Posted August 04, 2015
There are some issues with several of your suggestions:
DivisionByZero.620: ==Add a reputation cost to downvoting==
One forum I know has a downvote option where if you downvote some types of posts, you also lose reputation along with whoever you downvoted.
The GOG forums would benefit from this - people who make trash alts or abuse the downvote button will see their reputation take a dive. First: Everyone that down votes trash alts, as you call them, would also lose reputation by this suggestion. At that point, people are less likely to down vote the trash alts, because it is costing them to "help police the community", so the trash alts may not take nearly the dive you suggest.
And besides, it is a trash alt. Why does that troll behind it care what the trash alt's reputation is?
Second: I don't think anyone can come up with a post identification system that can't be abused.DivisionByZero.620: ==One reputation change per person per thread==
Currently, if some lowlife is running a downvote campaign against you, they can downvote you once per post. This just results in a toxic forum environment where people can potentially be punished for each post they make.
The solution:
Each person who downvotes/upvotes your posts in a thread can only affect your reputation once in that entire thread.
For example, if I post a thread,and then later post 2 replies (3 posts total), and then some lowlife downvotes all of them for no reason, then I only lose reputation equivalent to one downvote. If I post even more in that thread and the lowlife keeps downvoting my posts on site, I wouldn't lose any more reputation.
A similar rule would apply to upvoting: if you upvote every post that a user makes in one thread, the reputation effect would only count as one upvote.
The reputation change limits would only affect actual reputation; each vote would count normally toward a post being marked as high rated or low rated. Problem here: Anyone that continually provides help in the same thread can't get credit (such as it is) for continuing to help. Example from personal experience: User One installs a game to play, then creates a thread to ask a few questions before starting. User Two comes along and answers those questions. User One starts playing and has a few more questions, which User Two then answers. Rinse and repeat. User Two is limited in getting rep for being a helper as both users have one bookmarked thread for the Q&A. The work around would be for User One to create a new thread every time he had a new question, which User Two might or might not see.
Second Problem: Damage to rep for being a jerk is limited. A troll gets free reign to crap all over a thread after taking that initial hit. Other users either have to migrate to a new thread (with the troll happily following along), or just suffer through the trolling.DivisionByZero.620: ==No more silent votes; require that people post in a thread before upvoting/downvoting anyone==
For the most part, silent downvotes aren't useful, except to prevent threads that are obviously spam. If someone's posting crap, it helps to explain why the downvoted post is crap.
Obvious solution: "MAHAYO" (Make A Human Answer You). Hide/disable the reputation buttons until the user has posted in the thread.
Even better, if a bunch of trash alts want to mass downvote someone, they now each have to post in the thread (time-consuming for lowlifes who abusively downvote) The community would now be able to see the trash alts and also have the chance to hammer trash alts with downvotes. You want to require people to participate in spam threads before being able to mark them as spam? I'm guessing you didn't help out when the korean spam bots came visiting, some time back.
One forum I know has a downvote option where if you downvote some types of posts, you also lose reputation along with whoever you downvoted.
The GOG forums would benefit from this - people who make trash alts or abuse the downvote button will see their reputation take a dive.
And besides, it is a trash alt. Why does that troll behind it care what the trash alt's reputation is?
Second: I don't think anyone can come up with a post identification system that can't be abused.
Currently, if some lowlife is running a downvote campaign against you, they can downvote you once per post. This just results in a toxic forum environment where people can potentially be punished for each post they make.
The solution:
Each person who downvotes/upvotes your posts in a thread can only affect your reputation once in that entire thread.
For example, if I post a thread,and then later post 2 replies (3 posts total), and then some lowlife downvotes all of them for no reason, then I only lose reputation equivalent to one downvote. If I post even more in that thread and the lowlife keeps downvoting my posts on site, I wouldn't lose any more reputation.
A similar rule would apply to upvoting: if you upvote every post that a user makes in one thread, the reputation effect would only count as one upvote.
The reputation change limits would only affect actual reputation; each vote would count normally toward a post being marked as high rated or low rated.
Second Problem: Damage to rep for being a jerk is limited. A troll gets free reign to crap all over a thread after taking that initial hit. Other users either have to migrate to a new thread (with the troll happily following along), or just suffer through the trolling.
For the most part, silent downvotes aren't useful, except to prevent threads that are obviously spam. If someone's posting crap, it helps to explain why the downvoted post is crap.
Obvious solution: "MAHAYO" (Make A Human Answer You). Hide/disable the reputation buttons until the user has posted in the thread.
Even better, if a bunch of trash alts want to mass downvote someone, they now each have to post in the thread (time-consuming for lowlifes who abusively downvote) The community would now be able to see the trash alts and also have the chance to hammer trash alts with downvotes.
