Topic Summaries

[Paul Arden]

Hi Guys,

An idea I've been mulling over is a summary of long topics. For example the two heads cast at once discussion.
Incidentally a summary of threads on the Board would be incredibly useful. Maybe we could try to produce a joint statement that we can all agree on when a thread nears its conclusion? That would make it useful information for those who don’t follow every word. And also it would be useful for us to see where we agree and disagree.
There is a Board extension that I can install and modify for this purpose. It is currently called "best answer" https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/exte ... st_answer/ . With a few small modifications I believe that it will do exactly what I want - ie at the very beginning of the topic place a topic summary/best answer/joint statement.

What do you guys think about trying to release a joint statement with regards this thread for example: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2989

Thanks,
Paul

[Graeme H]

This thread?

I think it's an excellent idea, as long as I can write the summary in my own words.

To tell the truth, I think we rarely agree on a resolution for a topic and we'll find a whole new discussion kicking off once the summary is written about why the summary is wrong. Generally speaking, people get bored with the discussion and stop contributing and then the thread dies for a few months until another appears in its place.

Give it a go though.

[Paul Arden]

The topic summary can always include where we disagree! And yes, that's the thread I was trying to link to

Thanks,
Paul

[grunde]

This is certainly worth trying out, should be possible to do this based on “upvoted” posts or something?

I think the Discourse discussion board (https://www.discourse.org/features) have a topic summary feature based on “upvoted” posts, maybe phpbb has something similar?

[Paul Arden]

Hi Grunde, it can certainly be done that way. What I was initially thinking was instead of voting the “best answer” is that we agree on a joint statement or summary and I set this in place of where the best answer should be. I can use this extension with a little modification.

Voting a best answer in the two heads thread wouldn’t achieve the same result. I’ll install the extension tonight and have a play with it and show you what I have in mind.

Cheers, Paul

[David Gianfaldoni]

Hi Paul,
this idea would be very useful indeed!
Especially for those like me who follow full long discussions on Flycasting Physics with interest but very often get lost, especially with dynamic studies and various external scientific references about physic, mechanical, aerodynamic, etc etc, laws.
Knowing at least the points where everyone agrees would be very helpful in understanding the core of some complicated discussions.
I hope you will adopt this option!
Thanks
david

[Paul Arden]

OK this extension has been installed and you can see the result here. If we can agree on a summary of the topic, it can be highlighted and then it will be listed in the first post. I think that this manual selection will be best from something like topic summaries. It's possible that it can be done via voting but that doesn't work if we require a summary that contains two opposing views

Cheers, Paul

[Paul Arden]

I like this. I'm finding out if the extension can be modified to mark several answers as "best answer". Another option we could do would be simply to highlight the most significant posts in one reply and then use this reply as the best answer. And a final option is that we could try to formulate a summary that we can agree on.

I think this will be a very useful extension for very long discussions.

Cheers, Paul