I agree! At the very least, keep the number of posts made. As much as I recognize that the current rep and upvote/downvote system is flawed and needs to be reworked, it would be nice to be able to visually identify those GOG members who have contributed greatly to keeping this community fun and positive over the years.

Perhaps, instead of a star-based reputation system, a "badge" or some other visual clue (like the blue highlight assigned to identify GOG staff) could be assigned next to these special, respected community members? And only a GOG staff member can assign such "badges" next to their avatars? I'm just spontaneously brainstorming here. Just an idea. Sorry if it sounds stupid.

What a useful feature this would be! Hover mouse over community member's avatar. Drop down menu: view profile, view wishlist, view forum activity! Users should maintain their right to hide profile and wishlist, but their history of forum posts should remain public and searchable (as the forum itself is public, anyway).

I began working on a tool doing just that a few years ago, alongside MaGog. I intended to call it DemaGog. But then GOG released GWENT...

GET RID OF IT!

This because of all the ABUSE I have suffered in the past with spiteful users on the forums.

So what was the problem with the report system? How are we suppose to report a offensive post? Or are mods going to make sure and read all posts?

As I wrote, the report function should remain. Just the downvote-functionality should disappear. Just replace the downvote (-) button with a report button, that has no other function than to send a message to the mods. No 'low rated' posts, no negative rep. Just a report of serious infringements of the forum rules, when necessary.

This, Or even just a Hide Posts / users function!

Maybe you and I come from different eras, but forums are literally one of the cheapest things to implement alongside reader feeds and email. Especially since many of them are GPL or otherwise permissively licensed. As this neat table shows, many of them are still updating to this day. (And that's not even accounting for the fact that usenet was so cheap that ISPs used to host them gratis.)

And in fact the D programming forum uses custom software that in addition to being a forum like interface is also: an NNTP client, a mailing list archive, an ATOM aggregator and an IRC bot.

Now sure, none of those would look anywhere as {knocks on plasterboard walls} like this, but who even wants fancy CSS these days anyway?

I've seen forums on websites that single individuals are running as a hobby that are more functional and professional than this one. It says all that needs to be said, doesn't it?

I don't buy the excuses.

Best thing to do is

-Remove the downvote but keep the upvote to see what post is usefull
-Put the number of post where the reputation number was to see the activity and the number of upvote the user got
-add "hide" and "report" option instead of the downvote option

Yes & No. Some things are feasible or plausible and some aren't. And we don't really know how much work.

Yes & Maybe. Do you have any facts to point us to?

Do you have any facts to point us to to prove this?

Possibly.

No it isn't, and they have already suggested they could disable the up+down voting in a similar way ... hide it. They have asked us as a community how we feel about that ... and at a rough guess it is mixed, perhaps 50/50.

That said, hiding the REP count is mostly just a psychological thing, because in reality the UP and DOWN voting is still occurring, and you can still check your Settings to see it.

What you can't currently do is check the REP count of other members. So they might as well disable or hide the UP and DOWN voting ability, because as it is now it is kind of meaningless. No-one else can see your REP value.

Well, GOG did ask for feedback, and not just thank you.
That said, many of us are indeed grateful GOG have started to do something ... they now need to complete that.

NO THEY HAVEN'T, and no they can easily do more.
As I said above, this is mostly a psychological thing they have done, that will really only help those that need such.
In reality, upvoting and downvoting is still happening and still being counted and still having impact on new users and those with low or minus REP.

It is a bit like sweeping the dust under your carpet, and no more effective really.

Yep, certainly more than we had come around to expecting, and we thank them, but they need to finish it off properly.

In summary I can only say, we have gained a psychological benefit, not that much different from the script my good buddy TheDcoder made available to everyone. We have also lost the benefit to make some kind of judgment on other members based on their REP value ... even though that was of course flawed.

We're not talking about money they'd have to spend to get a license. We're talking about the amount of work they'd have to put into this (people like to get paid for work). Imagine the outrage when GOG would come up with a "Good News! We have a new forum software. All the old threads and your posts are gone and you'll have to register a new forum account that is separate from your GOG account!" post.

GOG's web developers aren't exactly known to belong to the best out there...
I don't have the time to search right now, but there were posts from the blues saying exactly this.

Not to mention the amount of work needed to integrate the new forum with the rest of the GOG environment (e.g. login, wishlist, friends, galaxy, profile, privacy settings, game specific forums, etc., etc.). As a programmer with 30+ years of experience, I would shudder at the thought.

Yep, while doing a new forum would grant some great benefits and get rid of some onerous or flawed elements, it is so late in the life cycle of GOG now, that fixing the existing forum is probably a better idea ... from GOG's perspective.