23 votes
Make it easier for newer suggestions to rise in popularity
Right now the order in which suggestions are displayed is based solely on how many votes they have ACCUMULATED. While I can see why this would be the ideal view for ADMINS to see, I'm concerned that if that's the way USERS see it too, it will inevitably result in "POPULARITY AMPLIFICATION", where those suggestions that are ALREADY popular end up receiving the bulk of users' votes while those suggestions at the bottom of the list end up being overlooked. Here are some possible solutions...
1 TylerRick
I suggest that the ordering of the list take into account other factors, including possibly the "freshness"/"staleness" of the suggestion, whether there have been RECENT votes, or even randomness...
1 TylerRick
As it is, I'm afraid all the suggestions that are on the top of the list (the popular ones), will end up attracting the majority of new (or "transfer") votes. People will likely use up all their votes on the first 5-10 ideas they see -- the ones that ALREADY have the most votes and hardly "need" more votes -- and NOT EVEN READ DOWN FAR ENOUGH to see the newer ideas at the bottom...
1 TylerRick
The ideas at the bottom of the list might be just as good as those at the top but haven't been voted up simply because they don't get the EXPOSURE they need to rise in popularity.
1 TylerRick
Possible solutions:
1. reward RECENT votes/trends/activity/comments: if a suggestion has gained some votes recently, list it ABOVE a suggestion that ALREADY has lots of votes but has been fairly static/hasn't attracted any new votes recently (order by "what's hot").
I'm not saying its RANK should go down simply for not attracting recent votes, just that it doesn't need to be DISPLAYED at top.
1 TylerRick
(The original suggester shouldn't be overly rewarded for voting on their own suggestion, so only start rewarding for recent vote activity when OTHER people have voted for it...)
1 TylerRick
2. Allow bad suggestions to be voted DOWN (negative votes <https://uservoice.uservoice.com/suggestions/176>). So when a new user comes to the list and sees that the #1 suggestion has 25 +'s and 3 -'s, he MIGHT stop long enough to read the comments left by the negative voter before deciding to waste his votes on "me tooing" an already popular suggestion...
1 TylerRick
3. Order the list view RANDOMLY by default and only order by popularity if they click "most popular"...?
4. Order by date and show the newest (with >= 2 fans) at the top...?
5. Order by number of distinct voters each suggestion has...?
0 rrwhite Admin
I like the idea of creating a new default tab that is solution #1.
I also like the idea of negative votes but I haven't been able to wrap my head around how that would affect how many votes someone has (ie how many negative votes can you cast and what do they count against your vote total).
3 Christopher Galpin
I absolutely agree with TylerRick and am finding this a serious problem which undermines the entire purpose of this otherwise excellent service.