

[MelissaB]

10. I liked three better because many days all I get to read is the "greatest"

I teach and am blocked at school, so my time is very limited when I get home.

[Kurovski]

11. 3 Posts or else extend the amount of time a post is eligible

for a "greatest" vote.

[Stinky The Clown]

14. I like your idea ...... extend the time ... maybe an extra day?

[Kurovski]

15. 4 votes and two days, that should do it.

I think our work here is done, Husb2Sparkly!

[Stinky The Clown]

25. Hahahahaha

:thumbsup:

Truly good work (like ours! :) ) is never done!

[Nothing Without Hope]

23. Please see what I'm proposing downthread; it's got some similarities:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2038611&mesg_id=2039067

[Kurovski]

26. I think a place to locate the Greatest threads of every seven

days or so is a winner. ( Easy search or however.)

Perfect For the folks who just check in once a week and have limited time.

Some great ideas on that thread, Nothing Without Hope.

[starroute]

12. 4 seems good to me

With 3, Greatest filled up with stuff that wasn't all that special. I felt I was wasting a lot of time looking at stories that weren't worth it.

But with 5, I can come back to DU after an hour or two and find nothing new has been added. So I spend even more time checking through LBN and GD for good stories that might not have made it to Greatest.

Hopefully, 4 would strike the right balance.

[troubleinwinter]

13. I liked 3. But maybe Lounge could be disallowed.

[Hissyspit]

19. Every once in a while, something good/important shows up in the Lounge.

[Nothing Without Hope]

22. I don't mind Lounge threads being allowed onto the Greatest - there

aren't many and sometimes they are important or provide some comic relief. That might change if Loungers started voting more often, but as it is now, I like it.

[Kurovski]

27. Maybe the lounge could require the extra votes?

although it seems that DUer's use pretty good judgement as it stands.

[Nothing Without Hope]

28. I agree with you - I think the Loungers are using pretting good judgement

most of the time and that they shouldn't be restrained unless that changes. I use the option to block Lounge threads from my Latest page - so unless I visit the Lounge or they make the Greatest, they're not visible to me. That works well, I feel.

The Lounge serves several important functions at DU, and I like seeing occasional significant or extremely funny Lounge threads on the Greatest page.

[satya]

16. Maybe have "Greatest" from each category--top vote getters.

I visit "Greatest" frequently, too, when I'm pressed for time. It would be nice to see the Greatest GD, Lounge, Election Fraud, etc. in one spot. Might make people more aware of the less visited areas, too. There's a ton of information here, it's hard to digest it.

[Hissyspit]

18. I agree. Smallish issues are getting overlooked.

4 might be good.

[eggman67]

20. Why not

just have 3, but sortthe list by number of votes? That way the topics with the least votes appear at the bottom of the list.

[Nothing Without Hope]

21. How about the following: 5 votes to get to Greatest BUT after there,

(1) All posts reaching the Greatest Page have the same "probation" time (24 hours?) to get additional votes. This is important because some important threads take a long time to be discovered, then they can't get enough votes on the Greatest page for readers to realize how important they are - the 24 hour clock from posting runs out too soon.

(2) Then, really important threads could get "bonus" time on the Greatest Page or be moved to a new "Hottest-Threads" page for bonus time based on their vote number . For example: This could be done in an escalating scale. For example, pass 10 votes and you get an 6 bonus hours, pass 20 votes and you get another extra 6 hours, pass 30 and you get another extra 12 hours - for a total of a full day past the universal 24 hours on the Greatest Page. Or they could be moved to a new page - the HOTTEST THREADS PAGE - during their bonus time. During the "bonus" time past the initial time on the Greatest Page during which the threads could be voted on, highly rated threads would remain visible but NOT receive additional votes. Often, I find that the most important threads reach their peak of usefulness, with great additions in the replies, then POOF, they're gone. This way, these valuable threads would remain visible a longer time.

(3) There also needs to be some way for Greatest Threads to be scanned or searched. Not everyone can watch the Greatest Page all the time - this way people without much time could check in every week or so and find threads that got over 10, over 20 or over 30 points in the last week - or other chosen time interval. As an extension of the search function of DU, I think this would be very, very helpful and would extend its influence to a much larger community.

I've been thinking about this, and I think these changes would together make a great improvement in DU's ability to showcase the most important threads. The lack of this ability, though greatly helped by the addition of the Greatest Page not all that long ago, is still DU's single greatest weakness in my opinion.

These problems are especially marked because the "cause du jour" often takes over so much space on the Greatest Page, it forces off other less familiar but extremely important stories. (Remember the Schiavo stories? And now we have so many important Cindy Sheehan stories - I want to see them, but not at the expense of short-changing other national and world news.) Some time back I suggested to the admins that such overwhelming numbers of closely related "du jour" stories be gathered into their own forum. but the response was that they really need to be on the main pages. I can understand that wish, but that increases the need to do something else to highlight important new threads, allow them equal opportunity to accumulate readers' recommendations, keep them in sight longer, and make it possible to scan or search them based on their high numbers of Greatest votes.

(4) One more thing: the number of Greatest votes should be retained AFTER the thread is archived. This is a record of the readers' ranking of its value and it should NOT be lost as it is now.

I'll recommend this thread, because I feel that finding a way to address these problems is very important. I hope you'll weigh in on the ideas in this post as well and make other suggestions. We have a big problem that limits the usefulness of DU unnecessarily, and we need to find ways to address it.

[snot]

32. This works for me.

I love that this forum gives air to a wide array of views. But we'd all benefit if the way in which threads were promoted better reflected our serious, collective judgement about what deserves wider or sustained attention.

[kentuck]

30. There is great and there is near great...

I think the greatest should require ten votes. That way they would stay on the front page longer.

[Nothing Without Hope]

31. kick n/t

[Eloriel]

33. I think Lounge threads ought to be disallowed n/t