My reputation points are misleading, in no way do they represent the level of Linux knowhow I possess. A lot/most of them have been gained by expressing opinions that others agree with, not helpful answers to problems. Perhaps it would be better if we had a "Do you agree with this post?" option, as well as the "Did you find this post helpful?".

I agree with this post:)

Reputation isn't as sought after here as it is on Reddit.

But it does allow someone to 'trust' an answer. If someone has a higher rating, they must have been answering questions in a fashion that people found useful. Better to follow advise from a 'reputable' person that someone unproven.

But did you find it helpful? :)

Oh yes. It found it extremely helpful.

Y'know, I'm just not sure that I actually believe that. :) I frankly think that we'd be giving "a stupid ignorant digital computer" far too much credence. If someone "nods his-or-her head" in response to a particular post, that's all well and good. But, I'm not too keen on the idea of extrapolating those results to apply to a particular person. For two reasons ... both of them statistical fallacies:

1. Apples and Oranges: The data-points that are being tabulated are not comparable; they are entirely disjoint. Therefore, they cannot be directly compared to one another. And, therefore, a tabulation of them also has no meaning.
2. "Three Women Are About to Enter The Room, Whose Mean Age Is 20." Uh huh. "A 59-year old grandmother and her twin 6-month old granddaughters." The respondents are not comparable.

"Okay, then ... 'the number of bobbling-heads associated with a post' probably is useful," because the (specific) post-in-question is a constant and the number of voluntarily-contributed "bobbles" is a legitimate independent variable.

But any attempt to provide aggregated statistics (such as a "reputation"), based on this dataset, is not valid. And, since we are being provided with it "anyway" by software that (like all software) "is not easily-changed," the best thing to do is to simply ignore it.

• "Upvotes" are a merit-only characteristic. "If you get some, goody for you. But, if you get none, it means nothing bad." A total stands on its own two feet, but a proportion means nothing because responses are not obligatory.
• Tabulations of "upvotes," counted by the person casting those votes, is statistically insignificant ... and misleading.
• But, we can't get rid of it without hacking the software, and The Gods have better things to do.

So . . . if you happen to be "addicted to reputation," you probably should seek therapy. :D Or, y'know, "get a life." ;) ;)

If you go to the Slackware forum and look at threads that are about something Slackware users are against (systemd for example) you will possibly see instances where people have clicked yes to a post that has no technical relevance at all and that click adds to reputation. This isn't really a valid measure of someones technical prowess but rather a measure of peer approval of personal beliefs.

I had an instance last year where an individual gave "rep" just so the individual could post an insult on my rep list. I asked for it to be removed and thanks to Tobi and Jeremy it was. Things like this just show, like the old click No thing showed, that systems like this, even though they are a nice feature, can be abused by people.

I used to personally send people a PM thanking them for it but after a while I gave up doing that simply because I don't seek it out. Yes it is nice to be recognised but recognition isn't why I'm here. Most people here are genuine and want to help others, people who seek rep out or give it when there is no reason for it don't actually help the system and if the responses given about more rep means more trustworthy are true then the minority group who don't use it properly are infact leading others astray.

Personally, while I find it moderately informative to see that "n people found this post helpful," it really is of negligible actual value to me, one way or the other. Mostly, I simply read the posts ... skimming them, really. I'm just looking for what is helpful to me, and so it really doesn't matter to me what anyone else does or doesn't think of it.

Still, seeing as I am given an easy opportunity to do so, I will on-occasion give an "attaboy" to an exceptionally-notable post. Nearly 99% of the time, however, I simply don't. It's not that those "other" posts are unhelpful ... it's simply that I don't bother to click.

Fortunately, LQ doesn't make a big deal of it. You can only cast positive votes if you cast any at all ... there is no "down-voting" here. There is also no "anonymous" participation. If several people think that the post is "exceptional," you see that. If a hundred people grouse to the effect that "it sucks," you don't see that. And, in any case, the whole matter doesn't beg for your undue attention, either way. "Works for me.™"

And ... 99.999% of the time ... I utterly ignore it, and am blissfully-happy so to do. ("But that's just me.")

I would add this to my previous post, in which I said that I appreciate having gotten some reputation points and it makes me feel appreciated:

I never use the reputation points of an individual poster to evaluate his or her post. Indeed, I seldom notice them when I am wrapped up in reading someone's questions or answers. If I do see that someone has a lot of points, the most conclusion I draw is that this person has tried to help a lot of Linux users over the years and they have appreciated it.

How experienced someone may be at LQ is completely independent from how experienced and knowledgeable he or she may be in using Linux. Someone who doesn't realize that is not qualified to use a compu--never mind.

Plus, the observation that someone made that, sometimes, one gets a reputation point for something completely unexpected and irrelevant to Linux knowledge is quite on point. I've learned this: computers may be logical; people aren't. Over the years, though, that sort of stuff does tend to level out.

AFAIC, reputation points are a fun little side thing.

Considering them to be other than a fun little side thing and trying to read serious meaning into them, frankly, wastes energy and leads me to wonder, why does someone want to make a big deal out of a fun little side thing?

I do not really care one way or the other on that

Mind you i can be a bit "crass" and rather short with people ( my own issues)

and sometimes it is just because i am a VERY bad writer , other times it IS on purpose (Manly with the one line one post wonders )

I have seen hundreds of users here whose signature requests to click on that "Yes" link. Many of you are saying it doesn't bother you but I think hundreds of users want that the yes button should be clicked.

Because this is not a paid forum and someone who helped you spending his precious time, now it's your turn to express Gratitude, thankfulness, gratefulness, or appreciation.

I think the Yes link should take user on paypal. :)

Yeah, that's the kind of post I referred to in post #16. I hope Jeremy considers enabling the two options I suggested in that post.

Per your observation, I have to say "yep" that is exactly something in my signature. I likely set it up having seen other examples. Also sure a typical path is that one enters the forum, begins to contribute, sees the various rep levels and says internally; "Wow, it'd be cool/nice/honorable to be considered a strong level of expertise!"

Receiving reputation is something done in other forums as well, this is nothing new. I believe it shouldn't mean that one certain person's comments carry greater weight all the time, but it is a general status which illustrates that a member is active and may tend to offer posts which others either agree with or do find helpful. Then it boils down to what types of posts they are offering. If they offer tons of opinions; such as we're doing now and a group of individuals all agree and as a result that adds to reputation ... I'm fine with that. If the user mainly contributes towards technical topics and OP's or others do feel that a post is actually helpful, then it's a nice thing to offer by way of saying "Thanks"; and IMHO I think that also does offer a good barometer as to the helpfulness of that type of poster.

I'm hoping large forum changes are not under consideration with respect to this. I think it actually becomes a much larger issue if you allow the negative form to be more prevalent. One can RATE a thread however and mark it anywhere from Excellent to Terrible. I know about that but don't really practice it myself. Seeing the thoughts here does prod me to remove the "request for reputation" from my signature and makes me recall that there are signatures I've seen which talk about things like "marking a thread as solved" and also contain helpful links from the forum about things like "how to ask a good question", or "how to find a good distribution", and stuff like that.

LOL and s\he deserved it (as if it was really an insult I'm sure!) :D

The reputation level can not be used for determining the general usefulness of posts on LQ, for different reasons, many already pointed out, but I want to add one:
Linux and open source, the main topics on LQ, are a very wide field. If I get a lot of reputation points for answering questions about bootloaders that doesn't mean that I am also well versed on network topics. The LQ reputation system does not show for which topics reputation points were given, so it is simply impossible to determine if the post you want to be evaluated is even slightly related to the topics the poster is firm in.