What is the best way to turn a traditional forum into something that resembles a "Reddit Alternative" - where the most popular posts are promoted to the front page?

Posted by prankster999@reddit | RedditAlternatives | View on Reddit | 9 comments

How would you go about ranking posts, and what methods (including formula) would you use to have them be promoted to the front page?

I'd rather not have upvoting and downvoting if possible.

[-]

Die4Ever@reddit

EDIT: I'd like to incorporate upvoting, and would like to eschew downvoting altogether if possible.

Lemmy allows you to disable downvotes, and of course it has upvotes. It also has a sort method like traditional forums called "New Comments"

[-]

Die4Ever@reddit

That isn't being actively maintained anymore, but NodeBB is compatible with Lemmy now.

https://nodebb.fediverse.observer/list

[-]

ChromaticStrike@reddit

I think the best way is to monitor comments number and rates.

you add points on comments and once it reach the first page you start decrementing steadily too. Which means that if the post has a lot of comment but no new ones, it will eventually fall.

[-]

Kgvdj860m@reddit

Blue dwarf.top allows users to order posts on the main page by six different methods. One of those is popularity, and for that one the formula is:

popularity_index = 20number_comments - 20days_since_posted

Then posts on the main page are ordered from highest popularity index to lowest. If you like, you could also add something like 10*number_upvotes to the index, but Blue Dwarf doesn't because that encourages users to game the system by upvoting their friends' posts.

[-]

AppendixN@reddit

Try a forum like Discourse. https://www.discourse.org/

Add these plugins:

Voting https://www.discourse.org/plugins/topic-voting

Ranking https://github.com/danskdynamit/discourse-hot-topics

You said you'd rather not have upvoting and downvoting, but I can't think of any other way to indicate which posts should be promoted. As u/HeartyBeast said, clicks as an indicator would probably be a problem.

[-]

prankster999@reddit (OP)

Thank you... I guess upvoting would probably be needed.

[-]

HotTakes4HotCakes@reddit

You want to promote popularity with allowing users to indicate what they enjoy?

You're going to need mind reading software

[-]

HeartyBeast@reddit

It sounds like you want a way for popular posts to get promoted without giving users a mechanism for indicating value.

You could go for click-through rate, but then you just have a system for promoting clickbait to the front page.