Hello everyone,

A good friend of mine has brought my attention to the negative rep bullying problem in this forum. So to help everyone, I've decided to organize a protest against the reputation system.

The current reputation system is very easy to misuse and is being currently misused by bullies to mass downvote posts. So far GOG has shown no interest in reforming the system or removing it entirely as it is not of much use anyway.

So let us all collectively abolish the reputation system!

How do we do that you ask? It's pretty simple, I've made a totally passive user-script which entirely removes anything related to reputation in the browser.

I believe that this is the best form of protest without inconveniencing anyone except the bullies, who depend on us to react to their silly games.

We are not harming anyone, we are not manipulating anything, we are just choosing to ignore the reputation system entirely, abolishing it from our lives collectively. We don't need GOG when we can do it ourselves!

I was inspired by one of history's most iconic figures to start this movement, Mahatma Gandhi. He liberated India from the British Empire without harming anyone, he's well known for his non-violence method.

At a time when everyone was hurting each other, one man rose up and spread the message of peace and brotherhood and strongly opposed violence.

Friends, I request you to join me in this non-violent protest against the bullies, install the script!

The script is called GOG Abolish Reputation System, and it does two things:
1. Hide anything related to reputation in the forum (e.g. points, votes, labels)
2. Optionally add a simple signature to your posts to spread awareness about this movement, you can choose to remove this per post or disable it globally via a menu option.

To install this script in your browser you will need an user-script manager extension for your browser, if you don't have it I recommend installing ViolentMonkey which supports many browsers.

Please spread the message and participate in the discussion below, if you have any suggestions please share them, we may be able to improve our script.

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Erm,...you are aware that , if you want to "ignore" something, you don't need a script to do that?

Ignoring is one of the easiest things to do in life...you simply choose to ignore something. Done.

Any scripts are totally unnecessary in this case.

I would even go so far and say: by taking the time to write a script "to ignore" the reputation system, you are doing the exact opposite of what "ignore" means.

There's one easy way to "abolish" the reputation system - it's to simply not care about it. You are scripting your way out of a behavioral issue, but I guess some people react better to ignorance/hiding something other than rendering invisible through sheer will/not caring. Oh, I think the same... but it doesn't come that natural to everyone.

Reminds me of the old Firefox addon by Alaric named "JerkMuter"...

Just a simple question - how does one "abolish" or rather fix a global problem by just installing and using a local script?

Not to be too crude here, but what you essentially are doing here is just using time and energy to conveniently "hide" it from seeing it yourself and still others can continue to abuse the system.

I'm guessing the next thing would be to selective "abolish" lasers in an attempt to not blind people, while the bad guys still roam around going "pew-pew". By all means, join the collective, but don't fool yourself into thinking it has any real effect.

Also, Ghandi was a pacifist so you're basically going against his principles by actively "fighting" against the system. Gandhi was a baker also, so he made a lot of Naan-violence. ;)

I love it that many of you are already with us in the movement, it's great. However at the end of the day, we are humans.

And humans have a tendency to get emotional, some might say that is what makes us human. Ignoring what's there in front of you can only be done for so long before it infiltrates your mind again. And the bullies know this well.

If I could I would've removed the system entirely, alas it's up to GOG to do that. I did the second best thing, removing it on the user's end with their consent.

If we all have this installed, it would be practically same as abolishing the system in practice, even though it would technically exist on books. Just like the archaic law in the UK where handling a salmon suspiciously is illegal.

The bullies will be helpless in front of those who participate in this movement. They know that no matter what they do, it won't effect us one bit regardless of emotional will-power or mental strength. The forum will be straight up scrubbed clean of their dirty deeds.

So my friends, I request you to give this a try. After all, what do you have to lose? This will reduce the load on your mind and also spread the message. They will know that their tactics aren't going to work anymore.

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I haven't had a problem ignoring rep for years. It's just a meaningless number. Yes, it would be good if GOG would abolish it altogether, but GOG won't do that. They have been asked to abolish it for as long as it exists, but they are deaf to that request.

As to the request of actually staying DRM-free.

sanscript, my dear comrade, you are mistaken. I have addressed the first part of your queries in my previous reply. As for the second part about Gandhi, you misunderstood his mission.

He was non-violent, but that doesn't mean he sits idle, he fights against the system by non-violent means, civil disobedience in other words. A famous example is the Salt March where Gandhi made salt without paying taxes to the British, he fought with the system as hard as he could... not physically, but ideologically.

✊ I admire your will, and I am aware that the request is falling on deaf years. So let's abolish it together, if all of us do this then the "system" is only as good as the paper it's written on, no one except the bullies will be bothered by it. If they still want to play with the system then I don't have an issue because I know their efforts are futile, they will only be wasting their time.

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reputation system? what is this "reputation system" you are talking about?

I think you're missing the semantics here - you can't be both fighting actively AND be a pacifist. Ghandi simply looked away and ignored the British' demands. The antonym to active is passive.

If Ghandi f.ex. made propaganda paper he would've aggroed the British Imps, this would be an active protest. The opposite here is to just turn a blind eye and look away.

Also, when did people in India start to use "comrade"? :D

That's the spirit!

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@sanscript My comrade, I think you have to look into it again. Gandhi was most certainly not someone who "simply looked away", that's what he was doing until he faced extreme racism in SA.

Gandhi did make a lot of propaganda paper and led anti-british protests actively. The only thing he did not do is cause physical harm to anyone.

That's what we are doing here, we are spreading the message loud and clear but not harming anyone in the process (i.e downvoting them etc.)

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Since I didn't get an answer I guess OP uses "comrade" as a suppression technique or to stoke the fire around here... That usually happens when a nerve is hit or when someone isn't aligned with their exact view.

Thank you, I think that pretty much answered my thought on this "noble" protest. Good luck in your continued fight against the nasty imps. :)

Oh, I didn't know you were serious about it. I was using it in jest. No hard feelings :)

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GOG itself needs to abolish the so-called "reputation" system, which in actual practice is in fact a bullying/gangstalking/shaming/harrassment system which is being used to bully & harrass users into only saying things that the mob and/or downvoting bot-user "approves of."

A user-made script cannot solve this problem, because:

a) not all GOG customers would use it, hence the bullying/gangstalking/shaming/harrassment will still continue, regardless of the script's existence

b) a script cannot solve problems like the "reputation" bully system causing the victim's post to be made invisible to new users

The problem with just ignoring the reputation system is that forum privileges are tied to it. Having negative rep means you can't post links and you can't upload attachments, which directly impacts my ability to get potential support on the forum. I can't efficently and quickly describe an issue I'm having with an attached screenshot, or even link to a screenshot uploaded elsewhere because people are abusing and manipulating the reputation system.

Downvoting is something that is done by people who can't handle people having an opinion other than their own. The system is not, or at least I would hope, was not designed for that. Downvoting is for spam, trolls, toxic posts and other problematic things.

Anyways, the issue of the reputation system has been brought up to GOG over and over again, and they don't care enough to put the resources forward to change it. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of things they'd like to do if they could, but GOG is basically just trying to keep the lights on right now. The thing is, that a lot of people are just being driven away by issues like this, so it's basically a lose-lose for them and most people can see where this ends...

Guaranteed my post here gets downvoted, and for what reason? For expressing a problem with the system and how my experience is negatively affected by it, and because I've done that the rep manipulators will have every post I make downvoted so I'm effectively removed from the forums.

Honestly, I think GOG would be better if the forums were just shut down. I truly believe that there's people that come to GOG, and see the "community" here and immediately turn around and say they want no part of it.

I fully agree with you and I thank you for providing me the opportunity to explain.

My primary goal is to spread awareness about this issue by using the signature as a protest, the more people use it the more it will get noticed and eventually it will reach GOG's top management who might bark out an order to fix the system or to remove it entirely.

And in the meanwhile as a secondary measure to curb the bully's powers, this extension will attempt to undo everything that the reputation system has influenced, currently this is done by hiding the numbers and the voting system so that no one gets influenced by it.

I'm sure that if a significant chunk of the active members just use this script then it wouldn't be very long before GOG and the bullies take notice.

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