LQ Reputation System
 

Based on this thread I think it's clear that some kind of reputation system would be extremely beneficial to LQ. It will help members gauge the potential validity of answers from members they do not personally know and will also help members better understand how helpful they are to other LQ members. With this in mind I'd like to outline some of the rules, features and potential pitfalls I potentially see in such a system. This will allow for proper discussion to happen before such a system is enabled.

* Any member (except for mods and admins) will be able to opt out of the reputation system.
* Members in the "New Member" group will not be able to use the reputation system. Once a member makes a single post and is in the "Member" group, they will be able to leave positive reputation. A member in the "Senior Member" group or higher will be able to leave positive or negative reputation. All negative reputation will require a comment.
* A member will need to have a certain amount of reputation before they can give reputation and the amount of reputation you'll be able to give will depend on how much you get.
* There will be some kind of "spread" system, where $x amount of members will need to give a member reputation before the same member can use the system on the same member.
* How many days a member has been registered and number of posts will likely play a small role.
* There will likely be a tie-in with "Did you find this post helpful".
* Reputation will be displayed in your UserCP and in some way in individual posts.
* Phase 2 of the system will probably include some forum specific component, where you have an LQ-wide reputation which can be broken down by on a per forum basis.

I'd like some additional thought and feedback on this. From there we can look into rolling the system out and making additional tweaks. Thanks.

--jeremy

Hi,

Definitely looks like a better system then the one we have atm ;)

I have to think about this one a bit longer before I can give any feedback.

One thing will come up sooner or later: Are we all going to start at "0" or will you give current members a starting reputation based on their current statistics (however that may be calculated)?

Keep up the good work Jeremy!

I've been away from LQ for a few days and the place has turned upside down, LOL


I personally like the reputation system presented above. It seems somewhat complicated but it makes sense. I like the fact that in order to give reputation you'll have to have a certain amount of reputation first. This looks like a more reliable 'expertise' indicator than the thanks count.

My understanding of it is that at the beginning only mods and eg. gurus will be able to give reputation. Gradually people with mid-range post counts will get more and more reputation from 'the above' and in time (once they've earned enough reputation) will be able to give reputation to others.

I think it makes sense as very senior members are probably going to use their powers wisely.

@jeremy: Can you explain "There will be some kind of "spread" system, where $x amount of members will need to give a member reputation before the same member can use the system on the same member."?

the way i see that being is that you have to wait for so many other users to give rep to a given user before giving more rep, that way nobody can simply spam the reputation system because they simply like or dislike someone

in short it's to prevent the reputation system from being abused and is imho more practical then a simple time limit between giving rep, that way you can't simply hand free positive rep to a friend or give too much negative rep to someone you or your friend doesn't like

this is a technical forum not a popularity contest

frieza is correct.

--jeremy

Hi Jeremy,

After reading your post twice I think this will be better then the 'Thanks' system for the obvious reasons as stipulated in 'the other thread'. I believe that a reputation system like this in time will provide a more adequate profile of a user. Since it would be based on, as explained by frieza, the opinion given by several users instead of only one or, as mentioned in the other thread by one of the mods, only by the mods, I think this will be a pretty neat feature for LQ to have.

I don't think enabling the Thanks system again will be useful since, as you said, the 'reputation system' will not be based on it or include its data.

Also, if you don't enable the Thanks system again, please take it out of the Stats also if you don't mind. Just to keep things on track.

It also would be helpful to include some form of statistics for the reputation system. Something like the Top Thanked although for the reputation system it will be more complicated I imagine.

If something crosses my mind, I'll post it. Yesterday I also created an account on LinuxExchange.org which has its own reputation system. Are you thinking of doing something similar for LQ? Although it seems complicated, I can see the use of it and also the impact it has.

One last thing Jeremy: Keep up the good work!

Kind regards,

Eric

Excellent,a choice!.
I'm really pleased you are not making the reputation system mandatory.
Thanks.

And thanks to frieza for it but it was more an explanation of the purpose than the mechanism and I'm still confuzzled.

Sorry if I am being dense (and sounding like lines from a Marx Brothers' movie) but is the first same member the same as the second same member? (That cannot be! Thus we have a member giving rep to themselves; that way lies blindness) If not which member is it?

Now you got me confused too catkin :confused:

If member foo uses the reputation system on member bar, then member foo cannot use the reputation system again on member bar until $n other members have done so.

--jeremy

It's taken me over 60 years to build up a bad reputation. I hope nobody at LQ ruins all that hard work.

You already have a cast iron reputation as a troublemaker. This new system will allow that to be grandfathered in.

Glad to hear it. That's a weight off my mind. :)

I'll set a tentative date for starting to roll this feature out as 08/29. I'd appreciate as much feedback on this topic as possible before then.

--jeremy

One item open for debate: should a new member start with some small level of reputation, or start at 0?

--jeremy

Zero. How can you judge someone who's just joined?

Zero.

I agree. Start at zero.

The only bad reputation I have is in General, where it really doesn't matter. I ALWAYS help Linux users, because Linux means the world to me.

Will the members current number of total and thanked posts, and number of posts reported as (un)helpful be used to set the initial value of the members reputation? Or is that information just going to be thrown away?

Evo2.

Personally I never really cared much about the "Thanks" count, nor am I that particularly interested in this new "rep system", but it's opt-out, so that's cool. :)

As for new members' starting rep count, I'm with brianL...you can't really make a proper judgement on someone who has only just joined the forums.

Thanks will have no bearing on the rep system, although it's possible the helpful system will. How long you've been a member and how many posts you have will also play some role.

--jeremy

I wouldn't see it as making a judgment, more along the lines of a good faith recognition that most people will join with positive intentions. Starting with some "skin in the game" seems like it could have benefits (even though they wouldn't immediately be able to *give* reputation either way).

--jeremy

Hi Jeremy,

you asked for feedback, and received much on this topic in the earlier thread:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-at-lq-828007/

From this thread, it seems that of the members who do care about having some sort of rating system, they think the thanked posts count (or fraction) was the most important thing. Why ignore that?

Evo2.

As I mentioned in that thread, a "thanks" had no qualitative measure, no guidelines and no consistency. Trying to work something like that into a future reputation system does not make a lot of sense IMHO.

--jeremy

Hi,

Good question.

Jeremy: any ideas on this?

Evo2.

Nor should it. It was a quantitative measure.

IIRC, there were instructions for using the thanks feature... but can't find them now (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Perhaps true but how could that be achieved with any system without intervention by moderators. Is that what is being proposed for the new system?

Fair enough.

Cheers,

Evo2.

However it's implemented, it's going to be hard to keep it objective.

Cannot the same be said about the "helpful" system?

How about factoring in data from both old systems and progressively reducing their weighting as time goes by?

Actually it makes sense to reduce the weighting of all aged data as time goes by. It would deal with the otherwise delicate issue of downgrading our reputation as we descend into senility :) It would also deal with members who join knowing little and develop technical expertise and helpfulness -- realistically their reputation should be based on recent performance, not on their early performance as neophytes.

That's clear, thanks.

Kind regards,

Eric

Hi,

Zero, reputation is something to be earned, not given for just joining LQ in my opinion.

Kind regards,

Eric

"Helpful feature" as well as "Thanks feature" have been equally misused. How about starting FRESH all over again now ? With no previous statistics (except the post counts) I mean !

Fairness ...
 

Whatever is decided I hope its fair and acknowledges the few who have already contributed much,I think it would be unfair to them if all their effort was forgotten.

My 2 cents worth are... removing information is a step backwards what we need is more information and shown in an obvious elegant simple way.!:twocents:

:twocents:
Then what about my posts where OP's have marked the threads solved with my help but have clicked the "thanks" button instead of clicking the "helpful" one :D

This seems interesting but more interesting and cool feature is that a member can opt out.
And yes, new members should start from 0.

I think it is well worth a try.

What I miss a little is the push to improve, i.e. I'd like a way other users can tell me what impaired my efforts to help them (when I try that, usually I only ask my own noob-questions ;)). I can't really offer a ready solution. Perhaps offer a little Matrix like I don't know, but I'd surely like to get better at helping.

I don't like the idea of not allowing a member to vote up another member twice in a row. It seems unfair, what if someone helped twice in a row?

Also, I don't know if this can be a good idea, but maybe you can somehow allow members to rate how well the newbie that asked the question is doing? Maybe it's a dumb idea, but it came into my head and I thought I might say it here. (On second thought, maybe you should turn that off in the Programming forum (if you know what I mean) :))

That's a very good point !

Yes I know what you mean ;) but I think it is necessary in the programming forum too especially when two seniors argue with each other about the some particular concepts, the newbie's and the other ignorant people (like me) should know who is correct !

Remember and vote later?

Seconded. That might give an incentive to try the solutions / steps offered by other members. Should possibly gradually be reseted.

Hypothetical case: suppose a member is very knows a lot about, say, programming. But his/her attitude when answering questions is condescending and sarcastic. How am I going to rate him/her? Very low. It isn't clever, it doesn't make you look tough, to talk down to people. You need to RTFM on manners. They cost nowt.

That's true!

I don't really understand.

:D
Can we have Reputation points like this:

Statistics:
1. Helpful postings : 100
2. Complaisant postings : -10

Hi brianL,

I imagine that the LQ rules would apply before all else. So if someone is abusive even when offering technically great advice, I'm sure the mods will take action. I for one would report such behavior in an instant, but would still award reputation for the technical side of the answer. If you want to include politeness into the calculation of rewarding reputation then you take it off the technical view in my opinion and lean more towards a personal view and thus your decision will be biased.

Kind regards,

Eric

But in my case, the "hypothetical member" didn't really go against the rules, but was very confusing and insultingly sarcastic in his writing style and his tone of voice made me feel like a worthless piece of dirt that shouldn't even be doing what I wanted to do (intentionally or not).

I was on the Indiana forum a few years ago and there was a huge flame war about whether the desktop would be KDE or Gnome... Well... I did,nt have a clue *but* I knew that Ian Murdoch was Debian so I guessed it would be Gnome... the moral of this story is that Jeremy will do whatever he thinks is best and If I were him thats what I would do... since the reponsibility is ultimately his... LOL

ps I am sure though he appreciates everyones input... !

:twocents:
"hypothetical member" you are referring to is a very knowledgeable one. You could have filtered all his extra comments (which he did to tease you) and focus on extracting the important information from him (which was needed for your project) !

If someone starts with zero then the second rule makes the first one unnecessary, or am I missing something?


I've got fairly reasonable thanks/useful scores, but in the interest of simplicity I'd favour completely removing the thanks and usefulness features and existing stats if a new reputation system is introduced. 3 ways of rating a post/poster are simply not needed and as anishakaul pointed out, the existing systems have been abused and never really did what people were hoping they would. A fresh start sounds like a good idea to me.

<edit> As a reaction to MTK358's and EricTRA's posts </edit>: It concerns not only politeness but the how understandable the solutions are presented. I don't mean the RTFM type of answer, but if a newbie clearly states that (s)he has no experience with e.g. the command line and the expert doesn't explain how to handle that environment it is to the detriment of his answer and it is not in the spirit of LQ (...where newbies come for help).

In short not only the technical side counts.