Suggestion for MODS about Reputation

[NUance]

So you can’t get booted off the board for negative rep points-—only for infractions and jackassery, right? Then why would anyone give a rat’s ass if they have negative rep points? And if a person is so vain that they do care about it, then why not just avoid posting stupid crap that would attract negative rep points?

Let's say you are about to be interviewed for a job at a bank working in a finance and loans department. Would you rather walk into the interview with a giant "I am a jackass" poster slapped to your back, or would you rather go in with a nice suit on looking like a million bucks? Same principle applies here. Negative rep points give people the impression that you are a jackass.

 

It doesn't matter if somebody negates points off of a post of mine, because I have 40+ points to spare. But, if a new poster comes on here and somebody doesn't like his take, he's immediately in the negative. Perhaps you don't care that much about rep points, but there are some people on here that do take it personally.

I see your point and agree that some might lend credibility to a poster based on rep points. But if they do, they will miss out on some good points/observations made by those who aren’t in the popular crowd. Even dickheads can be insightful sometimes.

 

 

 

 

But realizing that many people consider rep points to be important I have never given anyone a negative rep point.

[Enhance]

So you can’t get booted off the board for negative rep points-—only for infractions and jackassery, right? Then why would anyone give a rat’s ass if they have negative rep points? And if a person is so vain that they do care about it, then why not just avoid posting stupid crap that would attract negative rep points?

Let's say you are about to be interviewed for a job at a bank working in a finance and loans department. Would you rather walk into the interview with a giant "I am a jackass" poster slapped to your back, or would you rather go in with a nice suit on looking like a million bucks? Same principle applies here. Negative rep points give people the impression that you are a jackass.

 

It doesn't matter if somebody negates points off of a post of mine, because I have 40+ points to spare. But, if a new poster comes on here and somebody doesn't like his take, he's immediately in the negative. Perhaps you don't care that much about rep points, but there are some people on here that do take it personally.

I see your point and agree that some might lend credibility to a poster based on rep points. But if they do, they will miss out on some good points/observations made by those who aren’t in the popular crowd. Even dickheads can be insightful sometimes.

 

 

 

But realizing that many people consider rep points to be important I have never given anyone a negative rep point.

That last line was the issue, though. People were giving out a lot of negative rep points. I remember a fairly new poster came onto the board and started a thread about how he thought that if you were a "true" Husker fan, that you couldn't like any other football team. After that thread and a few other dissenting takes on a few topics, he was in the -60s. I haven't seen him post for a long time now, but my guess is that the board just kind of turned him off because he thought nobody wanted to talk to him. Now, giving positive rep means either you can gain respect or you stay the same. It kind of keeps everything on an even keel.

 

And very true about the dickheads being insightful thing, even though we don't like to admit it all of the time when they are lol.

[zoogs]

Crap, in my last post I forgot to give kudos to Enhance for coming up with the suggestion. Good job man.

 

I think the thing is, it's hard not to be indignant when you see one of your posts getting marked with a -1. I don't think it's fair to say that people were "abusing" the system, it's just that intrinsically, it introduced a set of unnecessary and mostly detrimental dynamics by its punitive nature.

[knapplc]

I would also point out that this is an example of how we value your feedback. We've been discussing this system for a while now, and we weren't sure what to do with it. After several complaints it was turned off, and after Enhance's suggestion (and reminder) we amended that to just positive points.

 

Please, if you have a suggestion for the boards, we absolutely want to hear it. You folks are what makes this board great, so please keep the suggestions coming.