Reputation System

[abcdefg]

It'd be cool if you ranked forum members by reputation / number of posts -- get some competition going on in here.

Gee, I respectfully disagree. I personally prefer a low-pressure situation in which I feel comfortable trying to contribute a little even when I know I'm not an authority or expert. I don't really want to think of posting as a competitive event.

And many times I just post questions, not answers.

[roddy]

Is it still working correctly? I just noticed a member with a total of 3 posts (and no apparent plus marks) with a feedback of 10 positives?

It does that sometimes. Quite how it works across members in moderation, full members, and members who were here before the system started, I haven't figured out yet. This is the kind of thing I feel bad about.

And many times I just post questions, not answers.

I make a point of giving positive marks to interesting well-formed questions, as and when I see them and remember to.

[renzhe]

I don't think that reputation-based ranking is a good idea. I like the little plus or minus next to a post, but the reputations of individual posters are seriously out of whack in my opinion, and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

[Scoobyqueen]

From Meng Lelan

Ever since roddy put in the reputation system, I haven't felt like the Forums have been as fun to participate in as in the past for the above quoted reason, and I don't visit the Forums as much as I did previously.

That is a pity if this is the result. I hope you continue to contribute at the same level. I enjoy reading your opinions - often very direct, honest and no-nonsense.

[Meng Lelan]

It is indeed the result. Ever since we've had the rep system, I've turned more to my blog than here. Though I do think we need more "contests" here where the prizes are green rep points.

[daofeishi]

I have to chime in with everyone who is skeptical about the rep system. I think the mere presence of such a system creates a competitive atmosphere (that's how it feels to me, anyway), and I don't think that is conducive to creating a good, cohesive online community. I think that comments about posts and users should be made in text rather than through the capricious clicking of carrot-and-stick buttons.

[valikor]

The reputation system doesn't have any real impact on anything, does it? That is, you can't be banned for having too low a reputation--only the administrators can make these decisions.

At this point, reputation only matters for a particular user if he or she cares about his or her reputation. And as someone pointed out on this thread already, people have real reputations (unrelated to the points system). I think this would be more important.

That being said, I do like seeing the little Green "plus" next to posts..

::goes off to check his reputation::...

[gougou]

I don't care too much about members' reputations, but what could become very useful is the rating of individual posts. There is a function to filter out posts below a certain threshold (see the "Currently viewing all posts. Change threshold?" button in the dark blue box at the bottom of the page), which might be a good way to filter out useless posts once the rating system has been established for a while (if ever it does...)

[anonymoose]

But useless posts rarely get a negative rating. It seems that only offensive or dumb posts tend to get significant negative feedback, and these tend to be fairly few and far between. So you could either filter out anything with a negative rating, which would probably be less than 1% of posts (in other words, it wouldn't make much difference), or everything with neutral or less, which would essentially filter out most posts (in other words, not leaving much to read).

[gougou]

Yeah, at the moment it's pretty useless. That's why I am saying the system would need to take hold before it makes sense.

[bluetortilla]

I am very much against systems such as these. If there are genuinely inflammatory comments and posts, let our moderators take care of that.

I have a 'minus one' already and not sure from which post or from whom I got it. If you do have this system the person getting the negative point ought to be allowed to defend the post to the member who found it inappropriate or whatever. An anonymous censoring system will only inhibit a feeling of free speech for those of us who are on the shy side. I know that some members may think the contents of my posts to be irrelevant, or to be more blunt- 'dull,' but I also know that others will find some things I say useful. I doubt if I'd continue posting here if I have to worry about getting red points and stepping on toes all the time.

If there be differences of opinion, let the posters talk it out by themselves in a civilized manner. If it gets ugly, let the moderator do his/her job. Secretly jabbing people with negative points doesn't show much honor in my opinion.

[skylee]

Bluetortilla, you have made only 51 posts so far and it is not that hard to review your own posts to find out which got you the -1. Even I could find that in a few minutes -> http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/39356-who-is-yip-po-ching/#comment-296188

PS - I find your bias against Cantonese offensive, especially when you only have limited knowledge on Chinese as revealed by your questions. I was not the one who gave you the minus, but perhaps this was why you got it.

[bluetortilla]

Lol. I don't think I'll ever get up to 12,000 posts, but at least 500! Not sure how you easily found the negative post but I will try to figure it out.

As for Cantonese, I regret that I gave the impression that I have a bias against it, which I certainly do not. I was just speaking from honest, green experience. Most of my Chinese friends are Cantonese and I am actually very interested in Cantonese from a historical-linguistic perspective. Another point of linguistic interest here are the many 客家 (Hakka or Kejia) who also have their own language distinct from 粤语 (Cantonese). I never look down upon anyone's language anywhere and also find that very offensive as do you.

But I do admit to having an aesthetic preference perhaps to the Beijing dialect, and it is easier to pronounce. Maybe it sounds more like my native Missourian!

[imron]

Not sure how you easily found the negative post but I will try to figure it out.

Hover over your (or anyone else's name) and there will be a button to "Find Content", then it's just a matter of going through the posts to find which one has the negative mark.

Anyway, turns out that for whatever reason that negative point was given by someone who had 0 posts and whose account is disabled and flagged as a spammer. As such I've cancelled out the negative point for you.

Generally speaking people here seem to give out red marks to posters who make rude, arrogant, inflammatory or ignorant comments. Irrelevant/dull posts are usually left alone, and in fact if the moderators see someone adding negative points to posts that don't really deserve it, then we'll probably send that person a message asking them only to add negative marks to actual negative posts.

Any really bad posts will get deleted by moderators, but sometimes the red marks can serve as a useful indicator to both the poster and to others of what the community does/doesn't find acceptable.

Anyway, the best way to make sure you don't have an overall negative score is to make posts that people mark as positive.

[imron]

Oh, and the reason you can't see who gave you the negative point is to prevent people then going tit-for-tat and negative posting everything said by the other person (admin however can see who gives what marks in order to prevent abuse).

[bluetortilla]

Thanks for all the help. Clears things up for me. I know I can get a little heated sometimes but I hope it's always taken in the spirit of good ol' scholastic debate and not as rude or offensive! I would not purposely do that to anyone but sometimes on forums it's easy to misconstrue.