> Things people are interested in discussing on stay on the front page, things they're not fall off.
I like this. So currently on the homepage, and individual user (nest) pages the list of content has two sort options, "hot", and "new". The "hot" sort takes into account the message activity of the post similar to what you described. The effect is that active posts bubble to the top, and even old posts can become current again (anti-gravity) if the activity picks up once more. I think about how humans interact in real-life group discussions, where there is no "voting" on a discussion happening. The "voting" in real-life is in the form of the size of the discussion and how many people it attracts. If you put 100 ppl in a room and gave out a topic, the most interesting discussions would naturally form and people would be attracted to those.
I like this. So currently on the homepage, and individual user (nest) pages the list of content has two sort options, "hot", and "new". The "hot" sort takes into account the message activity of the post similar to what you described. The effect is that active posts bubble to the top, and even old posts can become current again (anti-gravity) if the activity picks up once more. I think about how humans interact in real-life group discussions, where there is no "voting" on a discussion happening. The "voting" in real-life is in the form of the size of the discussion and how many people it attracts. If you put 100 ppl in a room and gave out a topic, the most interesting discussions would naturally form and people would be attracted to those.