Here Comes the Judge
We've talked for a long time around the office about ways to make the forums more interactive, and last week we launched a new feature that does just that. More fun than a barrel of monkeys, more addicting than mom's mac and cheese, I bring you "Judge it!".
Clicking on the Judge it! link in the header of any post will give you a list of adjectives to choose from, each with their own fancy icon. You can select up to three descriptors for each post, but be warned, the robots are savvy. You can not click two contradicting adjectives for one post. In other words, you can't judge something "brilliant" and "clueless" at the same time.

We've had over 250,000 posts judged in just the first few days and we're showing no signs of slowing. One side effect you might notice in more heated discussions is that the addition of these fun little icons on a post can have quite a disarming effect to the reader. This isn't to say that posters shouldn't treat each other with respect and mind their manners, but it is hard to let even very controversial posts get under your skin when you see a cartoon peanut at the top of them, don't you think?
Technically, the forums don't fall under editorship at this stage, but many of our editors are very active in the forums, so I'm sure you guys have something to say about this.
P.S. Feel free to mark all my posts as Brilliant.


Comments (2)
On April 5, 2008 3:46 PM, TrilbyKat said:
Ah ha! I wondered who Edubya was - it's you. I love your avatar.
Speaking of brilliant, the new Judge It! feature is just that, in my opinion. It allows for an immediate reaction to other posts (so satisfying) and shows up for all to see. It's a psychological tour de force.
Sure, there are those who may abuse the system by picking on people and judging them in a derogatory manner, irregardless of the content of their post, but those folks can be outvoted.
I have noticed however, that many define spam very differently, then I do. I reserve the Spam designation for blatant link posting that promotes a poster's website (I report those, too) or those obvious off topic messages that are reposted again and again in any forum that shows a good amount of activity.
In any case, kudos to Topix for another great tool that we will use and enjoy.
On May 3, 2008 3:10 PM, Karen Jones said:
Hey, that's really interesting and clueless! :D.
No, seriously, that's neato how your program works to prevent contradiction.