May be it is the English problem on my side, but I was not referring to this thread !

To put off the flames I'll remove that *sentiment* now !

You need not. I am not flaming you for that.

Kindly make an effort to understand what the other person is saying before commenting further !!

When I say "helpful feature" should be improved, it is a generic statement and my pointing you towards post 67, was just an example of a possible improvement !!!!

So why not correctly mention while stating in the posts. And "helpful feature"? At first I did not even understand that you were talking about the feature that was implemented for rating the post. English is not my native language either, so you know it is difficult to understand statements complex enough to spin my head.

@anishakaul

I understand where you're coming from. Personally, I find two faults with the "Did you find this post helpful?" method (that are not present with the "Thanks" button method).

1) (Mis)Use of the "Helpful post" method (by being negative and clicking "No" when it actually was helpful).
2) No way to gauge a user's "Signal to Noise" ratio.
It doesn't display your "Helpful / Unhelpful" post count under your name.
(if it did, then this would be useful for identifying 'problem' users, such as spammers trolls, etc.

With the "Thanks" button method, there are several positive things;

1) No negative reinforcement (I.E: there isn't a "No" button)
2) Post count under the user name versus the "Thanked" count shows the "Signal to Noise" ratio of a user.

The downside to any moderation system is that there is always the "newbie" factor. For Example;
A "one post wander" (a new user, that just makes one post), comes in, posts a problem. Never replies/thanks/clicks "yes", etc. Now, if we have something to search off of, like "show me all posts in topic X that have at least Y thanked/helpful posts", then that will cut down the search results to something more relavent.

On a side note, I do side with the people that have been here many, many years (like Tinkster and Alien Bob). These ratios are meaningless to them, and rightly so. They've earned their reputation both within this community and the Linux community as a whole. However, a "thanks" system does have encourage new(er) members to increase the quality of their output.

1 members found this post helpful.

You are absolutely correct, xeleema ! But somehow I feel there is also an age factor involved, e.g. Pixel, UnSpawn and Tinskter ... I am a kid in front of them.

Obviously there will be a view point difference between a 27 year old person and a 60 year old person (No I don't actually mean you are 60, Tinkster, it is just an generic example)

When I'll be of Tinkster/Pixel's age perhaps I'll say the same thing he/they is/are saying right now

But why does the age matter? I do agree on your fact of feel good thing. But then that is not the primary goal of LQ. The primary goal for LQ is to help those who are in need. And that should always be the priority. Everything else can wait.
My personal choice would be to leave everything the same old way.

It's just another metric to help gauge the credibility of a poster. I'm 2 weeks old, nobody knows me from any of the other 200 noob's who sign up here every day. But if I have 100 posts in a month and 20 of them are 'thanked' or 'helpful' or whatever, it helps me build mine a lot faster. I like to shine above the average user, nothing wrong with that..

Age, post count, thanks, helpful, all those numbers together give everyone a coarse picture of your activity on the board - and I think it should be more visible.

- Someone who made 1000 posts in a year and gets no 'cookies' from anyone, sounds like a troll....
- Someone with 50 posts in 2 years and 15 cookies - Too bad they aren't here more often.
- 50 posts in 5 years and no cookies - someone who comes here when they have a problem, all 'take' and no 'give'. Which I'm perfectly fine with, that's why this place exists. Plus it's probably an easy answer for me to get another cookie
- 1000 posts and 150 cookies - great user! (age doesn't really matter any more does it?)
- 10000 posts and 1500 cookies? Mr Torvalds himself..

You yourself have 3600 posts in 2 1/2 years. You could be the biggest troll here or the greatest contributor to the board. At a glance, I have no idea, I don't have any data to make an assessment. I'd have to hunt down your posts and do a lot of work to find out.

1 members found this post helpful.

You are here to get help. And if a member without any reputation gives you a very valid point of help, then? And what if member himself/herself decides to opt out of reputation, then? And if I decide to keep my age secret?
The most important thing is that you get direction to help and you try what has been asked and decide yourself. Most of the members decide against spoon feeding.
I am okay with reputation but as long as it is not made compulsory. And I am happy Jeremy has decided it that way.

And please, even jeremy has mentioned it before, post count is just a metric. I dont come here to gather those. I dont mind if Jeremy stops counting my posts.

I like suprstar's idea of Post Count vs. Helpfulness vs. Length or Membership.

You're in the "Senior Member" user group, so it's working as expected.

Please see http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...system-828421/ for more information, but the proposed reputation system would have an indication in each of your posts and in your profile and I think will add significantly more value than the thanks system did. Your feedback on the system is welcome.

--jeremy

The above is exactly what we'll be trying to address in the proposed reputation system. See http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...system-828421/ for more information.

--jeremy

1 members found this post helpful.

Then I give him a cookie and start building his rep, and he won't have no rep for long.

Then I have less of an idea who I'm talking to. That's all. Not a big deal, but that's one reason why I like having those numbers in front of me. The other reason is pretty much just ego - I like to think I can hang with the most technical of the technical, and I like the opportunity to show that I want to be a useful contributor to the forum, and that I know what I'm talking about when I do.

1 members found this post helpful.

My thoughts exactly!

Kind regards,

Eric