Posted by z.stolar on September 6, 2011 at 6:21am
One major issue when dealing with many ideas, and idea sources, is having many similar ideas. Lot's of information is good, but too much information is overwhelming. In order to solve the similar ideas problem, we have several solutions:
- Leave all ideas in place, and create a meta-idea (a.k.a. project) that references all similar ideas
- "Turn off" all the similar ideas, but one, and redirect all comments and votes to that single idea
- Reference a similar idea to another one. This creates hierarchy of ideas, and is probably not a good solution.
We can also (and probably should) try and solve the problem before it occurs by presenting similar ideas to the user while the user types a title of an idea (see Quora). We can use Instant for that.
Comments
Some points
It is important to keep all similar ideas in flat hierarchy with the same weight and significance.
About what are the implications on these ideas under a meta-idea, well, the default can leave the idea in place but close the voting and commenting and direct it to the meta-idea content.
When an idea is adding to a meta-idea, the idea votes is added to the meta-idea (duplicate votes by the same user will filter out).
About the “Quora” style of adding an idea
About the Quora style of adding an idea, although it’s kind of nice and delicate, and can be effective,
any hassle on adding an idea, should be carefully considered.
Adding an idea should be simple and easy as possible.