[Suggestion] "Original Poster" Indicator

[Neftren]

Would it be possible to get an indicator to display/denote the "Original Poster" in threads? Some other forums have this feature (e.g. FlyerTalk)

I don't want to assume any level of difficulty -- I do recall mentioning to Rawhide (?) a long long time ago that it'd be cool to have a "Go to Top" button and we got that shortly afterwards, figured I'd ask.

[Rawhide]

Would it be possible to get an indicator to display/denote the "Original Poster" in threads? Some other forums have this feature (e.g. FlyerTalk)

I don't want to assume any level of difficulty -- I do recall mentioning to Rawhide (?) a long long time ago that it'd be cool to have a "Go to Top" button and we got that shortly afterwards, figured I'd ask.

Do you mean like right here?

[JeenLeen]

I'm not sure of Neftren's original intent, but I read it as asking if, inside the thread, there could be an indication on each of the original poster's posts denoting that person was the original poster.

So, for example, if Neftren replies, his next post in this thread would have some tiny icon by the name or something like that to denote him as the original poster.
I can see that being helpful. I've found a few threads where, between debate of various people and clarifications of points and such, I've had trouble remembering who they were trying to help.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I'm not sure of Neftren's original intent, but I read it as asking if, inside the thread, there could be an indication on each of the original poster's posts denoting that person was the original poster.

So, for example, if Neftren replies, his next post in this thread would have some tiny icon by the name or something like that to denote him as the original poster.
I can see that being helpful. I've found a few threads where, between debate of various people and clarifications of points and such, I've had trouble remembering who they were trying to help.

My issue with this idea is that in the GitP forums, no-one owns a thread. It would therefore be a bit counterproductive to give the thread creator a special status within the thread. I could see it being marginally useful in the homebrew section, I suppose, but nowhere else.

GW

[Keltest]

I'm not sure of Neftren's original intent, but I read it as asking if, inside the thread, there could be an indication on each of the original poster's posts denoting that person was the original poster.

So, for example, if Neftren replies, his next post in this thread would have some tiny icon by the name or something like that to denote him as the original poster.
I can see that being helpful. I've found a few threads where, between debate of various people and clarifications of points and such, I've had trouble remembering who they were trying to help.

Ive also seen updates to a situation get lost in the debate because nobody remembered who the original poster was or thought to look for their posts, so the advice stopped being helpful once the situation was clarified/changed.

I don't know that this would solve that problem completely, but I think it could help.

My issue with this idea is that in the GitP forums, no-one owns a thread. It would therefore be a bit counterproductive to give the thread creator a special status within the thread. I could see it being marginally useful in the homebrew section, I suppose, but nowhere else.

GW

While that's true, there are lots of threads asking for advice or help outside of just homebrew.

[erikun]

We don't really have an advice or suggestion portion of the forums. Sure, multiple places (such as the Roleplaying Games forum) frequently have threads where a person asks for advice or something about their game. But these threads can (and will) deviate, so a thread which originally started around discussing a problematic GM might turn into a general conversation about Gm attitudes or how to deal with certain GM situations. It's my understanding that this is how the forums are intended to work - that conversation in threads is allowed to drift as the conversation allows - and having a set "OP" notifier attached to one poster might work to undermine that aspect.

It seems like it would be a choice between one or the other: either thread creators can manage their threads and so their should be labeled as such, or threads should have the freedom to go off-topic and so the thread creator shouldn't be labeled and given a psudo-sense of authority.

I'll agree that this does sound like a good idea in the Homebrew forum (which is designed around the idea that a thread is entirely about discussing one particular idea) but even in something like Ongoing Games or Arts & Crafts you will get threads with several people "running" it, which makes the OP notification less than ideal.

[Psyren]

My issue with this idea is that in the GitP forums, no-one owns a thread. It would therefore be a bit counterproductive to give the thread creator a special status within the thread. I could see it being marginally useful in the homebrew section, I suppose, but nowhere else.

GW

This - and also, those who wish to afford the OP special regard/deference of some kind can easily see who that person is using Rawhide's method anyway (or just looking at post #1, which can't be deleted.)

[Neftren]

Do you mean like right here?

I mean something like this: (using me as an example from another forum)

Spoiler

Show

As others have alluded to, many of the threads (particularly in Friendly Banter/Mad Science/Homebrew/etc.) tend to be of the form "someone presents a statement" -> "people subsequently comment/agree/disagree" and it'd be helpful for me to know who the original poster was without having to navigate back up to the main forum display (I frequently find threads by clicking "go to last post" from the main forum navigation).

My issue with this idea is that in the GitP forums, no-one owns a thread. It would therefore be a bit counterproductive to give the thread creator a special status within the thread. I could see it being marginally useful in the homebrew section, I suppose, but nowhere else.

GW

On other forums at least, I don't think it's viewed as "thread owner" or as a special status. It does help in figuring out who people are responding to (in the case of the many Q&A style threads), but I concede that it could be viewed as such.

[Psyren]

As others have alluded to, many of the threads (particularly in Friendly Banter/Mad Science/Homebrew/etc.) tend to be of the form "someone presents a statement" -> "people subsequently comment/agree/disagree" and it'd be helpful for me to know who the original poster was without having to navigate back up to the main forum display (I frequently find threads by clicking "go to last post" from the main forum navigation).

Helpful in what way? That's the value proposition I think you're missing.

It seems to me that the format "someone presents a statement" -> "people discuss the statement" (rather than discussing anything related to the specific poster or their relation to that statement or past statements) is actually beneficial to the board. That's just my opinion though.

[Mando Knight]

Helpful in what way? That's the value proposition I think you're missing.

It seems to me that the format "someone presents a statement" -> "people discuss the statement" (rather than discussing anything related to the specific poster or their relation to that statement or past statements) is actually beneficial to the board. That's just my opinion though.

The main benefit would be for specific kinds of threads--Homebrew, "help me with X problem", etc.--where the thread's topic is naturally more centered around the OP. Overall, however, those threads aren't particularly common around here except in certain subforums (mainly this one, Homebrew, and Mad Science and Grumpy Technology).

[Neftren]

Helpful in what way? That's the value proposition I think you're missing.

It seems to me that the format "someone presents a statement" -> "people discuss the statement" (rather than discussing anything related to the specific poster or their relation to that statement or past statements) is actually beneficial to the board. That's just my opinion though.

The main benefit would be for specific kinds of threads--Homebrew, "help me with X problem", etc.--where the thread's topic is naturally more centered around the OP. Overall, however, those threads aren't particularly common around here except in certain subforums (mainly this one, Homebrew, and Mad Science and Grumpy Technology).

I think Mando Knight mostly covered it here. Sometimes I see parallel conversations in threads, and I'd find it helpful to know whether someone is responding to the original poster, as opposed to someone else in the thread. It adds a bit of extra information that saves me some time scrolling up to the top or navigating back to the (sub)forum/thread navigation (especially annoying on mobile).

It's not useful in every case, but it's not totally useless either, so I thought I'd bring it up. Anyway, just a suggestion; take it however you will.

[erikun]

Helpful in what way? That's the value proposition I think you're missing.

It seems to me that the format "someone presents a statement" -> "people discuss the statement" (rather than discussing anything related to the specific poster or their relation to that statement or past statements) is actually beneficial to the board. That's just my opinion though.

This was my concern, as well. There is an established way of posting around here which makes it distinct from other forums and other places to discuss topics. The fact that people are free to go off topic (to an extent) and follow where the conversation leads is fairly important. If people want to change that, then it's fine, but if they want to retain that then something like this which could push away from that method would be more harmful than good.

There are some instances where signposting the thread creator would be useful - primarily Homebrew and Board/Site Issues, as noted. However, even if the current rules remain in place, a special "OP" signifier on a poster does give an otherwise false sense of authority and weight to their words. Not everybody has been part of these forums for 10+ years and I'd think that singling out and highlighting the thread creator in every thread would give new posters the impression that they do have an ownership to their created threads or that thread creators do have some sense of authority in their own threads. This would do more harm than good, since even the appearance of a psudo-authority has the potential to discourage people from engaging or discussing the off-topic posts in a thread if the thread creator seems to have a problem with it.

The main benefit would be for specific kinds of threads--Homebrew, "help me with X problem", etc.--where the thread's topic is naturally more centered around the OP. Overall, however, those threads aren't particularly common around here except in certain subforums (mainly this one, Homebrew, and Mad Science and Grumpy Technology).

Specific forums and subforums should work out just fine. It's rare that you'd find a Homebrew thread that isn't about one person wanting to discuss their own homebrew, after all, so the OP signpost in those few situations could just be ignored.

I'm not sure that specific threads in another subforum would work out, though. The only way that a "Help me with X" thread from Friendly Banter would work is if either every thread in Friendly Banter had the OP signpost, or if thread creators had the ability to decide if there should be an OP signpost or not. And my biggest concern is if a new poster - one who thinks they do (or should) have some authority in a thread they create - decides to use the OP signpost under the logic that they should. Sure, posters can try to correct them in their misunderstanding, but it seems like a misunderstanding which could be quite common and I really wouldn't want to see a forum system which gives new posters a greater impression that the misunderstanding is correct.

I'm not sure how the Mad Science forum would need the OP signpost: most topics there are discussing current science events or science questions. Still, there are certainly other people far more familiar with the various forums than I am, and who can decide which forums would fit better than I could.

I think Mando Knight mostly covered it here. Sometimes I see parallel conversations in threads, and I'd find it helpful to know whether someone is responding to the original poster, as opposed to someone else in the thread. It adds a bit of extra information that saves me some time scrolling up to the top or navigating back to the (sub)forum/thread navigation (especially annoying on mobile).

I am not sure how this would help with your situation, though. The thread creator sign would not carry through to quotes of that poster (especially given how quotes work on this forum) you'd still need to follow the quote chain to the previous posters to find out which ones connected to the OP and which ones didn't. The only thing this suggestion would do is highlight the thread creator when they make a post, so you could see who they are currently replying to.

Plus, the thread creator is no more required to continue discussing the original post than anybody else in the thread, and so you could have a situation where the person singled out as the thread creator is not discussing the thread topic at all, while the parallel conversation is, or a situation where there are two parallel conversations which have nothing to do with the original thread topic. I guess I just don't see how having the thread creator occasionally highlighted is going to make multiple conversations easier to sift through.

[Psyren]

This was my concern, as well. There is an established way of posting around here which makes it distinct from other forums and other places to discuss topics. The fact that people are free to go off topic (to an extent) and follow where the conversation leads is fairly important. If people want to change that, then it's fine, but if they want to retain that then something like this which could push away from that method would be more harmful than good.

There are some instances where signposting the thread creator would be useful - primarily Homebrew and Board/Site Issues, as noted. However, even if the current rules remain in place, a special "OP" signifier on a poster does give an otherwise false sense of authority and weight to their words. Not everybody has been part of these forums for 10+ years and I'd think that singling out and highlighting the thread creator in every thread would give new posters the impression that they do have an ownership to their created threads or that thread creators do have some sense of authority in their own threads. This would do more harm than good, since even the appearance of a psudo-authority has the potential to discourage people from engaging or discussing the off-topic posts in a thread if the thread creator seems to have a problem with it.

Agreed - and even the "off-topic" part is contentious, because sometimes what a given thread creator might consider to be off-topic (such as challenging the very premise/assumptions their thread is based on) actually isn't, and is valid for discussion or debate.

If such a designation were possible/feasible to implement only in areas such as Homebrew and Mad Science I wouldn't mind it, but if it's an everywhere or nowhere thing I would be firmly against (not that I get a vote anyway, just voicing my opinion.)

[Algeh]

I'm not convinced that this is something this forum needs, but here are the kinds of threads common on this board where I could see it being useful:

• "Help me fix my computer/math homework/code/etc." posts in Mad Science/Grumpy Technology to distinguish clarifying remarks from suggestions of things to try (and to see if the OP is still interacting with the thread or if the forum is merrily brainstorming pages of additional troubleshooting steps to someone who has since solved their problem elsewhere and wandered off)
• Let's read/watch/play posts, to more easily distinguish story updates from ongoing discussion
• Campaign journals, again so to more easily distinguish story updates from ongoing discussion
• Homebrew, again to distinguish content updates from ongoing discussion
• PbP threads, assuming the GM is also the thread creator, since distinguishing the GM quickly is useful

If such a thing were to be implemented, I wonder if the best way to do it would be to have some logic that changed the display only for threads with certain prefixes, since that might be a good way to "guess" which threads would need them.

Alternately, making it an alternate view that could be toggled into (in the same way that one can change between mobile and full views) but that is not the default would go a long way toward not confusing newcomers but making it an option for people who spend most of their time in threads where it makes sense.

Ultimately, it's probably something that makes more sense for the people who want it to hack together and use as a tampermonkey script rather than something the forum has to maintain, though.

[2D8HP]

I have no particular objection to a "This post is by the thread creator" symbol, but I can think of times when the O.P.'s have tried to derail there own threads and change the subjects with "The thread topic was [whatever], and now the topic is [whatever]", instead of changing the title of the first post or making a new thread.