The Lemon Fool

I'm not a big fan of the thumbs up, thumbs down idea.

But ...

Could we please think about something else instead please. Now as it's my suggestion I am going to say it's brill

This only relates to the Laughing Lemons Board. As well as a thanks option I think we should also have two more options

1. Sympathy Thanks
2. Double Sympathy Thanks
3. Triple Sympathy Thanks - Reserved for Jokes that are so bad they are good

I commend it to the community

AiY
By now several of you will have noticed my maths isn't great. I thought I would throw a puzzle into the post, more as a challenge for those who persist in challenging my grey cell.

Happy New Year

I would like to have a way of ranking the topics on that forum by thanks so that I can weed out the really best contributions.

On the subject of thanks/recs, well this had been discussed at various times and places. The thanker's meaning can range from an acknowledgement that a post has been read, through mere agreement, to heartfelt concurrence. It is this ambiguity that stops some people (not me) from deploying them.

Chris
PS For all those that don't thank because of this ambiguity I declare that a thank of this post is to be be interpreted as aggreement.

I agree with your footnote, Chris.

TJH

csearle wrote:I would like to have a way of ranking the topics on that forum by thanks so that I can weed out the really best contributions.

On the subject of thanks/recs, well this had been discussed at various times and places. The thanker's meaning can range from an acknowledgement that a post has been read, through mere agreement, to heartfelt concurrence. ...

And other possibilities outside that range, such as saying "Thanks" for an answer to a question without expressing any degree of either agreement or disagreement with the answer (after all, how can one either agree or disagree with an answer one previously knew nothing about?), or to recommend a post as well worth reading as a well-argued case for a view one profoundly disagrees with.

csearle wrote:... It is this ambiguity that stops some people (not me) from deploying them.

Doubtless that's the case, but that's not the only reason people have for not using the facility. In my case, the recs facility on TMF had a very similar ambiguity (all it missed was the ambiguity about the things it dealt with were "recs" or "thanks") and I used it despite that - I didn't like the ambiguity but could live with it. But I don't use the TLF facility mainly for a different reason: its recs/thanks are not anonymous. Even TMF's anonymous recs could lead to attacks along the lines of "You lot must be a load of idiots to have given this rubbishy post such a large number of recs!" lines and sometimes did... TLF's non-anonymous recs/thanks have the potential to make such attacks personal, and that's the feature I especially dislike about them. I might just about be willing to use non-anonymous recs if their meaning wasn't ambiguous, but the combination of non-anonymity, ambiguity and the fact that too many people simply don't understand just how ambiguous a rec can be gives IMHO far too many opportunities for misunderstandings to happen.

csearle wrote:PS For all those that don't thank because of this ambiguity I declare that a thank of this post is to be be interpreted as aggreement.

Is that agreement with a touch of aggravation? ;-)

Gengulphus

Interestingly in Ancient Rome thumbs up or down was the other way round. Thumbs Up meant put the gladiator to death, Down meant spare him!

I have always considered the rec scheme fairly useless.

I would much rather have a traffic light scheme of some sort so that one can be reminded that:-
Green: This person always gives a dependable answer.
Amber: A friend or external contact.
Red: Careful! Often gives erroneous or irrelevant responses.

But of course, such a scheme, whether based on colours or characters, would have to be part of the php platform.

Regards,
ep

scrumpyjack wrote:Interestingly in Ancient Rome thumbs up or down was the other way round. Thumbs Up meant put the gladiator to death, Down meant spare him!

"They don't like it up 'em!"

Presumably gets a "Red light"?

scrumpyjack wrote:Interestingly in Ancient Rome thumbs up or down was the other way round. Thumbs Up meant put the gladiator to death, Down meant spare him!

That's Up for the positive sentiment (Yay! Finish the job), Down for the negative (No, back on your lead now).

scrumpyjack wrote:Interestingly in Ancient Rome thumbs up or down was the other way round. Thumbs Up meant put the gladiator to death, Down meant spare him!

Depends who you believe. There doesn't appear to be compelling ancient evidence for any interpretation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollice_verso

Another theory is thumb exposed (representing a drawn sword) = death. Closed fist with thumb concealed (representing a sheathed sword) = life.

Gryff

eepee wrote:I have always considered the rec scheme fairly useless.

I would much rather have a traffic light scheme of some sort so that one can be reminded that:-
Green: This person always gives a dependable answer.
Amber: A friend or external contact.
Red: Careful! Often gives erroneous or irrelevant responses.

But of course, such a scheme, whether based on colours or characters, would have to be part of the php platform.

Regards,
ep

I like this one.
The user can have a crown on the right profile area to show they are in the top recced lists.
By board or global.
Mmmm. One to ponder.

Having the jokes in order means all new jokes will automatically go right to the very end of the forum

eepee wrote:I would much rather have a traffic light scheme of some sort so that one can be reminded that:-
Green: This person always gives a dependable answer.
Amber: A friend or external contact.
Red: Careful! Often gives erroneous or irrelevant responses.

I thought the idea of "thanks" or "thumbs up" is only relevant for a particular post. Once you start applying it to people rather than comments, I think you are getting into a dodgy area.

So for instance if I find that I usually agree with A but usually disagree with B, then I will find A to be "dependable" and B to be "unreliable". But it is not so much a comment about A or B but rather a statement about my own views and biases. You may have the opposite view. Once we have made those judgements, confirmation bias may start happening.

And there is plenty to disagree about on TLF even if Polite Discussions is permanently canned. Investment topics themselves often feature strong dissenting opinions.

If you want to know who is the "best" user here you can already see that by sorting the member list by number of thanks. Doing this we see that itsallaguess is far and away the "best" user, followed by dod101. Why do we need to give them a colour as well?

Why do we need to give them a colour as well?

By colour I/we meant a marker.

It is easy to remember those that one interacts with regularly.
But there are those whose name means nothing - yet they stood out in some particular thread many moons ago.
Maybe for better or for worse.

Regards,
ep

Gengulphus wrote: I might just about be willing to use non-anonymous recs if their meaning wasn't ambiguous, but the combination of non-anonymity, ambiguity and the fact that too many people simply don't understand just how ambiguous a rec can be gives IMHO far too many opportunities for misunderstandings to happen.

Ironic recs? A whole new concept in recs!

Life’s too short.

“When I give a rec,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

So there.