Rather than focus on numbers, who voted, or notifications, I would prefer to focus on a qualitative measure, similar to the MVP score. For example, based on a comparison site-wide, an answer could be rated "possibly helpful" (lowest) to "helpful" (middle) to "very helpful" (highest). My thinking is you want to provide a useful assessment without incentivizing "needy" social media behaviors.

It's a good candidate for the Summer of Code projects for HB; though I'd like to keep it simple so there's time for more practical projects (e.g., newsletter, wiki).

There was an apparently unironic "+1" (along with a gratuitous quote) in this very thread. Are we supposed to imagine that the poster would have been tempted to hit the "helpful" star instead to indicate agreement with the immediately preceding post if that option had been available? I don't think so. IMO, Dan, your [good] idea is a solution to a different problem, but if the distinction doesn't matter to anyone else, so be it. I'll make do with whatever tools are eventually made available.

jbviau wrote:Are we supposed to imagine that the poster would have been tempted to hit the "helpful" star instead to indicate agreement with the immediately preceding post if that option had been available?

One never knows how it will be used until it's available. My hope is that posts that are flagged as "Helpful" will be helpful, not just indicators of agreement. That's more akin to "thanks" or "like" or "I agree", all of which are less direct than flagging a specific post as helpful.

It wouldn't be hard to add code that would skip requests to mark a post as helpful that has a trivial response ("+1", "I agree", or a huge quote with a short sentence). It might irritate the thank-happy and agree-happy types, but I can live with that.

I just saw a post that made me wonder if there will be a button for "really bad advice" and the various iterations from "not such a good idea" to "meh" ???

Oo- how about an "HB Approved" mark, haha. Some people's +1's are worth +100!

I'm not really serious but kind of.

SJM wrote:I just saw a post that made me wonder if there will be a button for "really bad advice"...

I'd rather think of ways of highlighting good advice than shining light on bad advice. I noticed on Amazon that they ask "Did you find this helpful? Yes / No" and directly beneath it something like "9 people found this helpful". Nowhere did I see something like "2 people found this unhelpful". OTOH, on Stack Overflow, a response that gets enough downvotes is actually "grayed out". It takes quite a few downvotes to trigger that visual.

MNate wrote:Oo- how about an "HB Approved" mark, haha. Some people's +1's are worth +100!

I was mulling over the idea of a "helpfulness score". So rather than being "9 people found this helpful", it'd be a qualitative assessment in part based on who found it helpful. For example, a new member with no posts clicking "Helpful" would carry less weight than a 5 year member with hundreds of their own "helpful" votes on their posts clicking "Helpful". Then again, that could have the undesirable effect of someone trying to "game" the score much like the "like" seekers on Facebook.