Where did my apples come from? And searching for apple-rewarded posts

I find myself getting apples, but can't seem to find an easy way to check which posts are responsible for them. It would be nice if apples were displayed in the list when I click on the link "My Posts" at the top. Possible?

Chad - I think this will work.

On your post above, in the area to the left, click on your name (in blue) - this hyperlink will take you to your profile page.

On your profile page, on the left, look at the bottom of the screen - there should be a link that says something like "View Apples Granted to this User". You can see which posts garnered you an apple.

Let me know if that works.

Jen out!

Don't see anything like that.

It shows how many apples I have, apples in the last 30 days, thumbs up given, thumbs given last 30, thumbs up received, thumbs received last 30, but nothing about viewing apples granted to me.

OK - You should be receiving an email from permies.com when a post gets an apple. It will say something like "Congratulations, your post .......received an apple". Have you been getting those?

I've had a quick look around and something seems to have gone awry. There is *supposed* be a link for everyone on their profile page, but it looks like it's missing for a lot of members.

I'll go and grovel to the programming team and see if they can fix it...

I think that people can only find out about where their apples came from by the email they get about the apple. And maybe noticing the apple on the good post.

So excited! I got my first apple today! I received an email that informed me of such and which post of mine earned it.

I would LOVE if there were a feature in the search that allowed users to search only for posts with a certain level of community feedback (thumbs, apples, pie).

This could be in the form of exclusion or ranking of search results, i.e. "only show me results with X apples" or in the search results, a dropdown menu--"Sort by: Thumbs"

Possible? Likely?

Don't you get an email for the apples and pies?

paul wheaton wrote:Don't you get an email for the apples and pies?

I sure do, but it's not my own apples and pies I'm interested in searching.

Consider the following scenarios:

Scenario 1:
I want to share some of the brilliant things you've said or written on a YouTube channel dedicated to that purpose. So I search the forums for posts from all users with first name Paul and last name Wheaton and I get 69 pages of search results with 4,125 threads continue want 14,496 posts. Surprise surprise, you're very active on your own website.

Results include posts where you write "it is that way by design." Or "vacation locally." Or "you can rent a video for three bucks. Seems pretty cheap to me." Obviously replies to other messages, and not what I want. Because of the HUGE volume of results, I want to eliminate these sort of posts from the search without eliminating the results I DO want.

So I revise the search to "topics started by this member", hoping that I'm not excluding too much of your brilliance found in threads you replied to but didn't start.

Now the results are 30 pages of 1789 threads containing 1865 posts. Results are more promising, in that, I recognize the names of threads from things I've heard you say in podcasts or videos.

However, it's still a bit hit-or-miss, so I revise the search to group posts by forums, and now they're listed by forums in alphabetical order: alternative energy, ancestral skills, art music and aesthetics, and so on.

Not all that helpful, so I revise the search again to sort by the number of likes in descending order, (which is a useful feature and in the direction of what I'm asking for) but now many of the results seem to be the most-liked options from the surveys and straw polls you like to conduct. Also not what I'm looking for.

A good solution would be to allow me to search for all of your posts which have received a certain number of apples, or pie, or flags, or likes. A community-driven
quality feedback score by which I can find the best posts you've made more easily without having to eliminate so much potentially great content first.

Scenario 2:
Say I have a specific question about a specific aspect of Rocket Mass Heaters. I want to find a particular piece of information about the bit that comes after the manifold. But some users name it differently than others, so I have to conduct half a dozen searches or more using various combinations of keywords and keyword phrases including thermal mass, thermal battery, heat storage, butt-warmer, bench, ducting, and so on.

Boolean operators are limited here. If there's a "standard" term, i get death-by-volume search results, but if I search for butt-warmer, although i get fewer results, they are less likely to be the quality post I'm looking for. Let's say I use them all, select Match ANY Term, and sort by relevance. The assumption is that the posts which have the most hits of any combination of these words will result.

I get 259 pages of 15527 threads containing 55256 posts. These will include posts that use "battery" and  "storage"  within the same post, and "thermal" and "heat" within the same post, which admittedly is not very well targeted, so I go back and select only three forums to search from, wood burning stoves, rocket stoves, and rocket mass heaters.

Now I'm down to 56 pages of 3347 threads containing 30416 posts, still quite a lot.  These results include the "diagnose my problem" threads as well as the "here are photos of my build, ain't it pretty?" threads, which will not contain the INFORMATIVE answer that I'm seeking, but I still need to sift through them.  

What I really need is a way to isolate the quality posts that the community has decided are very good, useful, helpful, etc.

But at this point, one of my only remaining ideas is to single out users who have consistently high quality posts, so I limit the search results to show only posts from members whose last name is Wisner (thereby eliminating quality posts by members whose last name is Wheaton, or van den Berg or Mobert or Walker) and now I'm down to 8 pages of 433 threads containing 1053 posts.

Being able to not only SORT the results by Likes, Pie, Flags, or Apples, but also FILTER by them would add worlds of functionality to the search experience and help people find quality results. Many other websites with search features have quality as a search criterion (Amazon, film streaming sites, real estate sites, food ordering sites, airbnb, ebay, etc). I believe ours would benefit from this addition too.

So I think what you are saying is that you are suggesting a new feature where apples can be figured into search stuff?

Presicely, as well as other units of feedback, integrated into the search.

Ideally something like:
"Only display results with at least [numeric textbox] [dropdown menu of feedback units] [link:"Add Filter"]

I could then search for posts with one apple, one pie, and five likes, for example.

I would also suggest adding these units to the "sort by" options.

(sorry for the confusion, didn't realize until just now that what I wrote two days ago was a completely different topic than what I wrote two years ago.)

Hi Chad, I added searching for apple-rewarded posts to the subject line.

It's not the search you're wishing for, though at the top of the forum page, there is a link to the leaderboard. The leaderboard lists the users with the most apples. When you click on a user, then you can click into their profile and there are links to their posts and the topics they've started. Cumbersome for what you're looking for, to be sure, but the leaderboard is kinda neat.

I'd love to see a new section titled: "The Bushel Basket"

That's right: every apple awarded post in chronological order, with link to the original forum. I know I'd be inclined to scroll through and get inspiration from apple posts!


And while I'm dreaming, how about another new section titled: "Mmmmm Good!"

That's right: Every pie awarded post in chronological order with links to the original forum. Digital gluttony guiltlessly indulged! It would be nice to see where posts made such a difference that they were rewarded with a delicious financial gesture of appreciation. Some of these posts are not always the profound ones, but are recognized as they come from and express sincere empathy, it lends a very unique (connected?) feeling to a forum website.

Burra Maluca wrote:I've had a quick look around and something seems to have gone awry.  There is *supposed* be a link for everyone on their profile page, but it looks like it's missing for a lot of members.  

I'll go and grovel to the programming team and see if they can fix it...

I just checked my profile and that link isn't there for me either.

I normally get the emails about "Congratulations, one of your post earned an apple".  But recently I got an email that said "Hot Dog, you got a piece of pie for earning X apples".  That's awesome!  But I didn't get the email about the apple so I can't figure out what post was the one that earned it.  Might there be a glitch where it doesn't send the apple email if it sends a pie email?  

I'd love to see the feature/link Burra mentioned two years ago but I know you guys have a lot on your plate.

Hello Mike, when you go to your profile do you see on the top rightish area, a place that says "apples Granted to this user"? What was the last apple that you see awarded to you?

Mike Jay wrote: recently I got an email that said "Hot Dog, you got a piece of pie for earning X apples".  That's awesome!  But I didn't get the email about the apple

The script that sends the message "pie for earning X apples" seems to be running on a timer. It doesn't seem to be closely connected to when the apple was actually awarded.

I think it was finally decided not to give non-staff members access to the page that tells them who had awarded apples and to which post because of problems with members attempting to beg apples off other members - in the end we felt it best to keep it anonymous.  

And of course, not all apples are awarded for posts.  Some staff can award apples for other things, like reporting spam or being helpful around the site in other ways, in which case searching for the post that 'earned' an apple is a bit of a futile exercise.  

Thanks everyone, I'm guessing it was a non-post related apple.  Miles, I don't have an "apples granted to this user" link on my profile.  I have an "apple polls voted in" link, and a "total apples" and a "apples in last month" number listed without a link.  I'm sure it's for the reason Burra mentioned which does make sense.  Thanks folks!