implemented Reputation System

[TechAngel85]

Please take a moment to vote on our implementation above ^ . Please do so only after familiarizing yourself with commentary on this thread in addition to the way post voting works. thanks!

NOTE: We are not committed to making any changes based on this poll result, but the result may hold some sway.

 

-STEP

 

 

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Can we do away with the Reputation System entirely or is it a core feature in the forums? It usefulness is absolute zero and it causes more upsets than anything.

[hishutup]

I think remove the less than 0 rep on a post. So that it is a positive environment.

 

I do believe it encourages good posting habits though.

[Aiyen]

I want to support this notion... it is really a pointless feature that does not really help us or the project in any way. 

[GrantSP]

Having only learned about it recently after being attacked by someone that 'neg'd' most of my posts, I'd be happy to see it go.

[EssArrBee]

The problem is that some of us are excluded from it and it doesn't show in your badge or anything if you have good rep. You'd have to actually go to someone's profile to see it.

 

Either make it something that is seen on badges and make everyone use it or just get rid of it.

 

I like the idea of people actually using it for good posts and bad posts though. There will always be one person that tries to mess with it, but it wouldn't affect the overall rating of people that much.

[TechAngel85]

Personally, I find it completely arbitrary and useless.

[Aiyen]

The "good" posts already have the "solved" feature, which will more or less highlight the core of all the troubleshooting issues that pop up around here. As for bad posts, we already have a good moderator team (If I might say so!) which will keep the bad posts edited or inform the user who made them that an edit might be a good idea.

[Octopuss]

Having only learned about it recently after being attacked by someone that 'neg'd' most of my posts, I'd be happy to see it go.

Welcome to the club.

 

There's absolutely no need for a reputation system in any shape or form. If you don't like someone's post, just ignore it. If it's really bad, moderators will take care of it. If it's good, people reading it will just nod in approval. There's no need for any stupid numbers next to posts.

The anonymity makes it even worse.

I learned to live with it, but it still pisses me off sometimes when I get "downvoted" simply because I am an unpopular member here.

[z929669]

The user's rep appears on their user profiles as 'good', 'neutral' or 'poor', and we have several people with 'good' and quite high ratings, so I think it is a good positive reinforcement, and those users will likely not want to see it go. As an example, go to the 'members' area and sort by post count. Neo, CJ2311 and Keith have very high ratings, and hishutup is up there as well.

 

Gyro, GraphicsJunkie and BrainFever are examples of the scant few I found with negative (red) ratings, and I think this is telling and a good indicator of behaviors and who to watch out for. Octopuss even has a positive rating, since his behavior around here as improved .... the community usually speaks accurately in aggregate, regardless of minor instances of misuse.

 

Moderators and admin are excluded from the system already, otherwise you guys would likely have 'phenomenal' ratings.

 

s4n doesn't like it either, but I still see no indication that the system is not accurately flagging our positive contributors as well as our very few negative ones. People with no rep, or those with bad rep will prefer not having the system, but those with high rep will like it. human nature.

 

I am not inclined to get rid of it unless the majority of our good-rep users also don't like it (that means they have to speak up unprompted or comment on the topic without being primed or biased beforehand). Only Octopuss fits this cat so far.

 

Let's see what we get from the community on this thread. positive rep members have proportionally more weight to add to this conversation in my mind.

Here is a screen of the behavior:

[Harpalus]

I don't see what value it adds, but I haven't been posting long and my "reputation" is apparently 4. I don't see what correlation it has to posting. I checked it yesterday as a result of this thread and it was at 6, and I don't believe I've even posted since then.

 

The board administrators are sufficient to ensure good behaviour, and my reputation hasn't seemed to rise in relation to my more helpful posts since I began posting, leading me to believe it's somewhat arbitrary. I haven't used the feature, I admit, either to give "negative" or "positive" reputation.

 

Of course, my opinion on this matter isn't worth much by z929669's metric.

[CJ2311]

I don't mind the reputation system. In fact I'd say I like it a bit since it enables us to rapidly let someone know we agree with them or express a form of thanks without having to post a "+1" comment.

In fact the issue I have with the system is that it doesn't apply to the staff, and also that you can't see someone's reputation without opening their profile.

[z929669]

It doesn't apply to staff simply because we can easily attract lots of post 'like/dislike' (or 'thanks/stuff it') spamming. Any user can 'like/dislike' a post at any time, so rep can technically go up or down based on any historical posting behavior, but it usually applies to relatively recent posts.

 

It definitely encourages civil posting behaviors for the most part (and also encourages helpful posting), except for a few bad apples, but that is the point.

 

Great point about the +1 posting. We don't get much of that around here, which is highly beneficial, since it reduces worthless posting significantly as well as statistically inflated post counts. That is another good reason to keep it around, IMO.

[Aiyen]

I got to admit that I do not see it as "definitely encouraging civil posting". Did we make a detailed investigation into this at some point that I missed ? 

 

If someone does not post civil around here, the moderator team handles it quickly and efficiently, and in most cases there are no further issues, or drama. Most debate threads around here stand testament to that. 

 

I guess I am biased since I have been staff for so long that I can only remember being staff. Hence rep never really meant anything to me. What I do not like is the fact that the system is used to "-1" posts that one does not agree with. Just as it might be good to have instead of doing a "thank you" post, then the coin does have another side. 

 

I do think that this promotes bad posting behavior, since people do not take the time to provide counter arguments, they just hide behind the "-1" and call it a day. Which will obviously leave a sour taste for the other participants of a debate when they have no way of knowing.. why or how etc. 

 

Hope that all made sense. 

[hishutup]

The system works but the number of people that participate are few and far between.

 

There are time people give -1 on something that is actually helpful in my opinion. In those situation I tend to zero it out.

 

There are some people that post some really salty things which, I have done before. It generally results in -1.

 

The spam in forums is completely unwanted. The rep system removes the necessity of doing the +1 thing.

 

I may be biased but I see it work every now and then.

[TechAngel85]

I got to admit that I do not see it as "definitely encouraging civil posting". Did we make a detailed investigation into this at some point that I missed ? 

 

If someone does not post civil around here, the moderator team handles it quickly and efficiently, and in most cases there are no further issues, or drama. Most debate threads around here stand testament to that. 

 

I guess I am biased since I have been staff for so long that I can only remember being staff. Hence rep never really meant anything to me. What I do not like is the fact that the system is used to "-1" posts that one does not agree with. Just as it might be good to have instead of doing a "thank you" post, then the coin does have another side. 

 

I do think that this promotes bad posting behavior, since people do not take the time to provide counter arguments, they just hide behind the "-1" and call it a day. Which will obviously leave a sour taste for the other participants of a debate when they have no way of knowing.. why or how etc. 

 

Hope that all made sense. 

I like the way you think. It's pointless from my point of view. I completely ignore it and only notice it when someone complains about it. The rep system has no bearing on my views of a good or bad quality post. Same goes for the users. I don't judge users by the rep system. I judge them from their interactions. The rep system might simply point out a bad action here and there and that's all. For example, I did not evaluate GrantSP's rep before recommending him for staff. He proved himself over time. The same goes for the "bad apples". They show their true faces over time. I think the staff has a general idea of who are the good and bad seeds out of the most active users. Those names Z mentioned, I've never even heard before. The bad apples usually don't stick around because they're use to the Nexus and other forums that aren't as "maturely" ran as ours. We didn't have the rep system in the past and I don't feel it's added anything useful in the new forum.

[z929669]

I got to admit that I do not see it as "definitely encouraging civil posting". Did we make a detailed investigation into this at some point that I missed ? 

/snip

As a matter of fact, I have been keeping track of the rep system for quite some time, and I have noted that we have a large preponderance of posters with positive marks, a giant number with neutral or no marks, and a scant few with negative marks (all of which are quite low).

 

Since there is no easy way to get aggregated stats via the boards, I checked using SQL ...

 

Across all posts:

• Total positive (thanks) ticks = 2497
• Total negative (sod off) ticks = 345 (nearly one third given by a single member, whom will be addressed elsewhere)
• # members gave at least one positive vote = 304
• # members gave at least one negative vote = 42
• member with highest # positive votes given = 323
• member with highest # negative votes given = 100
• rounded average # positive votes per positive-voting members = 8
• rounded average # negative votes per negative-voting members = 8 (just coincidence that they are the same)

As you can see, these numbers do not bespeak any flagrant issues other than the single poster that attributed 100 -1 votes across 100 posts (probably all in one day, as the limit is 100 votes per member per day). Many active members vote at some frequency, and the evidence is consistent with 'good' use of the system overall. This means that rep rating (as seen on ones profile page) is probably a fair indicator of the contributions of the individual as 'good', 'neutral', or 'bad'.

;)

 

Don't forget that administrators around here think differently than members. We look at everybody as more-or-less 'members' and put out fires here and there ... we administrate. Members look over their own and others' profiles much more frequently. They look at member actions and stats at a much more granular level than we do.

 

The persons with positive numbers both give and receive post votes (both good and bad) more frequently than other members (