Should there be an option to comment on thread without bumping it?
If it's hard to avoid the temptation, well -- try a little harder.
To make it a little easier, install ESGST (if you haven't already done so) and enable the option to hide discussions. Getting in a snide remark without rewarding the thread with more visibility may be soothing to your ego, but it doesn't really help the site. Nor do we really need a bandwagon of people to remark the thread is bad and the creator should feel bad, with various degrees of eloquence. If you really have something substantial to say, it deserves to bump the thread. If you don't have something substantial to say, don't say it. Even if it means you'll be getting in fewer comments than the people who value themselves talking over contributing to a discussion.
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The remark doesn't need to be snide. It can be polite, on point and well thought out. But if the thread is, say, advocating for hate and violence, why would I want to reward it with a bump? I may however want to correct disinformation or present an alternative view for the benefit of those who still end up reading the thread despite it not being at the top of the page.
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It's a nice sentiment, but I've literally never seen any discussion forum on the Internet work like that. A community that's mature enough to actually take posts like that in stride doesn't really need the option (the thread will get locked shortly, or the discussion will actually turn on topic), while a community that isn't mature enough to do that but rather uses a post like that to spark a dozen more replies, all bumping the thread, pointing out why you're a terrible person who should choke on a container full of genitalia isn't in need of the feature either. SG is not quite as bad as that, but it's not a mature forum either.
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When you have a community of thousands you only need a handful of trolls to keep such threads at the top of the page. There will always be enough users who would add response and voice their objection or try to correct disinformation. It's a compromise they have to make - either stay silent and let the ugliness stand (or worse - be bumped by like-minded troll supporters), or stand up and voice their own view. With the proposed feature however, they can get the best of both worlds - voice their views and avoid rewarding the troll.
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Such posts are for an audience of the converted and the belligerent. The people with short attention spans and the casual trolls won't read it, and the handful of people who go reading this stuff even though the thread is clearly bad will either just nod their heads and go, "well, a voice of reason there" (and then hope they don't post a "well said, sir" reply without forgetting to tick that sage box) or they'll jump on you to prove why you're wrong because they genuinely believe you are.
If your post truly corrects misinformation, if it's worth being heard, if it hasn't been posted yet, by all means let it bump the thread despite the trolls. Why award them a privilege you don't get? If you really think a thread should not be seen at all and is unworthy of discourse, focus your efforts on making it easier to have threads closed entirely, if that's not already easy enough. But that's more an issue of moderation, and requires different features, if it requires any at all.
A troll is out to get your time and attention. They get their reward from baiting you. Responding means the troll wins, whether or not you're also bumping the thread for them. A true troll will simply self-bump to ensure it. From what I've seen, though, SG actually has few dedicated trolls and a lot more people who are genuinely interested in having mudslinging contests with other users, "winning" by getting in the last word.
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you gotta keep in mind that a thread may contain simply false statements, which if not corrected may make anyone reading them and not aware of factual situation also starting to believe in these false statements. Good example here would be all shitposts regarding all kinds of SG systems - like people complaining they haven't won, that system is rigged, because they misinterpret the numbers and know shit about mathemathics, statistics and probability and so on and on. In such a case it would be usefull to comment explaining how the system works and how to interpret the numbers, so whatever newbie finds the thread could also see this explanation, but without bumping a thread not to give it any additional exposure, because it's still shitpost after all.
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Perfect example. Slapping myself on the head for not coming with it myself...
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I don't see the harm in bumping the thread with the one post that says "you're wrong, here's how that really works". As long as you don't do it three weeks after the original post has been made, of course. I consider the chance of someone only finding a really old post with uncorrected misinformation (and not all the others) pretty low, and the chance of such a person even being open to education even lower. I mean, I can sort of see the possibility, but SG threads are difficult enough to find that adding a correction to a thread without necro'ing seems to be of really low value.
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There is no harm in bumping a thread which contains some wrong information (especially if you are correcting this wrong information with your bump), there is harm if the mentioned topic not only contains false information BUT ALSO is a shitpost, aka contains otherwise harmful content (like heavy swearing, is offensive to others, contains a lot of trolling, flamewar etc). If topic is simply containing false informatrion it's even better to bump it with your comment, so all p[eople who read false info in the first place can read your reply with explanation, but if it's the second case you neither want to bump a troll/harmful/offensive thread and give it more exposure, while at the same time you don't want this false informations to stay there without explanation. At least this is how I view it. I have no problem bumping a thread for a newbie who doesn't understand that 2 days of 50% win chance don't up to 100% win chance, but at the same time I would have problem bumping one of konrad's old flamewar threads simply to explain such a simple concept if it were used there.
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If the thread is genuinely abusive it should be closed, period. Correcting the misinformation of someone whose tone is inappropriate is throwing pearls before swine. If the mods are feeling generous they can correct the things that need correcting and then close it, but I'd consider that beyond the call of duty (it helps to stave off the inevitable "why was this thread by this perfectly reasonable chap who asked perfectly reasonable questions closed" nonsense, though). Again, this is one of those situations where bumping or not will barely make any difference, or is at least not an actual solution to the problems the thread has.
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Do I say it should not be closed? Nope, it should, but before any mod comes around with ability to close a thread it remains open and for whole that time it is not only harmful but also spreading false information. In such case at least providing a correction is minimizing damage. Providing a correction without bumping a thread is minimizing damage without causing additional harm of exposure od harmful thread.
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This will not change that. If people do not want to comment in the thread they will not comment whether they have the option to bump the thread or not.
Edit: I actually think we should just have a bump button on the thread like they do on steamtrades so that people can actually just bump the thread if they want and not have to fill the thread with pages of meaningless bump comments. On steamtrades, only the creator can bump their thread, but on SG, anyone would be able to bump. There would also need to be a limit on how often an individual user could bump a thread, just like steamtrades.
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I don't see why people would do that. Most people should still post a comment as normal and let it bump the thread. A silent comment should just be used when there is a reason for the thread to not be bumped such as when you are having a one on one conversation with someone and nothing new of interest is being added to the thread that others users on SG would be interested in. Like when there is a thread about something and there are 2 users arguing back and forth for days with like 50 comments about something that has nothing to do with the rest of the community.
A silent comment should have a marker on the comment somewhere showing that it was silent so we know who did or didn't bump a thread. If you see a lot of notifications and you thread is on the second page, all these people are trying to bury the thread for some reason. Whether it is a good thing to allow people to comment while allowing the thread to be buried is debatable. I can see some situations where it would be good and others where it could be bad.
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Stuff is simple: you don't like it, you don't take part in it. Or should I say: stuff should be that simple? Well, anyway, it's a choice giving your attention to stuff you don't like, so a bump is a fair exchange.
I guess commenting on a thread you don't like without bumping it would just encourage hate comments and prevent other people from joining/seeing the conversation.
If you can't manage to ignore, I think bumping a thread is not such a terrible punishment for your attitude, if you really feel you should post. Beside that, if the thread is really toxic, you can always report it instead of giving them a bump.
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I just want to add that I think this would be a useful feature for more than just shit posts. I have on numerous occasions wanted to respond to an individual user about something that was not important to other people or was just off topic and did not want to bump the old thread. If can be kind of annoying to respond to someone on an old thread because when that thread is bumped people start seeing it and commenting thinking it is new.
An example would be a puzzle thread where the puzzle has ended. After a few days the thread is buried but you want to ask the creator something. You comment and now people see the thread and start solving the puzzle even though it has already ended.
There are many other situations where this could be useful. Some uses may be good and some sinister. I have not thought of all the situations, but I'm sure it could spark some debates about whether this would be a good feature or not.
Without putting too much thought into all the scenarios of how this feature could be used, I currently think it is a good idea. You could just have a button to click when you comment that makes it a silent comment. Everything else will be the same, it will still display your comment and time as the most recent comment, it will just not bump the thread to the top of the list.
Edit: There should also be some kind of marker on your comment showing that it was silent so we know who actually did or didn't bump a thread.
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I can see that as a legitimate use, sort of. In other forums, this would simply be handled by a private message, but of course that feature's been proposed and shot down a few times (and I fully agree we can't have nice things like that, it'd be massively abused far more than it would be properly used).
On the other hand, if this "silent bump to the creator" ends up as a de facto way to send "private" messages they could still be rather easily misused. Basically every argument for/against private messaging also applies to this use of silent bumps (except of course that the message is still visible to everyone who wants to put in the effort).
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The silent comment can be to anyone, not just the creator. I don't see this really being used much for trash talking without other people seeing because like you said, the comments are public, so people are not going to say something they wouldn't want others to see because the thread can get bumped at any time or people could just go back to the thread from their comment history because they were interested.
Also, I think most people that write these type of comments are either trying to get attention, spread their opinion, or influence others and I don't think they would want to hide the comment by not bumping the thread. If they really wanted to do that, they could just send the person they are talking to a message on one of their old giveaways which is still public, but much more hidden, especially if it is a whitelist, small group, or invite only giveaway.
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Yes, but finding an old GA and commenting on that takes effort, unlike a reply where you tick a box, so it's a little more likely to be used by people with a genuine need for getting your attention (yet don't want to go through Steam, for some reason, even though that is the polite thing to do if you want to give someone the option of interacting with you). It's also easier to report as inappropriate if it's clearly spam/harassment, since nobody can do that by accident or pure impulse (and "you can just delete your GA" is clearly not a reasonable way to get rid of it, so they don't have that excuse either, while deleting bad posts or closing bad threads is not unreasonable). So the "you can already do that" argument doesn't fully apply.
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Or maybe we should have option to bump a thread without commenting? :P
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+1
along with its counterpoint bumping the thread without commenting...
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Why is bumping so important? I think I'm missing something here.
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It increases the chance that people will see the thread, which is generally something that the OP would won't. Whether the person adding the comment also wants that depends on how they see the thread. In general people prefer to bump threads they see value in.
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So, basically, you want to be able to reply to a person but nobody take notice that you replied to them? How the equivalent of real life would sound?...
Bumping politics sounds like a weird mix of vanity and practicality, I will not get involved.
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It won't stop shitposts, but it will help contain them to some degree ;-)
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What does qualify (unanimously) as a shitpost? If someone decides to reply to a post, whatever the reason, they also decide to give that post merit, in whatever way. If someone can't help themselves replying when it's not mandatory in any way (and I really can't let things go, I know what I'm talking about), why should this be hidden?
In the Point-Saga everyone said "fewer points are better, you choose more carefully the GAs you apply for". The same goes for replies; if "bumping" a thread is such a big deal (which I don't see, maybe it's a SG thing), one should choose who merits a reply.
*In a site that people claim that visitors wake in the middle of the night to visit so as not to lose points/ GAs, an abundance of posts to keep them busy sounds "normal". I mean, how else are these people going to spend the time between refreshing pages, if not browsing randomness?
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this would make sense for a necro-thread too. If it's been x months with less than y responses, for example, this way one could respond to the necro-bumper without bumping the thread themsleves.
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Would people be able to see that you didn't actually bump it? Otherwise, going to have fun with fake bump messages 😛
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Yes, it would probably be better to differentiate such posts in some way.
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I'm thinking more like a mark on each reply post, revealing whether the post wasn't a 'true' bump. After all, it should be the person replying that decides whether his comment will bump or not. The thread starter should have no say in it (otherwise he could just forcefully disable this possibilty from the start, making the ability useless).
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I meant posts of course, not threads. Corrected now :-)
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I suggest the following:
- Regular posts do not bump threads.
- Having a separate bump button.
- Limited bumps per day, per thread or per day as a whole, for each user.
- Additional bumps cost points.
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#1-3 is a reasonable alternative to how the site currently works. #4 doesn't make too much sense to me.
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I added that #4 since people might have good reasons to bump a certain thread after their bump quota is reached. In order to prevent abusing it, costing x points per bump after the bump quota is reached seems reasonable to me. This way it's not entirely restrictive because it also allows a certain upper capped bump buffer for those willing to spend some points in order to use it.
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Although refraining from commenting on annoying threads (e.g. shitposts) is a good tactic, it's sometimes hard to avoid the temptation, especially when the thread pushes hate or contains disinformation. In those cases it would be nice to have an option to add a comment without it bumping the thread to the top of the forum.
Credit for AllTracTurbo for proposing this idea on another thread, and for adding below more reasons why it would be useful.
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