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Its a very good issues you raise Jim.
In general, if it was possible to rank based on quality, we would do it without thinking twice. In fact, we were and are still thinking about the issue.
At the moment, BoardTracker ranks boards based on number of replies. Why? well, the idea was this, in some boards there are few threads but more replies per thread since people care about the thread. Thats in comparison with boards that many threads are about "I fucked your mama" that noone cares about. So we found number of replies to be better representing "quality" than just number of threads. A thread with no replies can be worth something, no doubt about it, but in general, we though that boards - which are a community tool and encourage discussion and exchange of information (otherwise it could be just a simple resource site) - is better when people are involved and reply to threads.
Indeed, spam threads are the best example for zero (or very little) value (in our humble opinion). However, they are not that common, usually occur once in a very while, and are not that effective and infuential in the long term.
BoardTracker does not aim to claim that the #1 board is the best quality one. IF you ask me personally, I would have very strong reservations (to say the least) with that statement/idea (and that is all I can say about that subject). BoardTracker ranks boards based on replies and that is all one should see it for. Spam threads may change a rank of a board a little for a short while, but wont change the rank on a board in the long term. Spam boards tend to either die, become spam-oriented or get rid of that behavior.
Remember that BoardTracker is far from being a "Board ranker". This is just a side issue and an added value (if you see this info as a value at all). The main purpose of BoardTracker is to get people closer to the boards and to discussions THEY care about. Be sure that very few people got alerts about the spam threads from BoardTracker and even fewer followed such alerts and posted in such a thread.
What I would be happy to hear from people is, how would you mathematically formulate an index of the quality of the boards.
If you had the number of Threads, replies, people that post or any other numerical info from the board, how would you mathematically rank the boards based on that?
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