New feature: "no disagree"

[The Princess Bride]

That is definately a suggestion to consider. :)

[Gottservant]

Credibility checking is the one thing lacking from the internet. The world's standard for credibility is force - "if I can't be opposed, it must be true that I have credibility". The Christian standard for credibility is perseverance (it is written "He who endures to the end shall be saved"). As such I have conceived of a feature which I call "no disagree".

"no disagree" is a measure of perseverance on the internet. The feature is designed to build on mutual love in the Christian community, specifically in the mutual adoption of doctrine. All "no disagree" is is a function that recognizes that someone else has said something with which you have no disagreement. (I imagine the feature to work like a list of checkboxes next to messages that can all be "approved" by a button at the end of the page).

Currently, the "reps" button functions as a "no-disagree" button would, except that those things for which you feel someone deserves "reps" cannot be traced. The subsequent lack of accountability for "reps" makes the "reps" feature meaningless (due to abuses). Once "no disagree" is in place, people will be able to see, firsthand how many people have compatible beliefs (through overlap of "no disagree") and second of all examine those beliefs for opportunities to:

point out contradictions (on the basis of conflicting "no disagree"s)
identify coincidences (beliefs shared)
add (belief targetted) testimony
identify belief basis for friendship
identify weak beliefs (on the basis of friendships formed through beliefs, not the popularity of a single belief)
identify credibility and authority (by appropriate weight given to "no disagree" statements made by friends)
identify completeness of belief (by identifying trends built on "no disagree" that indicate stability)Clearly, a lot of this is new, so I will attempt to simplify:

I read messages
Some messages I have no-disagreement with
No-disagreement is the basis of a friendship
An extensive feature is needed to recognise how strong this basis for friendship isWhat is needed is a feature to recognise the above (you might call it the "facebooking" of Christian forums - the important thing is that it is belief by belief facebooking).

Aspects of this feature which may help the forums are:

weaknesses in the overall Christian message of the forums may be identified (objectively) - where true beliefs are not garnering "no disagreement"
high posts vs low "no disagreement"s problems may be identified - which may be spam or a counselling issue
sudden changes in "no disagreement trends" may indicate an area where prayer is needed
lurker activity may be more closely noticed (not simply "post views" but "post no disagreements")These are just what spring to mind; they may need to be more fully explored or added to.

I hope this has been helpful, at least (I am thinking of the amount of disagreement there is on the forums and how to build on something that trumps disagreement - I believe no disagreement trumps disagreement... and I am willing to add a small amount of my time reading each post to indicate who exactly I have found no disagreement with - to their advantage I hope!).

[Gottservant]

I just had a massive brainwave about this too!:

If you had "no disagreement" counts, you could sort posts by "no disagreement" (instead of "most activity" which argumentative threads have... and are sorted by)!

[arborvita]

I am going to move this to the suggest new feature area of the board.

[arborvita]

Moved from Suggestion/Complaing Box

[Tariel]

Quick, random, nitpicky question: it sounds like a good idea, but is there anything to call it that does not use a double-negative? :blush:

[Richard]

I think because the rep feature is set up where it no longer means you make good posts, but its just a game nowadays that this "no disagree" feature my serve the same way, but in a negative manner towards members.

[Crazy Liz]

I don't see where this would really be any different from reps. Some people will check "no disagree" because a person says "hi!"

Also, I personally don't really think of non-disagreement as a basis for friendship. I expect to have disagreements with my friends. If we didn't disagree on anything, we'd never have anything interesting to talk about.

I do agree with you that it could be nice to know a person's general reputation for credibility, but I haven't found a way to quantify that. A yes or no vote on a substantive post should have more weight than a yes or no vote on a non-substantive post (like just saying Hi).

Also, The site seems to have decided that all counting features should only be positive. Disagreement can be stated in a post, but there are no negative reps. Any attempt to quantify credibility has to take into account positives as well as negatives.

I think this idea will have the effect of encouraging blandness and non-controversial posting. For myself, that is the opposite of what I come to forums looking for, so the cumulative effect of this kind of system would have a tendency to make the forum less interesting.