User reputation

[tripsis]

I'd think a post reputation would be better. E.g. You can rate a post and if it gets too low it gets auto-hidden.

Say like.. -5 and it gets hidden.

Now that definitely *would* be abused.

[The Observer]

I'd think a post reputation would be better. E.g. You can rate a post and if it gets too low it gets auto-hidden.

Say like.. -5 and it gets hidden.

Now that definitely *would* be abused.

 

Got to agree with that. What if a group of friends all get together to auto-hide the post? I can see this especially an issue in the Clans section.

[Cowman_133]

I belong to another forum that has rep and the whole damn place is filled with people that are repwhoring. Almost every thread says something like "oh and don't forget to rep + thank for this thread". It would get way out of hand on here.

That's a different forum. Totally not the case here.

 

If user reputation ever existed here, I won't use it or repwhore at all, and I'm pretty sure most won't either. In fact, I'll probably ignore it, just like my post count and profile views.

 

I trust you guys.

 

Maybe you won't abuse it or repwhore it, and maybe I won't, but what about the rest of the community? With anything you release, there will be abuse. Period. Whether it is new community members, established community members, banned community members, whatever: someone will abuse it. And this feature is much more abusable than others because somebody abusing the system will see the immediate effects.

 

well as i could suggest from another forum that i have been on for a few years, their could be a reputation system enabled but has to not be abused.

 

for example, everyone starts at 0 reputation points, you can have a "Nominate" button underneath every post

 

and what that does is, if the post is considered really helpful, insightful, and knowledgable, a person can Nominate the post, and that then would be sent to Forum moderators, Admins (or whichever group(s) they decide to be in charge of this) and in turn after say 5 nominations on a post, someone from those previously mentioned groups can come view the post/thread topic and decide for themselves if the post/topic is worthy of an Increase in Reputation to however amount they think it's deserving of (raned 1-3) as an Example of what kind of forum member people would/should strive to be.

 

Now also, the Report feature would counter balance this, so if a user get's multiple reports, they would either Lose reputation points (the amount points taken are determined at how severe the reported offense is) and if severe enough, the user can be banned as in case for really serious/multiple offenses.

 

and you leave the distribution of reputation to forum higher ups so that all rewards and punishments are from a fair and neutral party.

 

This is way too much work for something that is not necessary in the first place. I find smaller forums and even chatrooms to be obsessed with ranking people when it is not necessary, which is why I believe this idea is so popular. Tip.it is a massive forum and sifting through these reports is way more work than will ever be necessary, even if the responsibility is passed to some other group than the staff.

 

I don't see any harm in trying it, but I don't see it working either. The only reason it works on Chief Delphi is because the community can handle it. If you introduce it in Off Topic here, I think it would be fine... maybe in a few other sections too. A limit of handing out two reputation points per month would also make it a bit better. But I'm very certain there will be quite a few people who don't take the system seriously and abuse it to the extent that they can.

 

Off Topic is not exactly the most mature forum on these forums - I can see this system being abused no matter which sections it is enabled in. Even if its just people coming in from other forums to mess around with it.

 

My opinion remains no, if it isn't clear.

[Skeptical]

Doesn't seem useful enough, and as has been said, would be easy to abuse.

[Kimberly]

With the proposed restrictions by Pure_Mage I wouldn't mind trying it. God, it couldn't hurt anything. XD

[Master_Smither]

I'd have to go with a no on this one. Most people have already established in their mind whether someone is a good or bad poster yet and don't need reputation points to tell them otherwise. Of course it could be beneficial to some newer Tifers who don't know who people are yet and need to figure out who is telling them the correct information. I don't mind trying it too much, but that's because I think it will flop :x.

[InkofDeath]

It would work if it was limited to certain forums but not the entire board. If you enabled it for the entire board, you will have topic titles & descriptions pleading for +rep, directly or indirectly. A group of 'high reps' will gain confidence to post useless and meaningless topics just because they'll be able to with their 'status'. People will be ignored, or ridiculed when posting something that may be slightly incorrect. For instance, if I posted that to wield Steel in RS, you needed level 4 defense, others will notice the low post count, low rep and rip the poster to shreds - it happens already with post count, don't give another incentive.

 

If you were to limit it to how PureMage has it set up, it would still cause the same problems, it would just take a longer amount of time to reach the point where mods need to intervene. Oh and mods will have to intervene a lot. This is a RuneScape board, going to bet the average is below 15. I'm going to bet the majority on here spend any money they get as soon as they acquire it. This mentality is just going to create spam and nuisances.

 

However, if you were to only enable this in certain forums, it could be steered in the right direction for a more proper use than just rep. If you were to implement a system like this in The Gallery, users could use this to get a much more accurate critique on their work and be able to separate users who may not know anything at all, to those who have been voted/repped by the community in that forum for their own work and accurate critique. As well as any other uses The Gallery users could think of, for such a system. It could even be used as a reward for any competitions held in there.

 

Same concept applies to almost every "General Discussions" forum and sub-forum. Though the specific mods for each forum should be able to inform the admins how to fine-tune each system appropriately and correctly for each forum.

 

Using a rep/vote/status system for these reasons is much better than the vague reason of 'reputation' across the entire board. With this you are rewarding users who are helpful in their respected forums that they frequent, without having to give them mod powers or anything to show your appreciation to their efforts in keeping the forum active, mature and appropriate.

 

Dealing out the points/reps/votes for each system could be handed out in small increments and each 'level' of the system wouldn't be a 'light' reward to gain. Meaning if twenty people give you 1 point each, and the max they can give is 2 points every 3 days, you're still not going to look totally epic in just the first week. It should take time to accumulate. If it takes a longer period of time, it won't go to people's heads as much.

[MageUK]

While I would be prepared to try it if the user base supported it, I'm seeing a lot of valid points made against the use of reputation.

 

Some of the suggested stuff to help stop abuse would require large modification of the reputation system/forum software, and I don't mean to sound negative, but it's just not worth doing. The time could be better spent elsewhere.

 

We've coped just fine without reputation for years and we seem to be doing just fine :) these new forums do have that feature built-in but it's been turned off since installation and I can't really see that changing.

 

While we're on the topic of forums, there's some nice new features coming out in the next release of IP Board including large improvements to search functionality, profile updates, etc.. It looks quite exciting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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