Proposal for a plugin to enable nomination and display of "Post of the Month"

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On my forum, I’ve noticed that some conversations that should be of more interest to users can get buried amongst other chatter.

I’m proposing to develop a plugin that would enable a “Post / Topic” of the month feature. I was thinking it could work as follows:

  • Each time period, a selection of top posts, by likes, would be presented to the Admin team and they would be presented to the user base for voting.
  • The Admin could, of course, add their own nominations to this list.
  • The winner from the vote would then be added to the Hall of Fame, and optionally pinned globally for a time.

I think it best that users are offered a short list to vote on, rather than being able to nominate any post because:

  • It gives increased visibility to a range of top posts
  • It encourages participation by the userbase.

At this stage, I’m seeking comments and improvements for this feature set. I’ll then get to writing a plugin to implement it. It’ll be my first plugin. so I may seek help at this stage!

The plugin will be open source.

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(Focusing on the functional side: I would not wish for a moment to discourage you from getting into the fun and reward from writing a plugin.)

I’ve done this manually in the past and I think it’s a great way to highlight positive contribution.

The Top Topic List already gives one a really good guide as to which Topics moved and shaked the community in the last period?

One solution might be to simply pick a Topic from Top and edit the OP with some kind of additional heading and then pin it? Choose the Topic within a short chat within the staff group based on a shortlist from Top?

Another thing to consider is the fact that the top contribution might actually be a reply (ie a Post). Perhaps you could link the top Post from a monthly regular Post of the month Topic?

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It was a post half way down a lengthy topic that has prompted my thought for this feature, so a post of the month topic is a good lead in.

I think I particularly want the voting part described above, to increase the user base participation, and to remove accusations of ‘closed cliques’ picking their mates.

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