the OFFICIAL Final Gear reputation system poll - please vote!!!

[TechZ]

*rigs it*

 

[static]

As I've been saying since this system was first enabled, it does have its advantages and disadvantages as well.
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The rep system is also a good way to not clog up a thread. If all you wanted to post was to say you agree or you support their ideas, you can just give them a positive rep.

That's sounds wonderful but why we have people constantly posting +1 posts in every thread if it works? That won't happen on a larger scale, ever. If someone agrees with you they usually want to express it to everyone else as well and they do it by posting "+1" messages.

While I respect your opinion about losing the anonymity I hope to see the whole system go away. It's a popularity contest and a way to raise above not-so-well-repped users. I understand and appreciate that we have moderators and even visible post counts to give users some status. But reputation unequalizes users and for the wrong reasons.
I've read so many good posts in here that will never get positive rep because they are so against boards common beliefs and opinions.

 

[ahpadt]

*rigs it*

It already looks rigged, if you ask me.

Anyway:

Put simply, explain why don't you like receiving anonymous negative rep?

Are you feeling bad that someone doesn't like you? Can't be that, because by removing anonymity nothing will change, some people will just stop manifesting their opinion, but will still think the same.

Do you think that received negrep is undeserved? Firstly - so what? The opinion of some random individual is so hugely important? Why not just ignoring it? Secondly - what would you do about it if you knew the name of the person who left it? What exactly do you mean by being "held responsible"?

And lastly, if you're really concerned about your public reputation, well, that's just sad. And it's very clear that it serves absolutely no purpose. Every postwhore (don't get offended, just didn't find a better term ) here has a massive positive rep, so the conclusion I'm supposed to make is that the more I post the more people like me? It's just a redundant information, it doesn't help newcomers whatsoever, they can just look at the postcount.

Removing anonymity will just result in people leaving less negative feedback, it's undeniable. Anonymity serves a purpose, otherwise this system is just equal to collectively jerking each other off. It's the worst option out of all presented in my opinion.

Well, I can't be bothered to re-quote the whole thing, we clearly have a different view about what is this system for.

You think that:

Leaving feedback should make an impact.

And I think it doesn't.

Two basic points:

1. Like I said (and Shawn and you, as far as I understood, agree) making more posts will inevitably result in more posrep. I haven't seen any exceptions yet. So this alone is already an evidence of uselessness of green blobs and keeping any score. It would be at least arguable if average was displayed, but since we don't give out scores, only a total sum is visible, which is directly correlated with postcount. As far as I'm concerned it causes more harm than good.

2. Leaving feedback is more than voting +/-, you pass a message, which is the only important part of the system for me. There should be no other impact but letting the receiver know what someone has to say privately about a particular post. I don't see it as a bad thing, hence I don't necessarily want whole system to be shut down.

Now, if you agree with those 2 points, the option of just removing a scoring part is the best. If you think that score should be kept, you wouldn't want any changes made.

But by removing anonymity you're just offsetting the total score hugely to the positive side. There's no benefit from it, as every regular member has way too much posrep already anyway.

Your example, Shawn, is of course an example of a bad feedback, but again, so what? Wouldn't make me lose my sleep if I got it. Besides, I'm willing to bet more people received undeserved posrep for posting in NSFW forum. Unless you think copypasting naked chicks from google image search is a great contribution to a car forum...

So damn right that it hurts.

 

[freefall]

2. Leaving feedback is more than voting +/-, you pass a message, which is the only important part of the system for me. There should be no other impact but letting the receiver know what someone has to say privately about a particular post. I don't see it as a bad thing, hence I don't necessarily want whole system to be shut down.

There must be an option of giving neutral feedback then, otherwise it's pointless.

 

[MXM]

First of all, can't we just move on to the new thread? This is confusing.

Replying in this thread now.

Second, what do you mean so what? My life wouldn't be any better or worse if I had more or less rep, or if the system didn't exist here at all.

It still doesn't mean that people should be allowed to act like children. Would an inflammatory or immature insult be taken lightly if it were posted in a thread? No, it would not be ignored. So there's no reason that this site should implement a system which allows you to insult people without any consequences or even revealing your name.

Would you like it if your email provider allowed people to anonymously email you? So they could keep harassing you to entertain themselves in their lonely, pitiful existence?

You're exaggerating, repping is not spamming, you don't have to actively filter it. But if it really is a huge problem for you and someone constantly insults you via the system, we have a bunch of helpful mods who you should contact

OK, I can deal with removed anonymity, even though I think it's a mistake. It's the scoring part is the one that bugs me.

There must be an option of giving neutral feedback then, otherwise it's pointless.

I agree.

 

[alihaig]

I have voted for keeping the system but without the anonimity becuase:

1) Although I don't really care about my score it is nice to see when someone agrees with a post, and it is useful to see at a glance users who tend to have made a large number of good/bad posts.

2) On the point of people filling threads with posts saying "+1" or whatever, I find this a bit annoying at times, but for me it depends on the thread. Some threads you see some people having a discussion that is interupted by a load of posts with no real content - this I find annoying and would probably get worse with the rep system removed. Other posts don't really have much discussion they are just something that has been posted by a user followed by a few comments.

3) I don't feel adding usernames to rep would have any real negatives and it has 2 advantages I can see - it discourages users who are negrepping for fun, and it avoids the problem I have had occasionally leaving a quick rep and forgetting to add a comment with my name

I am not sure it would work and it is beyond the scope of this poll but one solution could be to just remove the neg-rep section and leave the positive rep system? I also agree with the suggestion to have a minimum post count before it becomes possible to leave (especially negative) rep. That would reduce the number of trolls who leave stupid rep without contributing anything themselves.

 

[teeb]

That's sounds wonderful but why we have people constantly posting +1 posts in every thread if it works? That won't happen on a larger scale, ever. If someone agrees with you they usually want to express it to everyone else as well and they do it by posting "+1" messages.

Just posting +1 is stupid - it's spammy, uninformative, and clogs threads up. It also screams "look at me I repped someone".

The solution there is to say, "no more +1 posts, either you have something useful to say (I agree because...) or you don't".

While I respect your opinion about losing the anonymity I hope to see the whole system go away. It's a popularity contest and a way to raise above not-so-well-repped users. I understand and appreciate that we have moderators and even visible post counts to give users some status. But reputation unequalizes users and for the wrong reasons.

I'll admit I had fears it'd be a popularity contest on another forum I visited when it was introduced (before it came in here).

In the end, it's worked out that anyone who has been around for any length of time (6 months +) has a full bar of blobs and anyone who is new has either a few green or a few red (depending on how good their posts are).

I guess the idea is that those who have been around for a while know the rules and behave?

Although I admit negative-reps for "not going with the forum consensus" is normally fairly silly.

There must be an option of giving neutral feedback then, otherwise it's pointless.

It depends what your view of feedback is about. If it's feedback in a way rather literally meaning "constructive criticism and feedback from each post", then yes, there should be a neutral feedback button. Thing is, though, it's normally used as a "I think this is an excellent post" or "I think this is an awful post" function. Which is fair enough. I speak only for myself here, but I don't rep often - a couple times a day, maximum - so I'm not really giving cc to everyone on the forums (nor would I try to!). More to the point the rules regarding how many people you can rep a day / how often you can rep a single person means neutral feedbacks would have not a huge effect.

 

[TheCleaner]

i seen a few f these rep systems come in on forums i use and never had any issues with them. I voted 2 since it seems to be the best medium, as non of the options solve everything, nothing ever will.

 

[NecroJoe]

It already looks rigged, if you ask me.

Because not everyone agrees with you? :lol:

[removes any possible veneer of sarcasm or smart-assed-ness as I'm genuinely curious]

Is it the way the options are offered? Do you feel it's biased? What would improve it?

[/sarcasm veneer removal]

 

[ahpadt]

Is it the way the options are offered? Do you feel it's biased? What would improve it?

[/sarcasm veneer removal]

It's biased in the way that I think most people just click the second alternative without thinking.

 

[the Interceptor]

While I respect your opinion about losing the anonymity I hope to see the whole system go away. It's a popularity contest and a way to raise above not-so-well-repped users.

I can only speak for myself, but I don't see it that way. I mean let's face it, every active member has so much positive rep it doesn't even matter anymore. For me, the rep itself and the attached message is what counts. I don't post to receive rep, but at times I am happy to see someone agrees with me.

I've read so many good posts in here that will never get positive rep because they are so against boards common beliefs and opinions.

What's wrong with presenting an opinion that's against the common attitude? As long as you word your thoughts cleanly and politely, every negative rep you receive for that is plain wrong. Disclosing the names when repping would also make neg reps you receive for doing that go away. You can also get positive reps for having the guts to express a different opinion, doesn't have to be the thought of the century.

So damn right that it hurts.

Funny how you strongly agree with MXM when he basically says how the comments are the only important part of the reputation system, while you stated earlier that you like the system as it is and you'd just get rid of the commenting.

Well, I can't be bothered to re-quote the whole thing, we clearly have a different view about what is this system for.

You think that:

Leaving feedback should make an impact.

And I think it doesn't.

Maybe it doesn't for you, but it should. Also, it does for me.

Two basic points:

1. Like I said (and Shawn and you, as far as I understood, agree) making more posts will inevitably result in more posrep. I haven't seen any exceptions yet. So this alone is already an evidence of uselessness of green blobs and keeping any score. It would be at least arguable if average was displayed, but since we don't give out scores, only a total sum is visible, which is directly correlated with postcount. As far as I'm concerned it causes more harm than good.

I don't see how the score does harm, but I wouldn't mind if it went away anyway. I basically just want comments and names.

2. Leaving feedback is more than voting +/-, you pass a message, which is the only important part of the system for me. There should be no other impact but letting the receiver know what someone has to say privately about a particular post. I don't see it as a bad thing, hence I don't necessarily want whole system to be shut down.

Now, if you agree with those 2 points, the option of just removing a scoring part is the best. If you think that score should be kept, you wouldn't want any changes made.

I do agree with those arguments, but you're missing the point Shawn and I are trying to make in the first place: because the rep system does not display names, it can be and obviously is being misused. I too want to read why someone repped me, but if a person uses the system to just leave a red blob and call me a troll, comments don't help me. I don't mind about the score and the blobs staying or going. The change I personally want to have made is that I'd like to see who left the rep.

But by removing anonymity you're just offsetting the total score hugely to the positive side. There's no benefit from it, as every regular member has way too much posrep already anyway.

Quoting myself from the other thread:

I don't think so. I am fine with someone leaving negative feedback, but only when I deserve it. Now, saying that I never deserved it would be poor. Actually, there were posts in my past where I wondered why I wasn't neg-repped. Even so, that "fear" alone made me think about my posted words and led to choosing them more wisely next time. That's exactly what the rep system is about, but it only works when everyone who uses it does so properly.

If we need to have names displayed to make the people use the system as it should be used, I'm all for it. Anonymity has no advantage in this system whatsoever, since when you use it properly, noone will ever come after you unless he's a tool in the first place.

You're exaggerating, repping is not spamming, you don't have to actively filter it. But if it really is a huge problem for you and someone constantly insults you via the system, we have a bunch of helpful mods who you should contact

I did. And I was called whiny and equipped with a new avatar and title as to be seen on the left. Also, as long as we don't have names, you don't know if it's only one or more people doing it.

OK, I can deal with removed anonymity, even though I think it's a mistake. It's the scoring part is the one that bugs me.

I think we'll meet somewhere in the middle then.

It's biased in the way that I think most people just click the second alternative without thinking.

Sorry, but that's their problem. I wrote an intro as long as it gets and even directly asked people to take their time and think. Maybe you can't believe how many people go for #2 because you disagree with it so strongly? After all, the majority of posts in this thread states that they chose #2 for the individually given reasons.

 

[teeb]

It's biased in the way that I think most people just click the second alternative without thinking.

Okay then, how would you change it?

The only thing I would consider changing is some kind of 'other' option, saying "other, and explain in thread why".

 

[the Interceptor]

Of course, having options so that everyone is 100% satisfied would be perfect. A 5th "other, see post" option however would likely render this poll worthless, since a lot of people would go for that one because they're not totally satisfied with the other options. So what we would end up with is a load of users with a load of wishes. How would Quiky distill that into a proper set of changes?

In the other thread, I was about to work out a system where nearly everyone would be satisfied. That would have meant a load of consecutive polls and loads of blown time however. So following the remarks of other forum members, I went the easy, efficient way.

 

[Yaco]

You can't please everyone...

You can't please everyone...

I voted 1, "I like the system the way it is now," but I would also vote 4, "I don't like the system, and I would rather see it disabled altogether" just because there really is no purpose. If they are a dickhead you will notice it almost immediately.

It seems childish to me having this point system. I do get, "Oh, yay, I got a point!" or "Oh yeah, some one else agrees with me." at times but if they really care about the topic that much they will post something.

How about only positive reputation points only? Reputation points for only that post? I would assume that would be a little too much work but I think that would fix the problem. If they disagree then they will post something otherwise they will give you points and leave it at that.

Please note:
I have been lucky to receive only one "reputation balance" point that was blank and one negative with a comment and signature. All other points have been positive with majority commented and some signed.

There must be an option of giving neutral feedback then, otherwise it's pointless.

Agreed if it stays close to the same.

 

[Dogbert]

As I said before, getting rid of the anonymity won't get rid of the negrep trolls... but at least you'll have somewhere to focus your anger.

 

[Shawn]

As I said before, getting rid of the anonymity won't get rid of the negrep trolls... but at least you'll have somewhere to focus your anger.

See, this is where I disagree.

You don't see any of the trolls signing their names, meaning they are too cowardly to insult you if their identity isn't hidden, meaning they will stop if the system isn't anonymous.

The deserved neg reps, on the other hand, are often signed, meaning they should continue as they have even if the system is made un-anonymous.

I might turn out to be completely wrong about this, but this is how I see things panning out using simple logic.

 

[geeman]

Democracy doesn't work if the people voting are idiots.

 

[Shawn]

Democracy doesn't work if the people voting are idiots.

Oh yeah? The choice should be so very clear for you then - stop coming on FinalGear and don't post anything anymore.

If you have a problem with the rep system fine, so be it. But if you think the majority of the members here are idiots, then why do you hassle yourself to log on and converse with stupid people? Is it like a bondage type situation where you enjoy chatting with people you consider dumb?

 

[geeman]

But if you think the majority of the members here are idiots, then why do you hassle yourself to log on and converse with stupid people?

Hmm. What are you on about? I didn't say majority of people here are idiots.

 

[Dogbert]

Oh yeah? The choice should be so very clear for you then - stop coming on FinalGear and don't post anything anymore.

That's not one of the options. This poll is flawed!