Reputation Points

Dear Forum Adminstrators,
It has come to my attention that the reputation system has absolutely no purpose. Although in truth it only a mere number representing what other have voted you to be -- that number is pitted against all others in hopes of being the highest thus attaining personal glory amongst the vbforums community; Sounds good don't it.
There is a small flaw in the whole basis of the system. I saw fit to endow CornedBee with some reputation points, as I did with no problem. A day later he once again impressed me and I felt as if he deserved some more points; to my dismay I learn that to give points to the same person twice I have to give 4-5 points to others.
Now what is the point in running a point system where to give points to someone twice I must give points out to 4-5 other people, that essentially ruins the point of the entire thing. It may force us to be good sports about it and keep everyone's scores roughly equal; equality in reputation for all-- sounds deliteful, somewhat like a dream; like a theory. Communism was a theory and in theory it works :)

Thanks,
Halsafar


P.S -- Was I polite enough?

Have you read the FAQ that explains how it works?

Nah, I'm pretty sure I understand anyway...
Besides I don't really care, just felt like typing something.

In no way am I accusing you of cheating, but here is the part of the FAQ that you ran into.

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Is it possible to cheat the system? Yes.... You must give reputations to a number of different people before you can come back to the same person again. No giving just one person all your points!

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I believe the number of people is 4.

If this has been helpful then rate it :)

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Originally Posted by Halsafar

Dear Forum Adminstrators,
It has come to my attention that the reputation system has absolutely no purpose. ... Communism was a theory and in theory it works :)

Thanks,
Halsafar

P.S -- Was I polite enough?

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Hmm .... At last I have a supporter ... Yeeeehaaaaa !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm totally with you, Halsafar.

Cheers. :wave:

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Originally Posted by RhinoBull

Hmm .... At last I have a supporter ... Yeeeehaaaaa !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm totally with you, Halsafar.

Cheers. :wave:

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I don't think that is the whole truth. You don't like the system at all. But he don't like that he can't give the points to those who helped him because it is the same persons every time. And I have to agree too that too. It is usualy the same persons that helps on the advanced topics everytime.


But I completly understand that the work around is there because you are not going to cheat. But it might be a bit too hight to have it at 4 or what ever it is at the moment. 2 or maybe 3 should probably do it.



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When you NM get a little older - you'll understand how much of bs this whole thing is ... so untill then it's kind of pointless to argue.

Cheers :wave:

where did you get the figure 4 or 5 people before going back to them? I'm sure Iheard 20 not 4 or 5 mentioned, or is it 20 points you have to give?

You need to give points to 20 people, not 20 points.

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Originally Posted by Brad Jones

If the spread is 20, then before you can rate the same person again, you must rate 19 other people first.

Brad!

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Originally Posted by RobDog888

You need to give points to 20 people, not 20 points.

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Thats the one :thumb:.

Wow...thats 20 questions, with 20 diffrent persons to answer. Wondering when that will happen. Well only time will show.


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I guess you need to start keeping track of who and when you gave out points.
I dont think there is a way to see the history of who you gave to?

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Originally Posted by NoteMe

Wow...thats 20 questions, with 20 diffrent persons to answer. Wondering when that will happen. Well only time will show.


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Well I'm finding it pretty easy. I'm giving people points even if I didn't start the thread, if it helps me and I think its worth I'm giving them a point :).
Problem is I'm shooting myself by doing it as I see myself fall off the top, but if this is going to take off the more ratings the better.

Think of it the more you rate people the more you shape what the ratings mean to what you want them to mean :D.

True, if you dont worry about trying to give all your points to a select few, then
it will make the reps mean more then a popularity contest! :thumb:

So now you can give all your Reps to me!!! :D

I have only given points to those who have helped me. But as you said. That might help to start this off. Giving points to other posts that is good, and teaches you something that is.


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Originally Posted by RobDog888

dont think there is a way to see the history of who you gave to?

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Yes, there is, at least for me.

Then I think it is an admin option. Unless you can tell me where it is. I can only see the 5 last points I got in the CP.


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I know a way that i can see all the reputations given to me (ie. doesn't have the 5 limit). But thats just cos I'm a Super Mod, as a normal Moderator I think its out of reach.

As for the who i gave points to I can't see any.

You can always use the VBF's private Calendar to keep track of who you gave points to.
Everytime you give out points add an entry to your calendar.

The "spread' is defaulted to 25 by the forum software. Spread is the number of people you must give reputation points to before you can come back to someone. So if it is 25, you must give 24 other people points before you can go back to the first person. I changed this to 20 because 25 was too high. Discussion dropped this in half to 10. So the official spread for this forum is now 10 -- which is a lot less than the default fo 25 :).

As to seeing who gave you ratings -- no, today you cannot see this information. Admins have access to this information and will tap into it should there be a rating that seems out of line (I've seen real helpful posts on other forums that got negative reputation points. It didn't make sense so we talked to the person that posted the negative ratings) Some day this information could be made public; however, today it is not and there are currently no plans to make it public (but you consider this when posting comments).

You can rate any post you see that you think is good. You are, however, limited on how many you can rate in a single day.

Did I miss any of the questions or concerns?

Brad!

Thanks. And if I could, I would have given you a point for it...;)



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Brad Jones,
25 to 10 is a significant drop and is most welcome; although I do believe the purpose is still being defeated. Whether it is 1 person or 10 people the point system competition wise is lost; equality will rain in everytime I want to give 1 person who deserves it some points. A total sucess on your part would be to eliminate the spread entirely and simply limit how many times someone gives points to a person in one day, or limit the number of points you can give out per week. Or for example I gave 2 points to you in a row on the same day, then maybe I should have to follow a spread of 5 points to other people.

I have given you some reputation points for the above post. Now all I have to do is give out 8 more points before I can give Corned Bee 1 out of the 10 points he deserves.

Thanks,
Halsafar

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Originally Posted by Halsafar

Brad Jones,
25 to 10 is a significant drop and is most welcome; although I do believe the purpose is still being defeated. Whether it is 1 person or 10 people the point system competition wise is lost; equality will rain in everytime I want to give 1 person who deserves it some points. A total sucess on your part would be to eliminate the spread entirely and simply limit how many times someone gives points to a person in one day, or limit the number of points you can give out per week. Or for example I gave 2 points to you in a row on the same day, then maybe I should have to follow a spread of 5 points to other people.

I have given you some reputation points for the above post. Now all I have to do is give out 8 more points before I can give Corned Bee 1 out of the 10 points he deserves.

Thanks,
Halsafar

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Well the repuation system doesn't allow you to set time periods instead of spread, to what i know anyway, so that sounds like a suggestion for vBulletin ;).

As for giving all your points to one member that just seems messed up. Even if if they help you a lot then I'm sure you can find other helpful posts. For example you post quite a lot in the Games Section, are you not giving points out to those that help you there? Cos I've not seen CornedBee post in there for awhile.

As I mentioned further up I give votes out for helpful posts, even if it wasn't me asking the question to start with, I noticed yestaday that I must have already gave out over the limit cos I was able to vote for poeple I've already agve one vote to already (even though I didn't give them a second one in the end ;)).

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Originally Posted by RobDog888

You can always use the VBF's private Calendar to keep track of who you gave points to.
Everytime you give out points add an entry to your calendar.

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:lol: :lol: :lol:

ElectroMan,
First, I love the profile pic you got there -- He's from MM7 right?
Second, you have pointed out the truth, I do not always give out rep points mostly because I em not used to them being around. As well, the fact that I do see a lot of people giving good answers to posts un-related to me and those people do deserve points. I should not have to hunt the forums though to simply find 10 people to give points to. But I suppose if the point system actually meant something valuable to me then maybe I would.
As for Corned Bee and him not showing up in the gaming section. I am not sure if Corned Bee programs games or if he even desires to; one thing I know for sure is that Corned Bee is a darn good C++ programmer and he's answered almost every question I have ever had in that section. He deserves as many points as I can give right now.

Thanks,
Halsafar

Having seen reputations being used with and without both the spread and the daily limits, I am of the firm belief that the combination of both reduces the amount of abuse that occurs. I agree that there is the downside that you can't rate a person an additional time, quickly. But, from a management perspective this is less of an issue than the abuse that we would have to deal with and clean up without these rules.

If we could trust everyone to avoid abusing the system, then I'd be glad to remove all the restrictions. Unfortunately, I see what the moderators do to keep the spam, profanity, and other negative things off the forum (Not saying there is a lot of this, just that it does happen).

As others have said, I find that I am more likely to rate posts I see that I find are good (or way off topic) even if they are not my posts or threads. If someone did a good post, they deserve a good rep. I find that by doing this, I usually am not blocked when I get back to wanting to rate another of someone's posts.



One final comment.... When people rate, they give a set number of points. That number of points is their Power as described by in the FAQ. Be aware that the longer you have been on the forum, the more posts you have, the better reputation you have all lead to a higher power level (which means you would give more than one point when you rate a post).

Brad!

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Originally Posted by Halsafar

ElectroMan,
First, I love the profile pic you got there -- He's from MM7 right?
Second, you have pointed out the truth, I do not always give out rep points mostly because I em not used to them being around. As well, the fact that I do see a lot of people giving good answers to posts un-related to me and those people do deserve points. I should not have to hunt the forums though to simply find 10 people to give points to. But I suppose if the point system actually meant something valuable to me then maybe I would.
As for Corned Bee and him not showing up in the gaming section. I am not sure if Corned Bee programs games or if he even desires to; one thing I know for sure is that Corned Bee is a darn good C++ programmer and he's answered almost every question I have ever had in that section. He deserves as many points as I can give right now.

Thanks,
Halsafar

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Yea its off Megaman :).....As for the CornedBee thing I was just meaning that if you only vote for him and he doesn't answer your Q's in the games Section, then do you not give out Points to those that help you in the Games Section? Like I'm sure there is atleast about 4-5 poeple that help you in the games section, so add CornedBee to that and you don't have many votes to give out and you have a working circle (by this I mean your not going to get stuck where it won't let you vote, I wouldn't encourage anyone to stick with 10 people to give all there votes to, there are plenty helpful members here).
As you said though its early days and you have to get used to the sytem still :D

If I give credit for someone else's post, they get more than one point, yet if a noob tries to give me credit, I get none? that has happend about 5 times in the past few days. I got no points yesterday or today because of it. I did give a few away for being helpful, but that just opens up the spread. Maybe you could keep track of newbie posts, and add the points after they've done their initiation? I saw a healthy increase one day, and have dropped ever since. I must have helped people for 8 hours!

It's not like I mind helping, but I would like it better if I were getting paid, or at least points.