I don't understand the flagging system

Jenna Bush calls Mom and Dad from the "Ellen Show" ___ kdial1 _ 0 _ 20 _ 0___ 8/12/2007 at 12:42 by kdial1
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This is a copy I just did from U.S. Politics Discussion Forum Thread List What does it tell?

It tells in 22 hrs this thread got 20 views, no replies and no flags. Despite such a fact it still appears in head banner as top flagged.


A copy of head banner:

flagged: Huckabee Loves Rapists Jenna Bush calls Mom and Dad from the... Have we struck a deal with the devil?
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The flag system was sold for being 100 percent user-generated, even eco-?contained? something in the words of SO.

How come 20 clicks get a thread on the top three list..?... even when it is in a less visit domain of ATS?



[edit on 8/12/2007 by khunmoon]

That was my understanding as well.
All I can conclude is that we were lied to.



The thread has no flags as of this post and yet it is a header as a top flagged thread.
Someone is selecting threads to put at the top of the page, but it's not the members.


I had a thread listed at the top of the page for two days that only had a couple flags and a few responses. It was mentioned by others that it was unimportant but Admin and Mods made no reply as to why it was put up like that.
User flagging doesn't seem to be what drives threads being promoted at the top of the page.

Putting a star on a post also seems to have no value.
It in no way promotes the post, and there is no reward offered for having a post with lots of stars. You can't even look at a stat that shows how many stars you get in a month or how many you accumulate.

It's probably not worth clicking these unless you just want to give the member an ego boost and use it as way to say you liked the thread or post.

I think the views counter should be included in the formula.

The flagging system imo has a flaw or two.

Its so easy to flag, I think more post and views say ten fold more about a threads popularity than a flag button.

Ever see a thread with maybe a 100 views 3 post and 24 flags, and then you have a thread with 2000 views 50 post and 2 flags.
Guess which one will be in the headline banner? That doenst make sense to me.

How easy would it be for ATS owners to push threads using the flag button.

Flag Waiving

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
That was my understanding as well.
All I can conclude is that we were lied to.

While I am also finding the behavior of the flagging system to be somewhat... um... surprising at times, I sincerely doubt it has anything to do with anyone lying.

I may have missed a previous explanation of how the code works, but I'm reasonably confident the anomalies we see in the flagging system have something to do with how it's coded and not some hidden, sinister agenda.

He's perpetually busy, but perhaps our own SkepticOverlord will be able to shed some light on this issue.




[edit on 12/8/2007 by Majic]

reply to post by Majic


It will be interesting to know what the criteria is, but from your own signature line:

Thanks to the Internet, more lies are available to more people more quickly.

I understand the need to promote controversial topics to maintain hits on pages for advertising. I don't expect ATS to be free, and I encourage the site to make as much money as they possibly can. I just expect a site like this to be honest with the members that provide the content.

If Admin says that flags are what drives the threads listed at the top of a page, then any threads listed under "flagged" should at least have a flag placed by a member.

Post a paypal link if ATS needs donations to keep the boat afloat, I'd be more than happy to throw few $$$ in the kitty on a monthly basis.
It would be sad to see the site become a "pay as you go", but if members could add to the collection plate and remove some ads it could only be a benefit to everyone concerned.

I don't think ATS is hurting, and wouldn't want to see the Amigos go hungry, but I value honesty above a lie to fill an empty belly.

Following The Script

I'm not jumping up and down and pointing fingers at SO (who wrote the code) because:

- I've written plenty of scripts myself, and I know how maddeningly easy it is for them to manifest "unintended consequences", as I suspect is the case here.

- There's no logical reason to rig the flag system. On a purely pragmatic level, it makes more sense to promote threads members flag and express an interest in than threads they don't.

- I've worked closely with him in a variety of ways over the past couple of years (mainly as a thorn in his side) and frankly, he's just not "evil agenda" type. With Bill, what you see is what you get.

Think about it: the success of ATS is based almost exclusively on giving members what they want. Why on earth would SO or anyone else want to ignore something like that?

Of course you're free to be suspicious all you want. To a point, I think that's quite healthy, especially when dealing with conspiracies all day.

But I think it's somewhat overreaching to assume there's some sort of intentional deception afoot when confronted by what is far more likely to be a scripting anomaly.

I'll try to leave it at that and hope the Overlord can clear up any misconceptions forthwith.

I really don't suspect anything nefarious is going on, but we'll see where the thread goes.

If SkepticOverlord needs to coble together some coin for a bottle of Scotch this winter he can send me a u2u with an address and I'll get a bottle in the mail for him.

That's a promise Bill, anything to make your job easier.



Edit: Still can't spell

[edit on 9/12/2007 by anxietydisorder]

Something I've seen is threads appear in the recent posts page, when they haven't been replied to in ages, like this thread appeared in the recent posts page for me today, when it hasn't been replied to since 2006, and the last edit I could see was from about two weeks ago, too far back to be in recent posts.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I did wonder about this, as a programmer myself, I know it's easy to make very weird bugs, but from what I know about web stuff, it would make sense to me that recent posts would be generated from an SQL query based on last post/edit time.

It did make me wonder if certain threads were being boosted back into the recent posts, in much the same way the OP wonders if the flagged posts have been promoted in some way.

I don't see any reason why that thread would show up as top-flagged on AbovePolitics... except that perhaps there were no threads with flags within the time-period the automatic code looks for.

The system gathers up all the top-flagged threads within the past 12 hours, and displays the top-three most-flagged threads. Things move slower on AbovePolitics.com and perhaps when no threads had any flags in the time period, we got some unexpected results. This is the only thing I can think of.

I'll have a look... maybe we need a longer window of time for AbovePolitics.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Have you considered maybe shortening the time frame for the rest of the site? I have noticed that many times, once the flagging generates the banner, the thread has cooled down, and is no longer going nearly as strong. A shorter time frame might capture attention while a thread is relevant, especially ones from breaking news.

Just an idea worth the usual $0.02

I saw a post appear yesterday in the "recent posts" section that had no activity on it since 2006. Strange problem.

reply to post by TheAvenger


Old posts getting bumped is quiet another issue. Nothing mysteriuos in that, only now the timestamp doesn't show it anymore.

It is however mysteriuos how a flagsystem where nothing is flagged can display topflagged threads.

This morning of the three featured threads only one of them has two flags.

Originally posted by khunmoon
reply to post by TheAvenger

 

Old posts getting bumped is quiet another issue. Nothing mysteriuos in that, only now the timestamp doesn't show it anymore.

It is however mysteriuos how a flagsystem where nothing is flagged can display topflagged threads.

This morning of the three featured threads only one of them has two flags.

Old posts getting bumped IS mysterious when the supposed "bumper"
has no message posted at the end of the thread. This is the case.

reply to post by TheAvenger


Mods have the power to bump a thread without replying, but it used to leave timestamp in last post. Don't know why it doesn't now.

[edit on 9/12/2007 by khunmoon]