User Reputation system

The User Reputation system should be enabled on SciForums?

  • Yes

    Votes: 20 43.5%

  • No

    Votes: 26 56.5%
  • Total voters
    46
  • Poll closed .
Plazma Inferno!

Plazma Inferno!

Ding Ding Ding Ding
Administrator
Here is ongoing discussion on possible changes/addons/installations to our forum.
Some of you mentioned reputation system, which could be enabled right away, but I would love to hear your vote on this.

As you probably know, the User Reputation system allows you to leave comments about other members' posts, contributing to their overall 'reputation'.
Each of reputation levels has certain title, that describes members reputation, and it's given to members when they reach certain reputation level.

Few examples on how reputation system looks like:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=60978
http://www.forummonkeys.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13162

Reputation is shown as green bar, and when you place mouse on it, you get description.
These two forums use default titles, which could be changed.

I'm putting a poll with two options Yes and No.
But before you vote, we could discuss all questions and concerns you have regarding Reputation system.


*Note: Poll will be opened for two weeks.
 
Pitfalls

Plazma Inferno! said:

But before you vote, we could discuss all questions and concerns you have regarding Reputation system.
Click to expand...

Whoops. I suppose I voted prematurely, but my concern is that a reputation system will not be of any particular utility to someone unfamiliar with the site. Perhaps I have a lesser opinion of our community than I have previously recognized, but this sort of thing can easily degenerate into a clique contest.

I voted against the option. However, if this is something we go forward with, might I suggest a minimum quota of posts before a member can vote on reputation? And might I further suggest that it be a fairly stiff minimum? I'll open the bidding at five hundred posts.

Or is there a way that a member's vote can gain weight as their post count increases? That is, someone with less than a hundred posts can vote, but their vote counts less in the tabulation than someone with 250 posts, and that counts less than five hundred, perhaps capping the weight at a thousand posts?

Is it possible to index who votes what for whom? That would seem to require a lot of storage space over the long run, but in addition to putting people in a position to account for their votes, it will also help people recognize if a reputation is being skewed for simple differences of opinion that have nothing to do with the quality of their posts or their contribution to the community.

Even so, my instinct is against a reputation system. I know who I don't like. I'm aware of a number of people who don't like me. I've read through so many complaints, flame wars, and personal disputes over the years, and the overwhelming majority lack substance. I would hope to be wrong, but this seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
 
I have voted yes, but I have some reservations:

On other forums the magnitude of 'rep' you get depends upon the rep level of the poster giving 'rep'. This is a positive thing, since generally valued posters are more likely to make accurate assessments of other posts.

There would need to be very tight policing of sock puppets. (I shall be setting up five sock puppets in the coming week in anticipation that this tight policing does not happen.)

Mutual support socieities would need to be controlled as well.

If the last two points are not dealt with then we shall see some truly bizarre individuals with high reputations.
 
Tiassa said:
Or is there a way that a member's vote can gain weight as their post count increases? That is, someone with less than a hundred posts can vote, but their vote counts less in the tabulation than someone with 250 posts, and that counts less than five hundred, perhaps capping the weight at a thousand posts?

Is it possible to index who votes what for whom? That would seem to require a lot of storage space over the long run, but in addition to putting people in a position to account for their votes, it will also help people recognize if a reputation is being skewed for simple differences of opinion that have nothing to do with the quality of their posts or their contribution to the community.
Click to expand...
Yes, it could be done in the reputation system settings, including minimum post count, daily reputation clicks limit, register date and post count factors, etc.

Thank your for your input and vote Tiassa.
 
Ophiolite said:
I have voted yes, but I have some reservations:

On other forums the magnitude of 'rep' you get depends upon the rep level of the poster giving 'rep'. This is a positive thing, since generally valued posters are more likely to make accurate assessments of other posts.

There would need to be very tight policing of sock puppets. (I shall be setting up five sock puppets in the coming week in anticipation that this tight policing does not happen.)

Mutual support socieities would need to be controlled as well.

If the last two points are not dealt with then we shall see some truly bizarre individuals with high reputations.
Click to expand...
I agree. Valuable posters should have stronger 'assessment and rating' power than new members. It could be set.
Also, as I said in previous post, reputation power could be given automatically depending on days of registration, minimum post count, etc.

If some members want to create sockpuppets in order to rep up original account, they first have to spend a lot of time in 'building' their sockpuppets, which is hard work IMO. Plus, they could be discovered very easily.

Thank you for your input.
 
Plazma Inferno! said:
I agree. Valuable posters should have stronger 'assessment and rating' power than new members. It could be set.
Also, as I said in previous post, reputation power could be given automatically depending on days of registration, minimum post count, etc.
Click to expand...

That's how it is on another forum I am on...

Like if a user has 100,000 points, his "rep" will be 100. If he positive-reps someone, it will add 100,000/10,000 = 10 "rep" to that person. If he negs, it took away 10/2 = 5 from his rep.

On that site I have high rep because I am a rep whore... I sucked up to a moderator on that site to boost my points since all mods had very high rep (for purposes of dealing with trouble posters).

... and I neg all new users.
 
I vote "no" because the rep system will be abused and won't be of any value on this site. I know that I'd abuse it. On top of that, all the social posters that hijack threads will engage in rep trading orgies. You know who they are... a thread is created and within 1 hour it's derailed and on page 10...

Besides, if we're an "intelligent community," we should be smart enough to discern between who's posting anything of value versus those that suck without needing a numerical rating system to tell us.
 
Again, my reservations with a User Rep system is that prolific posters of wit would gain far more popularity than a member who uses the forum to post fewer but of more substance. If post count were the only factor in the users being deemed more valuable that would mean that someone like myself would have a higher rating than someone who posts more scientifically valuable, but fewer posts. i don't see how this system is representative of the content of people's posts and merely rates people on the amount they post.

I do think that people who tend to be a part of the popular clique will have far more votes than the lone gunman in an abstract mathematics discussion. Posting daily in the "What's on your turntable?" thread could turn out to be a very lucrative endeavour.

I vote no.
 
I voted "yes".

I do not see how it will be abused. If you like a poster, why would you give bad reputation to the poster? :confused: On the other hand, if many posters award you good reputation, you probably deserve the credit :shrug:
 
i voted yes but would like to change it to no, (which isn't possible it seems)

user reputation is useless..post reputation is not..
 
Personally, I really don't give a crap if we have a reputation system or not. I post here because I enjoy the exchange of information, not to win a popularity contest.

It seems like some people are concerned that sock puppets will be created and rep cabals will form to allow members to inflate their reputation points. If we DO get a reputation system, people need to accept the fact that a certain amount of abuse is inevitable. I'm sure the moderators have better things to do than crawl up people's asses with microscopes to make sure they aren't repping certain people too often.

I voted "No", just to avoid the potential squabbles and pains in the ass for the mods to deal with.

:shrug:
 
I voted no, because people are too immature for such a thing as well as because this will lead to a sort of contest over who has the best "reputation"

We can leave reputation and admiration simply in the minds of people; making it a feature of the site is not a good decision
 
Absane said:
I vote "no" because the rep system will be abused and won't be of any value on this site. I know that I'd abuse it. On top of that, all the social posters that hijack threads will engage in rep trading orgies. You know who they are... a thread is created and within 1 hour it's derailed and on page 10...

Besides, if we're an "intelligent community," we should be smart enough to discern between who's posting anything of value versus those that suck without needing a numerical rating system to tell us.
Click to expand...

Cellar_Door said:
I voted a resolute NO.

This isn't Facebook.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
I don't think such a system is needed. Our words should speak for themselves. People have different views for different sub forums. For example, you may agree with my science but not my politics. If I have more posts in the politics forum, other people may not take my science views seriously. The reverse is also true where someone well liked in the scifi forum will have a high rep rank when posting on cosmology. A rep rank for each sub forum would be better in my mind. I can see why someone such as myself would not have a strong rep vote. The fact is, I havn't seen all the data. That being said, nothing is stopping me from looking it up. I've never been a social person so I doubt my post count will ever be in the thousands. Besides, nobody needs to tell me what shit smells like.
 
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I guess I did not (do not?) really understand how this "reputation" thing worked. I always sort of thought that it was an aggregate of thumbs up / thumbs down on each post made by the member. Or a point system, but still confined to one post at a time, then summed up and divided by the number of posts to determine the overall "reputation".

It sounds like this is more of a rating system based directly on the member themselves, rather than the content of all of their posts put together. As I said, maybe I don't understand.

It would seem like a reputation garnered through "votes" on individual posts would keep the inane bullshit value down and keep people on topic, as well as be much harder to abuse because people would have to follow a particular poster around voting negatively on each post. (or positively, I guess, depending on the abuser's goal).

As was pointed out earlier you would need some sort of minimum post count requirement to vote in order to control the socks, in either method.

Is such a system based on the sum of "good" posts vs "bad" posts available? Or is that really what we are already talking about? I'm so confused... :m:

'Course that didn't stop me from voting, yes in this case. ;)
 
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