Yup.....I'm offended.

BAN THE WITCH!!!!!!11!!!1!!

Looks like that derep script is back.
That didn't take Wakkalo and Alaric long. :P

And now apparently the trolls are impotently striking back by downvoting people who support the moderation. Is any more proof of the rep system being beyond meaningless required? It is entirely beyond me how or why anyone would give a crap about that number now.

pimpmonkey is getting fucked more than all of us.

At least you and I can claim to being obnoxious in here, he doesn't do anything to anyone.

But that's mostly cute. Just like the death threats (full disclosure : i feel a bit sad to not have ever received any of these), it works as some sort of validation. It defines what Fables called "the other camp", and its nature. And confirms the role it's been having in these forums.

I see it as a last squeek. Which is nice.

I really don't understand this. Both the downvoting and your response about people not caring about the rep system. By "why anyone would" do you mean "why anyone else would"? Because you seem to care enough to talk about "the rep system" right then and there.

As for the "downvoting", I don't see anything in the forums for doing that, if I'm correct in understanding you're saying downvoting is directly related to reputation. Forum reputation seems rather…um…otherworldly and indiscernible. I mean, I don't see any connection with what people are posting and their reputations. It seems like reputation likely has more to do with their game-playing abilities, as this is a forum about games and gaming. Or maybe correct/helpful answers to questions?

Hmm, this is seeming off-topic for this thread about moderation…

I really don't. I only said it because the issue was already brought up in this thread, so I was respoding to that. If it wasn't in this thread that I'm keeping an eye on, I would not even know which of my posts got downvoted. It happens all the time, and I never bother trying to find where, or why.


"Reputation" as in the silly number below you avatar. Not anyone's actual reputation among other users.

Yes, that number. I don't get its connection with downvoting, possibly because I don't know how that's done. And I've yet to make a connection between that number and someone's behavior or mood, such as expressed in forum posts. People are different from moment to moment. So, seems like it must be for something else?

Your posts get upvoted- the number goes up. Your posts get downvoted- the number goes down. That's it.

Hence the need for better moderation. lol

Lots of squeeks, that won't cease so soon. Rep system has to go next. But I suspect it will.

I guess it's been a while since I've read the forum rules, likely because a long while ago they were about as easy to located as any other type of support in the support section, of which discovering the support section has been always a lot of guessing on my part.

Anyway, the link provided in this thread's opening post is very helpful for me and those support pages seem to have been revamped from what little I recollect. In particular and pertinently, there's a link on the lefthand side of that page: How does “rate this post” work?. Rating posts is described as "a moderation-by-community feature".

I'm a bit ashamed to admit I've been using the minus/plus signs to hide/show posts. Somehow I have been selectively ignoring or not associating the words "rate this post" that appear next to them. Years of ignoring flashy ads of images and text on the Internet, perhaps? Ignoring distractions?

I noticed those minus/plus buttons seem to work as "always hide"/"always show", so when I return to thread I can easily skim past something I didn't find useful and spot the highlighted plus signs for that I did found useful. This is also helpful with especially long posts, as it shortens the page length. So, if I want see something I've hidden, then I select the plus sign. This has been a very useful and helpful feature for me.

However, it seems the minus/plus buttons are associated with the reputation of the person who created a post? Why in the world would my personal interest have anything to do with someone else's reputation???

Personally, I think if those buttons are going to be anything about someone else's reputation then there should also be a neutral button. I mean, what if I change my mind? What if I come to a different understanding? And what if it turns out not worthy of rating one way or the other? I think that's probably another reason why it wasn't clicking for me to associate minus/plus as a rating, that of not having a neutral button to return it back to an original state. It made more sense as hide/show because that truly is binary, whereas it's possible to not have an opinion on rating (hence no rating chosen).

OTOH, it would seem to make more sense to have an approval/disapproval button (if any at all) in the avatar menu on the lefthand side of a post, where it says: "view wishlist", "start conversation", "invite to friends", "user since ...". In that way, I would be able to keep track of how I myself have appreciated someone: the total number of posts that I have rated as appreciating and the total number I've rated as wishing I've never read. Two numbers.

Or how about this: just a checkmark. One checkmark next to the avatar. As such only one vote per person for rating a member. Not by post, just as a member that I have appreciated. In that way if someone has a low reputation all they have to do is find people who do like them and the people who don't like them can't keep picking on them. In contrast, the same people wouldn't be able to boost one person's reputation with repetitive votes. Anybody who does or doesn't like them has already voted once and only once, and certainly not per post. And of course, anybody can change they're mind and decide to change their vote. Hmm, though if it's just a checkmark then I guess the total number would never be less than zero. If negative numbers are desired, for example to allow the expressing of negativity towards a person (constructive avenging?), then I guess something like the minus/plus buttons would enable that possibility. But again, I believe there should be a neutral button in that case, too.

Anyway, the minus/plus buttons currently work much better for me as hide/show. If I have to think of them as rating a post, and therefore rating a person's mood or form of expression, which in turn is passing nit-picky judgement on every little thing someone else says, well... ... ... I'm thinking I'll just read less of the forums... if at all. Or maybe I'll just persist trudging through hundreds of posts without a means of hide/show. I don't know for sure. Knowing that I'm judging someone else's mood-of-the-moment or witticism-of-the-moment or their personal sense of humor just doesn't seem appealing to me.

And the collection of points that a bunch of strangers has given someone else does not in any way get me to trust that someone when I don't even have a relationship with that person in the first place. That, and it's not unusual for me to wonder how in the world they ever got such a high rating posting anything like they're posting... And maybe "popularity" is too common to impress me? I'm sure there are a lot of factors.

In particular, I think I'm quite a bit peeved to find out that I've been misusing the minus/plus buttons, and that I'm not going to feel comfortable using them in a manner that I found useful anymore... :-(

A "most recent posts" feature would unfortunately massively facilitate ritual downvoting. Thankfully, this forum will not receive a design upgrade in the years to come.

The removal of the present reputation system is the only likely way out of the present heap of shit.