Yup.....I'm offended.

BAN THE WITCH!!!!!!11!!!1!!

Looks like that derep script is back.
That didn't take Wakkalo and Alaric long. :P

And now apparently the trolls are impotently striking back by downvoting people who support the moderation. Is any more proof of the rep system being beyond meaningless required? It is entirely beyond me how or why anyone would give a crap about that number now.

pimpmonkey is getting fucked more than all of us.

At least you and I can claim to being obnoxious in here, he doesn't do anything to anyone.

But that's mostly cute. Just like the death threats (full disclosure : i feel a bit sad to not have ever received any of these), it works as some sort of validation. It defines what Fables called "the other camp", and its nature. And confirms the role it's been having in these forums.

I see it as a last squeek. Which is nice.

I really don't understand this. Both the downvoting and your response about people not caring about the rep system. By "why anyone would" do you mean "why anyone else would"? Because you seem to care enough to talk about "the rep system" right then and there.

As for the "downvoting", I don't see anything in the forums for doing that, if I'm correct in understanding you're saying downvoting is directly related to reputation. Forum reputation seems rather…um…otherworldly and indiscernible. I mean, I don't see any connection with what people are posting and their reputations. It seems like reputation likely has more to do with their game-playing abilities, as this is a forum about games and gaming. Or maybe correct/helpful answers to questions?

Hmm, this is seeming off-topic for this thread about moderation…

Yes, that number. I don't get its connection with downvoting, possibly because I don't know how that's done. And I've yet to make a connection between that number and someone's behavior or mood, such as expressed in forum posts. People are different from moment to moment. So, seems like it must be for something else?

Your posts get upvoted- the number goes up. Your posts get downvoted- the number goes down. That's it.

Hence the need for better moderation. lol

Lots of squeeks, that won't cease so soon. Rep system has to go next. But I suspect it will.

I guess it's been a while since I've read the forum rules, likely because a long while ago they were about as easy to located as any other type of support in the support section, of which discovering the support section has been always a lot of guessing on my part.

Anyway, the link provided in this thread's opening post is very helpful for me and those support pages seem to have been revamped from what little I recollect. In particular and pertinently, there's a link on the lefthand side of that page: How does “rate this post” work?. Rating posts is described as "a moderation-by-community feature".

I'm a bit ashamed to admit I've been using the minus/plus signs to hide/show posts. Somehow I have been selectively ignoring or not associating the words "rate this post" that appear next to them. Years of ignoring flashy ads of images and text on the Internet, perhaps? Ignoring distractions?

I noticed those minus/plus buttons seem to work as "always hide"/"always show", so when I return to thread I can easily skim past something I didn't find useful and spot the highlighted plus signs for that I did found useful. This is also helpful with especially long posts, as it shortens the page length. So, if I want see something I've hidden, then I select the plus sign. This has been a very useful and helpful feature for me.

However, it seems the minus/plus buttons are associated with the reputation of the person who created a post? Why in the world would my personal interest have anything to do with someone else's reputation???

Personally, I think if those buttons are going to be anything about someone else's reputation then there should also be a neutral button. I mean, what if I change my mind? What if I come to a different understanding? And what if it turns out not worthy of rating one way or the other? I think that's probably another reason why it wasn't clicking for me to associate minus/plus as a rating, that of not having a neutral button to return it back to an original state. It made more sense as hide/show because that truly is binary, whereas it's possible to not have an opinion on rating (hence no rating chosen).

OTOH, it would seem to make more sense to have an approval/disapproval button (if any at all) in the avatar menu on the lefthand side of a post, where it says: "view wishlist", "start conversation", "invite to friends", "user since ...". In that way, I would be able to keep track of how I myself have appreciated someone: the total number of posts that I have rated as appreciating and the total number I've rated as wishing I've never read. Two numbers.

Or how about this: just a checkmark. One checkmark next to the avatar. As such only one vote per person for rating a member. Not by post, just as a member that I have appreciated. In that way if someone has a low reputation all they have to do is find people who do like them and the people who don't like them can't keep picking on them. In contrast, the same people wouldn't be able to boost one person's reputation with repetitive votes. Anybody who does or doesn't like them has already voted once and only once, and certainly not per post. And of course, anybody can change they're mind and decide to change their vote. Hmm, though if it's just a checkmark then I guess the total number would never be less than zero. If negative numbers are desired, for example to allow the expressing of negativity towards a person (constructive avenging?), then I guess something like the minus/plus buttons would enable that possibility. But again, I believe there should be a neutral button in that case, too.

Anyway, the minus/plus buttons currently work much better for me as hide/show. If I have to think of them as rating a post, and therefore rating a person's mood or form of expression, which in turn is passing nit-picky judgement on every little thing someone else says, well... ... ... I'm thinking I'll just read less of the forums... if at all. Or maybe I'll just persist trudging through hundreds of posts without a means of hide/show. I don't know for sure. Knowing that I'm judging someone else's mood-of-the-moment or witticism-of-the-moment or their personal sense of humor just doesn't seem appealing to me.

And the collection of points that a bunch of strangers has given someone else does not in any way get me to trust that someone when I don't even have a relationship with that person in the first place. That, and it's not unusual for me to wonder how in the world they ever got such a high rating posting anything like they're posting... And maybe "popularity" is too common to impress me? I'm sure there are a lot of factors.

In particular, I think I'm quite a bit peeved to find out that I've been misusing the minus/plus buttons, and that I'm not going to feel comfortable using them in a manner that I found useful anymore... :-(

The whole idea of the minus/plus buttons as rate-a-post being a "moderation-by-community feature" has got me thinking.

What would really help me decide whether someone is trustworthy (reputable, right?) is being able to read what someone posts. And frankly, for me that is what does someone in: what they have done. So the reputation number might be longterm, but if the post that I am reading doesn't support the reputation number then I'm going to feel less like trusting the moderation-by-community.

I'm thinking the avatar menu could use a couple more links for that user: most recent posts, and high-rated posts. Links to those two search results would give me information that I could use to decide about them, fi for whatever reason I need to decide to about them.

I figure it this way. With the listing of a member's high-rated posts I can review what the community liked. In general, that tells me more about the community than it does about the member, and I think that's what the reputation number says, too. However, since reputation can be abused by either artificially boosting it or degrading it, the list of high-rated posts could reveal such boosting or degradation more easily because those posts (or at least the most recent) would be easily reviewable. Of course, this opens up the possibility that a member might get boosted for the purpose of defaming the reputation, for example by having people who don't like that person highly-rate their low quality posts. Their reputation goes up instead of down, but the link to easily view their high-rate posts reveals low quality and thereby defames them as having "friends" trying to boost their reputation.

As such, I myself could decide whether I agree with those posts getting a high rating. I don't mean so I can vote for/against them myself, but simply to read and decide whether I agree with the "community" (who might simply be a few friends, unbeknownst by the larger community). More importantly, I can get a sense about how the community gets along with that member, if I were to assume their high-rated posts are truly appreciated.

On the other hand even if those high-rated post do look suspicious (or reveal a different taste from the community than my own), there would be the "most recent posts" link that would reveal what the member has posted most recently. In essence, that list of most recent posts (not necessarily rated) is the member speaking for itself, and so it's the member that does in itself by speaking for itself, by representing itself.

In other words, regardless of anonymity there is an easily reviewable record. Nobody need be called-out anymore, no name-calling necessary. Just tell new members to "check the most recent posts of so-and-so and decide for yourself".

Maybe there is already a way to get those two lists for any member? Right now I don't see that as possible in the forum. I've tried using the search to find member's posts, but it only returns posts that mention a member by name (and only if they haven't changed their name).

What those two lists would do is provide each individual the means to decide, the information that is relevant, rather than rely upon the ambiguous and mysterious reputation-by-sometimes-voting-on-posts. Preferably, those two links in each member's avatar menu: "most recent posts", "high-rated posts".

With that said, would there even need to be a number for reputation anymore? The reputation is easily discernible by being able to get a listing of any members postings and simply reading those most recent posts. Though, it seems like the avatar menu for a member is only available on a post that member makes, that's okay because frankly that's the only time it's important or worthwhile to check what someone has been posting.

Just some thoughts about the so-called moderation-by-community feature represented by minus/plus rating buttons, and I guess how the "community" rating the posts isn't always the community. And how two links to search results listings ("most recent posts", "high-rated posts") about each member might help balance out decision making for individuals reading the forum. And perhaps encourage self-discipline of members rather than community-witchhunt-popularity-disciplining. I mean, off the top my head these are my thoughts at the moment... particularly that I'd rather decide for myself than trust a bunch of strangers that seem to fume at and disagree with each other so much.

A "most recent posts" feature would unfortunately massively facilitate ritual downvoting. Thankfully, this forum will not receive a design upgrade in the years to come.

The removal of the present reputation system is the only likely way out of the present heap of shit.