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

I'm not sure I understand...

How exactly will this work? What is actually being changed?

It's simply true. Every time we've addressed the issue in the past we've come to roughly the same conclusion.

Instead of asking for links and whatnot perhaps we should agree that diversity of opinion is a good thing.

An apathic majority actually diminishes the urgency of changing rep.

We simply can't render the rep system meaningless, at best we can make it bland, boring, and one less draw for WF.

Let's keep in mind that we all want WF to succeed. And I appreciate your passionate response yet when it comes to rep I'm in the apathic majority.



Here are a few ideas to get the discussion back on track -

• Explore technical possibilities
• Include more members in the discussion
• Turn off the rep system for a couple of weeks

The details don't matter to me. Either remove neg points and leave positive, or remove the point system entirely leaving only comments. Just anything to slow down the nonsense that happens under the current system.

We can't remove the point system without removing the ability to have separate agrees/disagrees PDA. The closest thing to that we could do would be to set the minimum number of points for a rep to count to be a large negative value, so that being in the red doesn't matter.

Just set it to zero so it's still agree/disagree but with no points at all.

It's functional and makes "war" literally pointless.

If we do that does it zero out everyone's rep score? Cuz if we change our minds later, everyone starts at zero again.

Which might not be a bad thing.

No, that's the one thing I can't do. Pos/neg reps *must* be worth different amounts. Negs don't have to adversely affect score, *or* Posreps don't have to positively affect score, but not both. Otherwise all reps show up as X agrees or X disagress or (as at the moment) X comments.

Then I'd be inclined to keep positives worth +1 and Negs worth nothing.

We might even want to zero everyone out first. Encourage participation....especially if we can make it so old posts before the date of the change can't be repped.

A whole new beginning...it could be interesting.

Pos rep = +1
Neg rep = 0
No change to existing score
Lock old posts so can't be repped desirable

(Yep, Elwood, that's the fourth time I said it. Just want to make sure ny opinion is noted if action is imminent.)

No problem. I agree with you. But, and it's a big but, I am in favor of resetting everyone to 10 since this would be a fundamental change in how the system works. I'd also recommend informing the membership 24-48 hours, or more if you do it over the weekend, before implementing any changes. I say that because it's going to require a rewrite, or simple abolishing, of the "rep waring" rule set.

Agreed.

I have to run to New York this weekend, so this would be a bad time to do it. Next weekend? Put out the notice around Wednesday and then make the change on Saturday?

Agreed.

The rep warring rule set could just go. The only issue left will be trolling in the comment section, but that can't be helped.

I think Elwood is right about starting at 10. Make it all new. And this is one of the people with the most to lose speaking!

To be clear the suggested plan is to -

• Reset everyone's rep
• Embrace a positive only rep system
• Lock all old threads

Essentially speaking that means we'll still have to police something so stupid as colored square "wars".

Sounds good to me.

I'd rather keep the old rep scores, but if everyone else favors a reset, I'll go along.

And I agree: eliminate the rep-warring rule set.

It's policing what we are already policing...trolling in the non-trolling forums.

I'm for this because I'm for trying new things and making things fresh once in awhile. Putting a positive spin on things instead of the near constant negativity that seems to go on around here.

The beauty of it is that if it really doesn't work and truly sucks we can always go back later. I just think it will be a nice change for us.

I don't believe posts can be locked against rep. Posts in locked threads are reppable (see Zombie on the last post of every closed thread in the Help Desk, for instance).

Once again I must register my disagreement with this new plan, or any plan that changes the sign of the value of either rep. It has the major drawback that posters in the red will have all their reps given show up as "disagrees", and even if we were to give them the ability to make their reps count, all their past reps whilst in the red will show up as disagrees.

It does have the merit, however, of being technically doable.

I'll also remind y'all that "no repwarring outside of the RR" was not part of the original rules; it was added in because it's a form of trolling, not because it was impacting the functioning of the board for a user. I suspect that with any change to the rep system, we'll be dealing with "He's trolling me by disagreeing with every post I make in every forum!" accusations again before too long. Any change at all short of eliminating negreps altogether will likely be ineffectual, and even that might not help: would we stand for a poster who replied to every post someone made in every forum with "I disagree!" and no other content? The rule needs to stay, or it will just have to be brought back, probably quickly.

If you really want to make the points not matter, just give people in the red the ability to affect rep score. Then literally the only consequence is the pixel colors on the screen, which don't have to be public, configurable by each user, by means of "turning off rep". It allows for the continued chastisement of the more irksome members of the community, in a cumulatively visible, but not functional, way. And if someone has his/her rep off, the trolls will never know whether or not someone is in the red or not.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not particularly in favor of that change either (I think it *is* valuable to make certain members' reputation given ineffective, in a decidedly democratic fashion, even if many of the voters are trolls), but I think it's less drastic than the proposed alternatives, technically doable, doesn't wipe rep history, and belies less the position that the staff don't care about rep wars (we care so little that we'll make it easier to keep fighting them), which every technically feasible change to the system mentioned in this thread does to some degree. We *can* experiment with removing the no repwarring outside the RR/GR rule, its justification retconned to be that it was interference with board functions for a member†, which, no longer being an issue, no longer warrants the rule. But I highly suspect we'll just lose members being hounded by the trolls across the board, which will ultimately necessitate bringing back the rule.

Negreps are tools, sometimes used by trolls, not a troll in and of itself. Banning the tool won't change the behavior.

†which is a rather weak argument, given that enough negreps in the RR/GR *now* affect rep functioning in the rest of the board, but if no one thinks about it too hard we might get away with it for a while.

I know this is true.

We need to (re-evaluate our goals and motivations) come up with a better plan.

Kudos for making it a possibility, yet there's little point in doing something simply because it is doable.

Me too.

If we close the board, reset everyone to 10 points, change the system, and then reopen the board, there will not then, nor ever, be any posters in the red. If someone had 10 points and we "disagree" one quadrillion times, their rep will still be 10.

He seems concerned that because it will say "disagree" that it will be enough to cause shitstorms all by itself.

Personally, I think that's going a bit far in protecting feelings. Who cares if someone disagrees with every post you make if it can't effect your use of the board?

Didn't we already agree to this a while back? Or was it simply allowing posting a rep neutral message?

Anyway, yes everyone's rep should count regardless of reputation.

I'm confused. Why will it say disagree? No one will be in the red, now or ever, if everyone is reset to 10 points.

Going forward, true. But not the case for existing rep given. Resetting everyone to 10 points doesn't mean they won't have ever been in the red, and rep given is *scored* according to the status of the poster at the time its given, but *displayed* according to the rules at the time the page is loaded. All existing "comments" become "disagrees" regardless of whether the poster intended to agree or disagree.

Because affecting the use of the board wasn't why the rule was put in in the first place. Indeed, before the repwars started, we had a shitstorm over being negged into the red in the RR affected the use of rep on the rest of the board. We punted on it as technically infeasible to fix while maintaining the 0-threshold for rep given to count (and it still is), and eventually the storm died down. It wasn't until much later that the repwars started and the no-trolling rule had to be extended to cover rep.

Imagine if we had no rep system, then if every other post in, say, 14th Doc's Blue Room thread is, say, Sokar saying "I disagree!", it's still trolling (by spam), even if it's not flaming. You disagree? How about if Sokar gets a dozen other posters to do the same thing every time 14th Doc posts in his thread, or even just saying "I like pie!"? It's the pattern, not the content, that matters here. If we didn't do anything about that, we would lose membership.

And if the rule is good enough for posts, it's good enough for rep, IMO.

Negative.

Agreed to in principle, however at the time there wasn't a feasible way of doing so. I've since discovered a way (see earlier this thread), although it's an quite involved, and the board might need to be taken down for an hour to do it. I'd also want to update the board software first, since the more hacks of this nature (PHP hacks) we do, the harder it is to update, because the hacks have to be redone, possibly in different ways.

You're thinking of adding the "comments" bit which just allows 0-scored rep (because the person is in the red, not because it was chosen to be 0 points) not to show up as "agrees".

I disagree, but not enough to fight that battle. I'd be okay with changing that.

I appreciate the clarification. But, I don't see the big deal. That doesn't bother me at all.

Except disagrees in rep comments do not disrupt threads they way 20 disagree posts would. You have to be truly of the thinnest possible skin if people disagreeing with you sends you into a tizzy.

Trolling is trolling, whether or not it has an effect.

ETA:

I think this is a good rule.