must spread around

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Honestly, I really don't know. Would that be important to anyone?

I took a screen shot and saved it.

There were a couple little notes that had something important in there, but taking a screen shot for myself seems easier than trying to archive that somehow.

Don't they eventually drop off anyway, though?

I was just going to say, a screen shot is probably the best way to solve that if you have a problem with losing the comments.
And they do eventually drop off when you receive more.

All those nice things people said are GONE???




(okay, I DO admit it would be neat to look up the rep and the post it was given to from way back)

One of the admin functions I have available to me is to be able to view ALL reputation actions, including comments. I can filter by date range, or by who the comments were "from" or "to". This can be useful to determine if someone is abusing the system and take appropriate steps. This will be especially pertinent if I decide to re-enable negative rep.

Anyway, here is a screen shot from the beginning of the year 2005.


And this one is from the beginning of this year.


Notice the enormous difference in the rep power numbers.

BTW, I can also control some options of the reputation system by member group. These options are:

1. Can See Who Left User Ratings - Yes or No
2. Can Use Reputation - Yes or No
3. Can Hide Reputation from Others - Yes or No
4. Can Leave Negative Reputation - Yes or No

So I may change those options as well while I am tinkering with the system.

Maybe it would be best if the rep points were completely anonymous? Or only visible to Contributor level members?

Maybe negative rep could be limited to Contributor level members only with the caveat that abusing the system will get you banned and you lose your Contributor membership?

Anyway, I've alerted my programmer about zeroing out the rep system, but I want to give this more time so more people might notice the announcement I put up about this impending change.

Bear in mind that nothing will be cast in stone about this, and I might change anything that doesn't appear to be working as I had hoped. Except recovering the zeroed out figures, of course. That is being done at the database level so once they are zeroed, they are GONE.

Oh, btw, I do appreciate the feedback about this, but I do hope that everyone realizes that I can't possibly implement everyone's suggestions, especially where there are directly contrary opinions about many of the options. My choosing something other than what YOU wish doesn't mean I didn't weigh in your opinion. It just means I decided that other criteria just carried more weight in my deliberations about this. And yes, I might be wrong about my decisions. If that proves to be the case, well, I'll just have to try to fix it. All of my pencils have erasers on them too.

Is there a way to make the weighting always stay the same? Or only increase to a maximum of, I don't know, 50?

If it was anonymous, I don't think it would be useful.

Originally Posted by Rich Z

This will be especially pertinent if I decide to re-enable negative rep.

BTW, I can also control some options of the reputation system by member group. These options are:

1. Can See Who Left User Ratings - Yes or No
2. Can Use Reputation - Yes or No
3. Can Hide Reputation from Others - Yes or No
4. Can Leave Negative Reputation - Yes or No

Maybe it would be best if the rep points were completely anonymous? Or only visible to Contributor level members?

Maybe negative rep could be limited to Contributor level members only with the caveat that abusing the system will get you banned and you lose your Contributor membership?

Bear in mind that nothing will be cast in stone about this, and I might change anything that doesn't appear to be working as I had hoped. Except recovering the zeroed out figures, of course. That is being done at the database level so once they are zeroed, they are GONE.

***IF*** negative rep is enabled, well, that would be a fun experiment to see from another perspective (not my own) I suppose.

re: "the caveat that abusing the system will get you banned"
How will "abuse" be defined?
Is it abusive of the system already in place to leave rep with a blank space, or to say LOL?
What if I leave negative rep today for a post which irks me a lot, but 3 days later, after I've thought it over, and accepted some of what is said, can I remove the negative, or change it to a positive rep? Or can I go back in 3 days time and leave a positive rep to zero-out the negative, without receiving a message saying I have to spread it around more before leaving any more rep of any kind- for said member/post?/
Sometimes it is difficult to tell if I am leaving rep based on -emotional or logical- conditioning/thinking.
Sometimes I'll rep a post that is over a decade old but still relevant to my today. Would I be able to give out negatives to posts made before negative rep was enabled?
Does something happen to a member if they receive lots of negatives?
Will there be a user dispute/resolution panel so you and mods and the person receiving negs and person/s dishing negs can discuss the problem?

to me, it seems a recipe for a lot of extra work, headaches, heartaches, bannings(?) , alienation, ostracism, even more trolling, & so forth. Sellers on eBay cannot leave negative feedback. Only buyers.
What if contributing members and mods cannot leave negatives, only non contributors? It does not seem fair when I reverse think it, but when given the chance to be able to give negatives to the new guy who hasn't learned to think with the clique, it's wonderful.
jmho.

Originally Posted by dave partington

to me, it seems a recipe for a lot of extra work, headaches, heartaches, bannings(?) , alienation, ostracism, even more trolling, & so forth. Sellers on eBay cannot leave negative feedback. Only buyers.
What if contributing members and mods cannot leave negatives, only non contributors? It does not seem fair when I reverse think it, but when given the chance to be able to give negatives to the new guy who hasn't learned to think with the clique, it's wonderful.
jmho.

I agree .

Tried to edit the post above but got booted.
Adding:
Maybe I would be encouraged to go back and edit 27,745 of my posts.

If someone's signature upsets my moral fiber, can I neg them?

On the one hand, enabling negative rep power might encourage non-contributing members to become contributing members so they can neg people. It might encourage persons to think carefully before making replies. It might slow down the inbox traffic of moderators. It might slow down the trolly posts. It might encourage some persons to never post at all. I don't know what might happen. It is an interesting topic to consider.

I don't think that neg rep is going to be nearly the problem people think it is.

Fauna has it and the system seems to govern itself fairly well. Once in a while someone will get a bug in their rear about something, but other than that it seems okay.

If the varied collection of fauna personalities can manage it, then I feel certain the people here will be fine with it.

Let it work the same as a fauna, contributors can give it and if you feel like you must give it out, then by all means become a contributor.

If someone is a big enough jerk to smear it all over everything, then that will need to be addressed, but splashing it here and there might encourage people to think before they post.

For me, if someone gives utterly horrible and potentially hazardous advice, that might warrant sprinkling of neg rep. On the flip side, if someone is a pompous rude jerk to someone then that might be worth a little neg rep too. This might encourage people to be less apt to dive down a throat or be a complete butt to someone.

For example, that recent "Am I sinister?" thread. There was some really out of line hate in there, and a gentle application of neg rep on some of those over the top posts might make people think a little harder before they lash out at someone.

I just don't see it being a problem.