A "UserVoice" Variant for RevTK Forums ie Voting on Stuff

Nukemarine Member

From: 神奈川 Registered: 2007-07-15 Posts: 2347

I saw the voting system for UserVoice on Smart.FM a while back. At the time, I thought it was just their own proprietary system. Then I saw that Anki has implemented it for idea voting, which got me to look at UserVoice site.

This got me thinking: I like JDoroma as you have a many users offering up limited votes (10 I think) on their favorite Dramas and Actors/Actresses. In my opinion, this is great as the best shows on average do rise to the top. Well, there get's to be a bit of group think after a while. I tried to simulate this on a thread that quickly became very burdensome to upkeep as it was being done manually.

So, are there any ideas on how to implement and utilize a system like UserVoice or JDorama for RevTK? For this forum, I think it'll be useful to have members offering suggestions and votes for a wide variety of subjects (Dramas, Movies, Anime, Manga, Magazines, Websites, etc). Each member gets 5 to 10 votes in each section.

UserVoice is a pay system so is not a likely candidate, and I don't know how Jdorama set up their voting system. Anyway, any ideas on how RevTK can get a system like this going? Bound to be both popular and useful.

The most obvious way for RevTK seems to be to use the voting system it already has, just adapt it slightly. Instead Kanji, it's a category (Live action series, anime series, blog in Japanese, etc). In each category, users can post suggestion (Gokusen, Inuyasha, etc). Other users can then star that suggestion if they like it. In each category a member can star a limited amount of suggestions (like 5 or 10). Users can also "report" a suggestion for whatever reason (wrong category, already suggested by someone else, spam, etc.). User's can delete their suggestion, which removes all the votes that were given to it. Users can also see which suggestions they voted for.

To help counter group think problems and give new entries a better chance, let votes after a length of time be removed. For example, I voted on Last Christmas as a good drama in addition to 4 other dramas. After a year, my vote on Last Christmas goes away, but I can either go back in and vote on it again or decide I like something new.

Am I overthinking this, or does it seem like a good idea for open source RevTK?

wccrawford Member

From: FL US Registered: 2008-03-28 Posts: 1551

I think it's a good idea for any system that wants to encourage users to indicate their preferences for the forward movement of the system.

The few projects that I've seen do it, I've always felt that my voice was being heard simply because I could assign a few points to what I wanted and ignore the rest.

ファブリス Administrator

From: Belgium Registered: 2006-06-14 Posts: 4021 Website

The forum software is a completely different package. The Study voting system was not designed for it, so it would require rewriting completely (not that it's complex, just saying there's nothing to re-use 'cept for icons..).

I had an idea long ago along the lines of members being able to edit a "top 100" page for links, ebooks, and so on. Which would provide much needed content for the main site (which is mainly "applicative"). This sounds similar to what you are describing, but I have never been on those websites "JDorama". Is there something I can see without registering? Or a screenshot somewhere I'm interested.

So if you have limited voting points does that mean you can see where you assigned them and re-assign them?

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Nukemarine Member

From: 神奈川 Registered: 2007-07-15 Posts: 2347

Fabrice,

JDorama had it set up so you would have to write a line about the drama, then you could vote for it. You were limited to 9 dramas that you could vote for. You could see the show you voted for in your "my dramas" page. And I do think users could change their votes.

Things I like about it are you have to register and have limited votes. Part I don't like is votes do not decay, while I like the idea of votes within the last year only counting. Even without that, I was impressed that most of the shows on the top 50 were shows I ended up liking.

Blahah Member

From: Cambridge, UK Registered: 2008-07-15 Posts: 715 Website

You could just CrowdSound if you want to have it run externally, or VoxPopuli if you want it on this site. Both are free and VP is open source.

ファブリス Administrator

From: Belgium Registered: 2006-06-14 Posts: 4021 Website

These are too generic. It's not gonna work well if people can edit anything. Besides I don't need UserVoice for website Feedback, it's working well enough as it is. People can easily post suggestions or bugs though the Contact form or this forum.

For voting lists like Nukemarine mentioned: top Japanese blogs, anime, drama and so on, an Open Source project using php would be ideal. Something really simple that could be built on, and customized for this forum.

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