Topic Exposure and Voting

I’ve noticed an issue with the way topics and voting are handled by the forum.

If a topic contains conversation/replies, even if those replies are not related to the topic in question, that topic will move to the top of the forum, giving it increased exposure and therefor more votes (remember the convo in the thread may be totally irrelevant). This will skew the voting for things like the Dev Q&A questions and bugs as topics which may be equally important but don’t warrant conversation will fall off the bottom of the first page which is ultimately where the majority of users will spent their time.

Would it be possible for the forums which have voting enabled to be arranged in such a way that allows equal expose to all topics, rather than just making the “convo worthy” topics the most popular by default. This will allow us to see things which we may not have thought of and provide a more accurate picture of what the whole community is thinking.

Edit: Don’t get me wrong, I know new questions and bugs will appear first at some point, but because posts with convo keep bouncing to the top by default, they will naturally get more exposure even if they replies are nothing to do with the topic.

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Threads that are ‘popular’ (get more responses) will inevitably be treated as more relevant.

There’s only so many ways you can rank threads: posts, posted date, created date.

And the comparatively tiny number of people who come to post on this forum, should hardly be considered to be representative of what the ‘whole community’ is thinking. :thinking:

You can personally set notifications to read the posts you missed. :slightly_smiling_face:

Thanks for the reply :smiley:

I do agree where a normal forum is concerned, but in the case of the bugs, wishlist and the dev Q&A sections where voting is what is used to determine “what we want”, topic replies to posts should have no bearing. My point is that they do, because the forums want to put replied too topic first in the normal view, and the majority of users will always see the most active topics first all the time, even if the replies in those topics are not really relevant to the topic itself.

This post is the perfect example actually, until you replied, it has fallen of the first page whilst other posts kept popping back to the top.

I don’t know of a “fair” way to make sure all Q&A questions, bugs etc… get the same forum exposure time, but there must be a better way that the default view.

You can sort threads in sections with votes “by votes”. That won’t impact the “latest” view which shows obviously the threads with the most recent replies though.

Doesn’t sort the issue you’ve highlighted but at least allows you to see what’s getting the most votes and not necessarily the most replies

Voting doesn’t determine ‘what people want’.

Some things that are total nonsense get many votes (because you can’t vote against them).

At best these votes are the weakest kind of straw poll that give an indication of what interests and concerns are trending. MS/Asobo shouldn’t and clearly don’t treat these votes as ‘gospel’. :thinking:

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Such a shame but I know deep down you’re right

But, if they’re not treating the votes as gospel, what the point in having them?

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It’s an indication.

MS/A will look at them and consider the ones that already match their general goals and ignore those that don’t. It has a point, but it’s a general consultation and certainly not an instruction.

Something MS/A likes will be prioritised irrespective of something they don’t being more highly voted. And that’s fair enough, it’s their Sim. :relieved:

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