Revisiting Rep

So...it's been six or seven months now so I thought maybe it's time we talk about the whole thing.

Has it improved anything? Was the experiment worth the added drama? Is it actually easier without it?

My two cents:

At first, there actually did seem to be an improvement in participation, more interesting threads and extra bonus...a few people came back.

But...as time has gone by, it seems to pretty much revert back to old habits. A lot of trolling, ironically it seems the people who used to bitch about neg reps are now often the most annoying trolls and rub the noses of the pro-neg rep folk's noses into the lack of point-removing negs as often as so-called rep warriors rubbed whiner's noses into the counting negs.

In the end, I don't think it really matters either way. I don't think either kind of rep changes the board significantly enough to really effect much over all.

My opinion: Have a poll and see what the majority wants now and go along with the results. Since there isn't a huge difference either way, might as well go with what makes the majority of the board happiest.

Discussion and thoughts??

We're going to have a group of discontented members no matter which way rep goes. But rep warring seems to be gone in the status quo, and I'd consider that an improvement.

I say leave it alone.

I like the poll idea, myself. Removing the sting of negrep seems to have led to a lot more stupid shit in the posts themselves, but I can see it going either way.

Besides, the election is now over. Time to throw some raw meat to the jackals.

I say leave it.

The people still complaining about negrep will complain no matter what. It's still there, people can still use it to disagree with posts, it just isn't used to run people off as much as it once was.

Not having it runs some people off, having it runs some people off...it's all a wash.

Bitching and moaning either way.

And not having it makes people look for new shit to fuck with...ex. abusing the report post button.

It just seems with it being pretty much the same either way, that finding out what the majority wants and going with it is really the best thing. If the majority likes the new way, and it stays, at least they will have themselves to blame...if they vote it back...same thing...only themselves to blame.

Wasn't a big reason for changing it that some people would group up and then use rep to hound posters they didn't like in an attempt to run them off the board?

Ayup. So I'm thinking we should do the poll idea. See what the board thinks after these several months of nuRep. Yes?

So people harassing other members isn't a problem if a majority of members agree with letting it happen?

Speaking of harassing...Tasvir is back on Facebook wanting back in again. He says he can't understand why he's still banned when there are worse crimes on WF...blah, blah, blah. You know the drill.

Did we come to any real decision on him?

We'd have to close down the Red Room if it was.

But the rep-warring nonsense is gone. It's completely gone.

Do we really want to bring that back? Especially since it's the members who were the worst abusers of rep decrying the change?

Bad idea, I think.

I've said my piece.

We had a poll on 6/22/2011


It overwhelmingly favored leaving the rep system alone, and yet, the rep system was changed, again. Worse, everybody's rep was deleted, again. If you've the time give the thread a look, the yeas and nays alone make for an interesting read. Chuck's stance in particular.

Creating drama isn't a staff function. Yet now we're gonna start another rep poll and claim the results will matter this go around? Seems we're trolling the board with changes to the rep system, again.

As for what to do now?

Dump the rep system, if only on a temporary basis. 6 months maybe?

Or

Restore the +/- affect on reputation and allow every members rep to count regardless of rep status

Or

Do nothing. Wordforge will roll on in spite of the rep system.


To be honest the second option has long had my vote. Put every member on equal footing and leave it alone.

Rep-warring has been limited to an "only positive rep counts" affair yet trolling via rep comment is as common as ever.

Keep in mind one of the selling points was "Staff folks won't have to monitor rep comments anymore!"

The thought is that we've had a while with the changed rep system, so what do people think and should we go back? It's not another change, it's a return to what we had before. A subtle distinction, to be sure, but a distinction nonetheless.

Someone refresh my memory...is this option available or was it one of the ones that couldn't be done for some reason?

I never claimed that. I only claimed--and, accurately so, I think--that it would take the value out of repwar. It's not worth going through 100 of someone's old posts and negging them anymore; it's just a waste of the neg-repper's time since they don't affect the person's reputation score.

As long as ANY rep system that allows comments remains in place, there will be the possibility that people will troll via rep comments.

If you want to avoid THAT, then eliminate the ability to add comments to rep. Allow a +1 for agree, a 0 for disagree, and no comments, and then the rep system really has no value other than lodging agreement/disagreement.

NOT THAT I'M ACTUALLY SAYING WE SHOULD DO THAT, of course.

If rep counts regardless of rep status, that also would remove the darker element of rep war, which is to take something away from other people.

Yes, essentially, that is an option*. My recollection is that the only thing we can't do is have two different displayed values -- "agrees", "disagrees", "comments" -- be worth the same amount of points.

[?=*Technical Caveat]Anyone actually at max red (that is, negative 2.1 billion-ish) would still not be able to negrep. But max red + 1 would still be able to.[/?]

So we would have to have agrees = +2 and disagrees = +1 or something of that nature?

That is an option, but not at all what I was getting at. What I was saying (and I think this is what Clyde was getting at) is that it's entirely possible to set the reputation power to 1 (instead of 0) if one's own reputation is less than 0.

So it is possible to have

People in Red = +1 when pos repping; -1 when neg repping

People in Green = +1 when pos repping; -1 when neg repping

When returning to past practice?

Because that would be ideal if it can be done.

Would this change give previously valueless neg-reps a -1 value? In other words, would this change affect current rep scores?

Yes.

No. Once a rep is set, its point value never changes, though what that point value displays as (agrees, comments, disagrees) can.

Then eventually I think we should do a poll asking the membership if they would prefer to keep NuRep the way it is now or if they would prefer the old rep game except everyone can have their rep count, losing no essential functionality.

If the people decide to restore rep again, can we also make it so everyone starts at 0 in the new year? A few people thought this was a good idea and made it more meaningful.

Rep is tetchy.

First we do the poll finding out which paradigm they prefer, then we can have a poll and see if the new year restart is popular enough.

Reset rep again just this new year or every new year?

I'm starting think that maybe the first option is the way to go.

Is it possible to disable smileys showing in rep in peoples control panels?