[Luca]

It would be nice if you could add postcount and reputation back in the member list, just to make it easier to sort and find people in the list. At least postcount.

[zippy]

Quantity does not equal quality?
So does this mean that when I tell people that Brad is the smartest person I've ever knoweded on the interweb, I may be wrong?

I think if a person spends much time on here, you quickly get a feel for who tends to post more simply by 'running into' them more often. It also seems easy to guage who is more 'respected' around here by the way people interact with each other. That level of respect only comes from long standing, worthwhile contributions.

Or fear. /sacrifices chicken to Murbot/. - edit /and a beer/

[RichieB]

Originally Posted by scratt Can we get a Pie Chart of this, and perhaps some Exit Polls before the Final Vote is in....

Sheesh! Next thing we know, you might start complaining about Hanging Chads(tm)

[scratt]

Originally Posted by RichieB Sheesh! Next thing we know, you might start complaining about Hanging Chads(tm)

Now that you mention it I am a bit suspicious that the poll is a closed one, so we have no way of knowing who is actually voting.. And I've seen a few dodgy poll results recently on AN, where the Overlords seem to have, shall we say, 'influenced' things..

We're all being controlled... Woooooooooooooooooo

*dons tin foil hat*

[_Ω_]

Originally Posted by scratt Now that you mention it I am a bit suspicious that the poll is a closed one

[scratt]

Originally Posted by _Ω_

'Closed' - What I mean is it's not public, in terms of seeing what people voted..

EDIT - Duh.. It is open. I missed the links for some reason! Too much dope! AGAIN!

[RichieB]

SCRATT

[colivigan]

Originally Posted by scratt 'Closed' - What I mean is it's not public, in terms of seeing what people voted..

Yes it is. Click on one of the vote counts.

[alcimedes]

As soon as beer hits 14,000,000 votes, you know murbot interfered.

the taco count is higher than it should be. I added the option to leave them in the userCP after the poll started, and a few folks who'd placed taco votes wanted to be switched.

edit: fixed the taco vote count, although you can't move the names.

[scratt]

Originally Posted by RichieB SCRATT

That's really funny!!

[scratt]

Ha Ha!! Seeing who voted what is really funny too..

Definitely way too much special tobacco in my rollies tonight!

[hiltond]

Well fear not my friend. The poll results seem to indicated people want post count back and think you like tacos. Nothing seems off about these results to me.

[Majost]

Originally Posted by hiltond Well fear not my friend. The poll results seem to indicated people want post count back and think you like tacos. Nothing seems off about these results to me.

Yeah... but, the counts are wrong

Four people are listed as voting for "Leave them in the user CP," but a total tally of 7 votes is registered.

And 11 voted for "I bet scratt likes tacos," but only 9 votes registered.

Does vB use the Diebold method of counting votes?

[scratt]

Originally Posted by hiltond Well fear not my friend. The poll results seem to indicated people want post count back and think you like tacos. Nothing seems off about these results to me.

Shame we're a dictatorship here.

Perhaps we should start a "Dissident Posters" movement.. Vive la Revolution!

[Luca]

It's possible that some people voted and then wanted to change their vote. For moderators, at least, it's impossible to change the votes, but it is possible to change the scores. I am pretty sure admins are able to change the votes themselves, but it's still easier to just change the scores. That might be what's leading to the discrepancy.

[alcimedes]

See my post above about that exact situation.

After the voting started, I added options to keep post counts visible. Three people who voted for tacos wanted to change their votes. I just swapped out numbers in this case.

[scratt]

Originally Posted by alcimedes See my post above about that exact situation. After the voting started, I added options to keep post counts visible. Three people who voted for tacos wanted to change their votes. I just swapped out numbers in this case.

[curiousuburb]

I voted for 'i bet scratt likes tacos' before a beer option existed.

<Woot... post 3k!>

[BlueRabbit]

Originally Posted by scratt Shame we're a dictatorship here.

Dennis: You're foolin' yourself. We're living in a dictatorship! A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working class...
Dennis' Mother: Oh there you go bringing class into it again!

[Brad]

Originally Posted by curiousuburb Reputation (in an ideal world) might be a means of validating that signal to noise ratio, but it's particularly useful for those who aren't longtime members and don't already know the tone and tenor of most of our poster's writing. It's also a handy place for gauging feedback on what the membership likes or doesn't like about your posts (without taking the relevant thread OT). This can help reinforce good habits/sense of humour/etc. Or not.

Unfortunately, in the real world we're seeing people abuse the reputation system by patting each other on the back or attacking others for issues wholly unrelated to the post to which the reputation comment was assigned. It reminds me of the juvenile self-congratulatory popularity contest bullshit that is prevalent on websites like MySpace. I hate MySpace for that.

This kind of juvenile behavior is perfectly okay when the volume is light. I think nearly everyone has "abused" the system a little bit with useless or irrelevant comments. It's a problem, however, when that behavior becomes so epidemic that we the staff are being called upon to moderate "reputation attacks" and are asked to attempt to correct or nullify them.

[drewprops]

What a pain in the ass for an administrator.
I would shut it down in a heartbeat even though I really like the idea (though I was blissfully unaware of my abundant collection of green dots until it became a topic of discussion around here).

Even bothering to discuss ways around the abuse of green dots would give me a headache and make me very grouchy, nice that Brad and the Adminettes have been so civil about this insignificant issue (who's going to remember their reputation dots 100 years from now?).

IF I were trying to solve it I would put post counts back up on the boards, make it so that reputation dots were rationed out in tiny doses so that they became incredibly valuable... say you only get one every three months and that you lose them at the end of the year (so no hoarding). There is no "buy in" point, so there's no mad scramble to accrue a higher post count to begin getting green dots to spend on other people.

Other, special privileges would be given (and taken back when necessary) at the whims of the admins, voting in secret council, at midnight GMT, wearing dark robes and petting furry black cats.

[InactionMan]

So the problem is that people like the rep system so long as they're always getting positive reps but figure they need to start crying to the staff when they get dinged?

I'll admit to abusing the rep system during the deluge of rep related threads but once it died down so did my constant rep vomiting. I think post count doesn't matter much but the rep system was a generally fair indicator of what a lot of ANers thought of other members.

[Windowsrookie]

Can we just start over? Reset the reputations?

[alcimedes]

The precipitatating event in this case was this.

User A gets rep. dinged by User B.

User A takes issue with User B's reason for the rep. hit.

User A decides to post shit about User B in their signature.

My PM's light up like a fucking christmas tree. In the mod forum the question arrises "WTF is this system for since it's just causing problems".

Fast forward to today.

Between post counts and Rep point complaints, I had over 20 PM's last week. Stupid. They're not that important.

[SKMDC]

I agree, just look at this thread, everybody's undies are in bundle, not to mention all the other threads devoted to post counts and rep dots and such. It is lame.
Lose them.

[drewprops]

Hmmm, a week's bannination for the kids running around the pool and a stern sticky thread might've worked too. Not my pool to tend, but I did ever so much appreciate the post counts. That's my only real whinge.

That, and there's not enough people posting about poop.

...oh, wait....

[Banana]

If reputation is so important to members, I suppose Overlords could link to a game so members can vicariously slug it out, and while at it, up their stat, buy new items and build characters. That'll help flush out rep whores. Problem solved.

Oh, even better yet, have them arrange a duel and provide the pistols. Yeah, that'll be grand!

Meanwhile, I'll go and have me a beer or two and be a happy crab.

[atomicbartbeans]

I'd say put the post counts back in the thread view (and member listing), but keep the reputation system hidden... it seems to be far more trouble than it's worth.

[Mugge]

After thinking a little about it, I think the current solution is the best.

Reputation can still be given, but only you are to only one who can see your reputation status. So there's no competition about getting the most green dots. Post count an be viewed in the public profiles, if you are interested. But it's not up in everybody's face when using the forums. So people won't be motivated to spam. And new users can identify Veteran users, moderators and admins by their custom titles and tags.

Finally I would like to point out that the best thing about the reputation system is the written feedback that follows with the dots. Provided people write actual feedback in them.

Guess that makes me content with the current state of things.

[Engine Joe]

So kill reputations. I never gave them much thought, anyway. Post counts matter (slightly) to me for 2 reasons: (1) I like to see when a poster has only 1-3 posts. Not because of credibility, so much as how to react to issues with whether or not they are within the posting guidelines, etc. And how gentle to be in response as a result. Not a world beater, but if I see a "confused" post and also see that they have only 2-3 posts, I tend to be more 'forgiving'. (2) because there are a couple of awards still in place for having a certain number of posts. Either those should go, too, or everything should be 'transparent' again. Just my HO. I certainly am not bent out of the shape one way or the other, but post counts can be helpful.

Reputations are just popularity and spite-fests. Who needs 'em?