Yeah...I'm bringing it around again...

I think we should consider making all reps = zero points or all reps equal +1 if you want to keep the "post encouragement" factor of the system.

I'm sick and tired of having to police something so stupid as colored square "wars".

Besides, the "wars" have become too much of a focus on what should be a discussion board.

Then, agree, disagree on any forum and who cares? It will only be an issue when there is trolling in the comments and that is easy to spot when it happens.

Thoughts?

I am in favor. Getting tired of REP IS SERIOUS BIDNESS my own self.

Which do you think would be better?

A zero point system?

Or a system where any rep = 1 Pos thus keeping the rep standings "competition" in a minor way?

I'd lean toward no points, just use the "agree/disagree" part.

Can we make a pos-rep worth +1 and a negrep worth 0?

That would allow the positive aspect (recognition of valuable contribution) to remain, allow disagreements to be registered using the system, and eliminate the usefulness of repwar.

Nice idea.

I like that idea as well.

I'm not opposed to Paladin's idea. But, and just IMHO, I say remove points from the equation all together. Just do away with the points once and for all and call it a day.

They have to be worth different signs, either +/-, or +/0 (or 0/-, I suppose,) with some hackery, in order to register as agrees/disagrees. I could also add back the "comments" for 0-valued rep (and if I get really inspired, I might even be able to add a 3rd radio button - no guarantees there, though).

I'm not in favor of changing the system. I don't think it would affect the incidence of repwar. It's just as bad to have "X disagrees!" spammed over all of a user's posts, even if there's no point loss associated with it. And it'd just get worse outside the RR/GR if we cease warning for that because there's no point loss. And everyone already has the option to just turn it off - there's no such thing as a one-sided repwar.

That said, I'm not opposed to a value-reset - everyone back to 10.

Technical question.

I know we have to reset to 10 because then no one could give rep. But, if you reset it to 0, you could still "comment", with the hacks we already have in place right? That may be a simple answer to this. Reset the whole shebang to 0 points. Then everyone can comment, but no one can give or receive points.

Speaking for myself, I like the positive rep aspect. I like it that, if you sort the membership by reputation, (most) all of the good, long-term members come to the top. I think that, if you want a "Who's Who" of Wordforge, the first 50-100 names in that list are it. So, I certainly do not want my points (or any of yours) reset to 0.

I think rep-warring is useless if it does not drive down anyone's rep score. Neg rep old posts all you want; it doesn't change anything. If neg reps don't count for anything, then I would be amused to find that someone had spent a whole bunch of time neg-repping my old posts. "Keep working, boys...it don't harm me none."

And it would be nice to be able to "disagree" without feeling like you're staging a rep attack on them. I almost never give a neg rep, certainly not unless the comment is so attrocious that it demands dinging someone's reputation.

If it's doable, I lean towards Paladin's take. People do enjoy the positive aspects of the rep system after all. If the "bite" is taken out of the "disagrees" then the people who want to use it for simple disagreement won't be accused of "attacking" anyone.

If people get out of joint over actual disagreement, well, that is just a "grow the fuck up" moment, don't you think?

Hopefully this change isn't being considered because the current system is too much of a hassle for staff folks.

We've been down this road many times before and it always seems to lead to the same conclusion, generally speaking it's best to leave the rep system alone.

I disagree. The agrees/disagrees, right on the post, is the bigger sting than the point total. Someone can always choose to turn off their total rep score, or once they're above 1500 or below -1500, there's no way to know the score (unless you look up the hover text levels). A bunch of disagrees on a series of posts does far more damage to one's reputation (which is a measure of what other people think, not what you think) than the change in the reputation score indicates - the score change happens once, but the PDA is displayed every time someone looks at the post. That's only amplified if we were to effectively get rid of the reputation score.

I think the current system is good. It could stand some tweaking - I think I should try to bring back "X comments:", for one, and I wouldn't mind a way to opt out of the PDA hack if your rep score display is turned off (but that might not be a good hack to put in; could cause performance problems) - but I think wholesale overhaul is unnecessary and the ideas here would be counterproductive.

I've re-enabled "X comments:".

I've investigated, and while not trivial, and involving 3 separate hacks, two in PHP, one in templates, I *can* do a third radio button for neutral rep.

If negreps are 0 points, you can still have the PDA (I like that term) but the incentive for repwar goes out the window. Particularly in the Red Room the negrep will still be effective, because one can add things like "Idiot!" to the message.

If there are "agree" and "disagree" choices, there's no need for a third option.

I disagree. Having it be known that lots of people disagree with your posts still affects your reputation, regardless of whether or not it affects score. Which means we've still got to police the other forums (or rather, respond to reports of repwarring there) - it's only words on a screen, but so is flaming and trolling.

And if we're not going to stop policing repwar outside the RR/GR, then there's no point to getting rid of negrep.

Who cares if someone negreps a whole lotta old posts, particularly if it does NOTHING to your reputation level? How much time do any of us spend reading old posts, anyway?

I say, if rep warriorers want to put disagreements on a whole bunch of old posts, let 'em. To the extent that rep is valuable--and I think it is--it's only the score that matters. I think any person with half a brain who sees five or six vile disagreements to some innocuous post is going to know it's rep war anyway.

I'm pretty certain that if negreps carry no points, people will quit using them for repwar. But even if I'm wrong, so what? It will be a phenomenal waste of their own time.

I see your (O2C's) point that negreps could still affect perception, but (presuming the rep warriors will even bother), you'd have to read a lot of old posts that were rep-bombed to get that impression. And considering the bulk of our existing conversation is in the Red Room--where rep warring is already legal--that will hardly add up to anything.

And if *really* wanted to finish rep war, maybe we could bring back locking of old posts...

Did this action contribute to the current slowdown?

^If the slowdown continues I'll remove it again, but I don't see how it could, unless two elseif's are massively slower than an else in PHP.

I think it's silly to give in to the notion that it's bad for someone's reputation if people disagree with them. The entire usefulness of the system is to say "I agree" or "I disagree" with a particular post. It's having the points and the notion that something is being taken away from others that get people worked up over it.

Once you remove negrep, no one loses anything and people can use the system as it's intended instead of some retarded zero-sum game that practically eclipses actual discussion.

Any more thoughts on this Lanzman?

Still likin' the idea of rep without points, myself.

Can you imagine the howling if we did that? It would be glorious.

True...there will be howling if we just remove the negs as well. When the babies lose their "weapon" it will be epic shitstorm time.

Why get rid of the positives with the negative aspects of the system though? Many people enjoy those who are not abusing anything.

By and large people enjoy the rep system as is, and there just isn't sufficient reason to fix what isn't broken.

Again, we've been down this road many times before and it always seems to lead to the same conclusion, generally speaking it's best to leave the rep system alone.

Really?

We have had people leave and never come back because of it. We have people who obsessively bully others with it, to the point some people can't even see the system as anything else anymore. We have people who do nothing but focus on rep to the exclusion of any other participation. We have days where threads about rep are outnumbering other threads and all this shit is over some little squares. We've allowed little squares to have more meaning than they ever should have.

By and large, what we have is a handful of dedicated rep warriors who are very loud and a majority of people who either don't care or don't speak up because anyone seen to disagree that rep is in fact an issue becomes the next target of mockery and rep war.

We sit here and claim it's meaningless and then let a handful of assholes give it a meaning it never should have had.

Frankly, this is a discussion board and people are it's lifeblood. When little squares and bullying with them to drive people off started happening, that should have been sufficient reason to fix what clearly is broken. Rep is not more important than the posters. People have had to be banned over the use of these stupid squares, again, eroding the membership base and making rep more important than the people here.

There was a time it was mostly silly and in good fun but at some point it became a weapon of choice and there is very little humor or fun left in how many people are using it. Leaving it alone pretty much means agreeing with the rep warriors, what they do and turning a blind eye to the consequences of it and I'm just not so sure we should anymore.

I think we could end all the of rep-warring without ending the positive value of the rep system if we can just make negreps worth zero.

That's all well and good. We get it. You and Tamar have said as much thrice, at least. But, I've now read the whole thread twice. The big question is, is what you propose possible? If it's not, then there's no point in continuing down this line of thought.

Past and future 0-point reps have to say the same thing. I can make that agrees, disagrees, or comments, but not more than one. Everyone who's in the red who reps anyone will display disagrees regardless of the radio button chosen. [-]I don't believe I can make reps given from posters in the red count without a PHP hack on the magnitude of offering a third radio button, but I'll double-check.[/-]

The crossed out bits are incorrect. This is an easy one, assuming the option works as documented.