Hi,

In my opinion the rep system could be used as follows:

A - Rate technical information given by poster,
B - Rate posters behaviour,
C - Show that you (dis)agree with a certain statement,
D - Vent a grudge or liking,
E - For "fun".

My personal idea's about these (incomplete?) points:

About point A: Only valid point to be used at any time, which would exclude all (2?) none-technical forums.

About point B: The mods have done a great job so far of telling people that their behaviour is "off". And the line between rude and not rude for example is not always that easy (partially depends on culture/language/location etc). Example (generalizing): The Dutch are very direct, which will offend people from Japan.

About point C: If you (dis)agree with someone on none technical issues, start a open discussion about it. What is the point of giving someone (negative) rep points because, for example, one is a republican, an atheist or a emacs user??? This will most likely happen in the none-technical forums, but will be seen in technical forums as well.

About points D and E: Grave misuse of the rep system!!!! Some measures have been taken to prevent this up to a point, but it will happen in some form or another. I do think that these are also most likely in the none-technical forums (overheated discussions and such).

I can only conclude (assuming that the rep system is here to stay) that the none-technical forums should be excluded.

Again, just my point of view.

EDIT:

The above is also why I still think the rep-system should be disabled for the first post in a thread.

Reputation system cannot be used in the Introduction forum, I mean, should you be given a reputation for welcoming a Newbie, or answering a technical question placed in Introduction forum, rather than reporting it ?

AFA the LQS&F forum is concerned, people are entitled to have their own views and no one should be penalized for having a different/contradictory view point ?

AFA /General forum is concerned it is supposed to be used a "watercooler area" for having fun ! The pathetic threads have reduced there due to Rule No. 0. What is the point in having a reputation system in a political discussion ?

AFA obscene/abusive posts are concerned, those are often few, so they can easily be moderated !

The new LQ reputation system sounds like a good idea, in particular I think this point in Jeremy's first post is very important:

I have used various Linux and motorcycle forums and have become rather wary of advice from "guru" or equivalent highly rated members. No criticism intended of the majority of them of course! I have had very simplistic or obviously irrelevant suggestions made by such members. I suspect that when ratings and titles are based on the number of postings, some less mature members are tempted to increase their status by making numerous postings just to increase their rating, sometimes without thought to the consequences for the person trying to follow their advice! I would therefore suggest that your system should give preference to posts which the recipient considered to relevant and helpful.

We're going to tie "No" votes into rep on a trial basis starting now and will observe how it's actually used.

--jeremy

2 members found this post helpful.

Probably a lot like that.

Thanks.

Well, the irony is that I am a Slackware user and was talking to a Slackware user in the Slackware forum and got down-repped by another Slackware user. It would have been kind of hard to avoid mentioning Slackware and there shouldn't be a knee-jerk reaction in that case.

That's a very good point but I'm not sure how it would affect most people. If an appropriate down-rep is given publicly, the repper might feel limited in supplying his reasoning. IOW, you might get more honest feedback privately. And the down-repee might be embarrassed or upset to know those negatives were public. (This could be good, though, in that it might make him more eager to avoid future down-reps but could be bad in that he might be discouraged from helping at all.)

But I do like the idea of a self-correcting system. But even under your proposal, it's not entirely effective. As an example, the down-rep I got was fairly large and several up-reps on that and other topics haven't restored what that one down-rep took out, due to the relative weighting of rep "power".

*****

Yes, it does - thanks. That's a terrible interface. It looks like you should click on the 'arrow' graphic and nothing happens because it's not hooked up to anything. I hadn't noticed the clickable headers at all. (Of course, I usually have scripting disabled so wouldn't access it anyway.)

*****

The helpful posts are currently lumped in, aren't they? I think that's what a 'Helpful Answer Positive Rating' means. Anyway - I agree with anishakaul that having all the valid feedback (in whatever form) could be helpful.

*****

Well, I think General is for "letting your hair down" and is often wildly controversial and could get people down-repped for agreeably expressing disagreeable opinions. It really has nothing to do with LQ (Linux Questions) rep. Basically, druuna and anishakaul make several excellent points on this topic - I agree with them.

I've just realized that, if my counting is right, 6 of the top 12 contributors to this thread have opted out of the rep system. Not sure what that means (or what the system-wide percentage is) but it seems interesting.

@slakmagik
OMG, so it was Alien Bob? (Just kidding! Don't answer that!) Human nature when In Real Life (IRL) and while online are typically two different things. "Most" people wouldn't think twice about leaving Nega-Rep and a snide comment. However if the feedback was public, then someone with enough foresight to ponder the consequences would also have enough intelligence to weigh their reaction in the first place and determine if it is appropriate.
Given that the former are inevetibly more common than the latter, it would make sense to have Posi-Rep & Nega-Rep (and their comments) public-facing. That way the Rep system has a "third option"

1) Leave Posi-Rep and/or comment.
2) Leave Nega-Rep and/or comment.
3) Counter-post to 'disagree' with previous Reputation mods.

Although true, this could be countered by showing how much Posi-/Nega-Rep was given. Bear in mind that what I'm suggesting is NOT to reveal the identity of the Posi-/Nega-Repper, just their comment, what type of rep, and now also the amount of Posi-/Nega-Rep that was given on any particular post.

Anyone else think this would be a good idea?
*cough* *cough* Jeremy? *cough*

I did because I think it's unfair and far inferior to the old Thanks system in it's current state.

slakmagik, I actually noticed that too, but my guess is that it's a bit of a self-selecting thing; that is, a member who dislikes the rep system (or a major component of it) is both more likely to make a comment and more likely to opt out.

--jeremy

In fact, a quick look indicates over 60% of the members who have opted out of the system to date have also commented in this thread.

--jeremy

xeleema, There are two ideas in your thread worth getting feedback on I think:

* Should *who* left rep be entirely removed from the system?
* Should rep comments and whether they were + or - be publicly available somewhere?

--jeremy

Also interesting to note: Of the 40 members with the highest rep, 6 have opted out of the system... while not a single person with a negative rep has done so.

Hi,

A fact that was visible till yesterday: 2 of the people that opted out are in the top 20 of Top Reputations.

I counted 11 people that opted-out (checked that yesterday afternoon).

For those that have opted out, I'd be interested in 1) why you chose to do so and 2) are there any specific changes that could be made to the system that would encourage you to enable it.

--jeremy