I'm one of the cowards and cretins who downrated vexxum's post, and i think i had valid reasons to do so. I'm sorry, but words can't convince me. I don't buy into this redemption crap, just like i didn't trust anasto's apologies (and time proved that i was right about anasto, he came back and scammed more people even after apologizing himself). He has to prove with actions, not words. Words don't mean shit to me.

For me he's still a beggar. Heck, he went as far as making fake accounts to upvote his posts. What an asshole.

So, let me see if i got it right. A random internet dude comes into the forum, starts begging for free games (for fuck's sake, he asked for MW3 and AC3 which are very expensive games, even in the thread where he presents himself he begged for free stuff), makes stupid threads (that girls x boys BS), makes a thread asking why he got downrepped and states that he wants 20 rep to join the GOG gifting club, makes fake accounts to uprep himself and i'm supposed to upvote his posts? Give me a fucking break Gamerager.

By the way, get off your high horse, you're not the paladin of morality in shining armor to teach us about morals or how to behave on a forum.

If he proves to be nice enough people will forget (including me) what he has done in the past. But like i said, he has to prove that with actions, you can't possibly expect that everyone will start to like him just because he made a thread apologizing for how much of an asshole he was. Also, the recent scam events made people much more hostile when a newcomer comes here begging for free stuff. You have to understand it.

Does rep even matter that much? I got a few downrepped posts for stupid reasons, yet i'm not bitching about it. It happens, there are users who downrep posts just for expressing a different opinion. Just move on.

If you keep looking, you're.. *gulp* BOUND to find it...

*Shakes his head at his own joke*

This whole thread almost feels like a gentleman's version of this:

http://xkcd.com/386/

Anyway, terrible jokes aside, I fall in the middle of both groups, as such, I did not up vote, or down vote. A plus is him apologizing (and if he is indeed 14, that is pretty good), still, it feels like this thread is a continuation of the exact same thing he was doing earlier (namely making threads to get rep). So while I say congrats on the apology, in a case like this, actions speak orders of magnitude louder than words,

With that being said, I've been on forums before where there was a person who jumped in before learning a bit about the community, and he grew to be a valuable member.

GameRager and Roman15 are great examples here.

I know, but the original post wasn't low rated, just the one where he clarified what he wrote and fixed a typo, so that's why I was wondering. Just thought it was weird.

What reasons do you consider valid? If you downrated his apology posts just because you still don't trust him/dislike him then imo those aren't valid reasons.
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I agree one shouldn't just take his words at face value but that doesn't mean people should keep low rating his posts(His nice posts I mean.) and dumping on him(Even if you don't trust his words.).
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So that means his unoffensive, non begging posts should be downrated? Because of stupid shit he did in the recent past & because a bad egg scammed some people here recently? How does that make sense....and how is that an example of how a mature community like GOG should act?
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Imo asking for games isn't that big a deal(People can just ignore such requests and move on, can't they?)...or at least not a big enough deal to deserve so much negativity thrown at him......and that Boys vs Girls thread was a fun idea(Again imo....i'm willing to bet if someone else who's been here longer made a similar thread it wouldn't have gotten such criticism.). Funny how people tell him to participate in the community then when he makes a "game" thread to do just that some people still complained.

And I didn't mean you should uprate his posts/uprate him just for apologizing(I even said this several times in this thread.).....I said people shouldn't uprate him just for apologizing(If they didn't want to.) or downrate his posts in here(Unless they were truly offensive/deserving of downrating, that is.).
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And who is qualified, then? One's past actions shouldn't disqualify them from commenting on an issue if they feel the need to and it shouldn't make them automatically unqualified to speak on the subject.
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I also believe he has/will have to earn most people's trust over time and with actions, but I think his apology was a nice start imo & don't like it when people pick on him(via downrating his apologies) just because they dislike him or still don't trust him. Don't trust him even after he apologized? Fine. Then tell him your thoughts on the matter in a calm, civil manner or ignore him & move on. Don't downrate his posts out of spite.

And no, downrating him/continuing to mistrust him(and other newcomers) just because others caused trouble here in the past isn't understandable(at least to me).
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Rep shouldn't matter, but everyone is different. Things that don't bother some might bother others. This doesn't mean things are unimportant just because we think they are(and vice versa).

Well, to the OP, as you can see by this thread, I see at least one other with a "low rated" post, so yeah, overall, it's a good idea to just ignore rep when it's so miniscule (or forever, haha).

Oh yeah, right Gamerager. Because begging for free stuff and making fake accounts is not being a jerk. That's some nice double standards right there.

A few of his other posts were low rated too....most of them were just him apologizing. (I am willing to bet if others didn't give him any +1s for his OP post that would've gone low rated as well.)

I get that some people are skeptical and want to withhold judgement until they see what he does over the coming weeks/etc, and I don't think they should uprate him just for apologizing, but low rating him out of spite seems unnecessarily harsh & unfair to me.

Oh no, he's a saint now that he made a thread apologizing for how much he fucked it up.

Please don't put words in my mouth. OP may have been a bit of a jerk in the beginning, but he seems to have stopped now. As such I called those who were being rude on it. If I would've seen OP acting rude I would've done the same.

(And no, I don't think begging for stuff automatically makes one a jerk. To me it depends on other factors like how often one begs/how they ask/etc.)

Let this be a lesson to all of us.

You don't have to be so hostile/rude, you know.

It's times like this I wish we had an ignore function(And possibly even that those you have on ignore can't rate your posts.). I wonder if anyone who says such people(Like OP) bother them would even use it if we had one, though.