New design migration: Replace thread 1-5 priority system with simple favouriting

[mvl22]

Currently the site has a system whereby threads can be given a 1-5 rating. This is over-complex, resulting in less use.

The new site will replace this with a simpler starring system.

I would like to get as much of this mechanism of this working on the current site, to lower migration efforts.

Firstly, can you confirm that the database shows this mechanism isn't really being used at present and is therefore safe to remove?

(The 1-5 rating system is quite a 2010 approach, in the days when things like MP3 players like iTunes had 1-5 ratings, whereas user research has presumably shown now that simple starring is quite sufficient.)

Data migration-wise, I suggest that any thread marked 3-5 should be treated as a starred thread.

UI wise:

• The box 'My Thread Priority' should be removed.
• In its place, a simple button [☆ Favourite], grayed out by default. Clicking on this saves this to the database via AJAX, and turns the star gold, and the word Favourite to be black. Design can be very basic - just a line round this with a bit of padding is fine.
• On /overview, the list of threads should have an additional column at the end which has a star, again gray by default becoming gold.
• Ditto /threads
• The listing at /overview#my-priorities can be replaced with a static listing of 'My favourited threads'

[soundplusfury]

As long as there is still a column with all these in one spot ... It's very useful being able to find threads that haven't been posted on for ages that way.

[mvl22]

Yes definitely.

[mvl22]

Nikolai, thanks for sending the data. I think it shows the usage of this currently isn’t very high so I suggest we go for it.

We could just migrate the data into a new table, starred or whatever, to enable rollback if necessary, but I doubt there would be any kind of backlash!

[soundplusfury]

Yes definitely.

:-)

[nikolai-b]

I've done this and will put it up on staging soon. I'd warn you that we now have

• "Follow"
• "Vote :+1:"
• "Favourite :star:"

I guess "vote" will be going away soon. I've not added the word "Favourite" as it makes the whole thing a bit long but I have added a title:

[nikolai-b]

@mvl22 let me know if you are happy with the staging site and I'll deploy this.

[mvl22]

Great. Could you add it to /overview also?

[mvl22]

Thanks for adding this to overview - good to make live now.