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Reputation system WTF....


Reputation points, yea or nay?  

40 members have voted

  1. 1. Should we keep the reputation point system?

    • yes
      8
    • no
      32


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I've realized recently that I have been given negative rep point for frivolous things like telling someone an obviously dangerous and stupid idea was just that. Granted I know I can be an *albatross*, and I do get in heated arguments but nothing deserving negative reputation, especially as people do agree with me as well, but they don't seem to care enough to give positive rep. I also notice a lot of older and more vocal arnies members also have negative reputation points, and these are valued members who don't deserve these points.

 

I have actually had someone PM me informing me they were giving me a negative point simply because they didn't agree with my opinion on something, when points can be taken for something as frivolous, what value is there in that system?

 

It seems that rep points are a joke, however many people don't realize this and it can affect sales.

 

I have had two people so far refuse to do sales with me because of my negative rep, I have no idea where I've gotten some of these points, but I have never had a bad sale, and have had to win over these "customers" by showing them my rep on other forums, I should not have to do this, it is ridiculous.

 

 

Can we just get rid of rep points? I don't want to have to provide references again because of my rep from discussions, it's a headache I and many others don't deserve.

Edited by frogfish
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Taking what you have mentioned on board I think a simple solution is to only allow positive reputation to be given. We can leave negative feedback in the warning system that admin/staff have access to.

 

that would seem to solve the problem and I know of forums that have benefited from such a solution.

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I like the speed and weighed decisions the staff makes to improve the forum. It is the pinnacle for a good and friendly discussion community.

Most forums are like: "no, our system is good the way it is" or "Didn't you read the rules ? You can't discuss forum policy ! Added a Strike to your profile".

ASR uses this kind of narrowminded dictatorial behavior a lot and good people with honest and correct advice get banned or shunned because they question the staff's system or mis-use of it.

 

Hat-tip to the Arnie's staff for being a progressive, professional and friendly bunch !

 

Positive remarks for everyone !

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After the pathetic abuse of the rep system on here in the past it's probably a better idea to bin it, it only works when linked solely to sales, if open in all forums it'll be abused like befire where utter tools had hundreds of rep points for being tools :)

 

Rep/feedback for sales, super, forum wide, waste of memory :D

Edited by Aitch
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Taking what you have mentioned on board I think a simple solution is to only allow positive reputation to be given. We can leave negative feedback in the warning system that admin/staff have access to.

 

that would seem to solve the problem and I know of forums that have benefited from such a solution.

 

 

That is one way to solve it but it puts a lot of work onto the staff the last thing I want to do is make your jobs more difficult, I'm a moderator on another forum and even with 2,000 members it gets like a second job, I can't imagine how it is with the 45,000+ here.

 

 

 

I also like the idea of linking it to sales, RCgroups has an interesting and effective way to leave feedback for sales,where a little bit of info as to why the feedback was left and what the sale was by linking the advertisement for the sale, I'll link my profile. But then again I dont know if you have tools for a feature like this, or maybe we could set up a feedback forum.

 

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/itrader.php?u=268345 --- hope you can see that without being loged in.

 

Thank you for being open minded, arnie's staff is some of the best online.

Edited by frogfish
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I think we should keep the rep system, to be honest, but maybe with a small change?

 

Instead of just clicking + or - next to someones post (as some people might not be aware that it actually affects your profile reputation as well as just the post), it should be mandatory to give a reason for awarding a rep point - a bit like the Warn system?

 

Ben.

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I think it needs to be a bit harder to leave feedback, the first post in this thread in 12 hours has gone from 0 rep, to +5 rep, to a +1 rep. Why would it change, simply because people don't like my opinion, that is not a reflection of my character, but the fact that people don't agree with me. This gives me a big red bar in my profile that has scared away many potential buyers of my items. If anything maybe making it not turn red and not go below 0 would be nice, but that might negate the whole idea of showing who bad members are here.

 

I don't want to have silence my opinion, or play nice with others simply to get sales, that dosen't help anyone but myself. If I have an opinion on a rifle and someone dosen't agree with it, that is not grounds to leave bad rep, that is simply a disagreement. The problem is many many people don't see it that way, they believe they are right, and anyone who disagrees is wrong, and therefore a bad person deserving negative rep.

Edited by frogfish
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I always wondered how my reputation points went down when I'm extremely vigilant about forum rules. I kind of figured perhaps I did something to someone verbally but I wasn't sure! Perhaps it should be a little harder to give negative and positive points. I vouch for frogfish btw!

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You two have just demonstrated what is actually wrong with a rep system - mates 'vouching' for each other, and then ripping people off on the back of good feedback.

 

I think there should be clear guidelines on what you can and can't give feedback for. 'Frogfish is a great bloke' might well be a true statement (sure it is :bleh:), but it doesn't deserve a rep point does it?

 

'Frogfish helped me with my XXXX AEG problem' or 'I had a smooth trade with Frogfish' on the other hand perhaps do warrant rep points.

 

Negative feedback should work the same way. Just because YOU don't like someone doesn't mean they're a poor member of the Arnie's community.

 

Ben.

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Lol thanks, I vouch for you too!

 

 

Funny this post earned me -3 reputation... apparently people don't like you jotohomomoto or they will give me bad rep for any reason what so ever.

 

 

We have had recent transactions and it was a joke about how this rep system works, every rep system is flawed. One based on sales I can lie and say

 

labyrnth sold me a "highly upgraded systema PTW in perfect working order" for $2k that had random circuits and a bed spring installed, don't deal with him

 

you can argue against me but then I can have my buddies chime in and back me up, I would eventually be proven false but people who saw the mess will forever question your credibility. Like you said I could also ask those same buddies to pad my feedback thread so I can scam others.

 

Really more effort needs to go into it giving rep, or the big red tag needs to be toned down a bit.

 

As for when to get rep, I help people all the time, mostly via PMs, but I also play devils advocate and try to get people to think beyond "Oh new shinny GBBR" and figure out what is really going on, that ###### some people off but it gets them to show their biases in their discussions at least. Neither of those things really deserve a reputation point, more experienced members should be helping newer members, not all do, but that is what comes with being a community and a hobby and they should not need motivation to do so. This is the opposite of a competitive sport, where you hoard all your secrets to gain an advantage.

 

To me negative reputation should only be for completely stupid actions or posts like

I recommend playing in the local playground, I know it's illegal, but I'm not worried"

 

not because you disagree with an opinion or you feel the post was wasted space.

 

Positive rep should come from achievements the exact opposite, like very good reviews, how-to guides, or profound tidbits of information, not things that I can find with a ten second google search.

Edited by frogfish
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I see what you're saying with that, but I still think a nice clear set of rules as regards feedback would be the way to go, and would negate problems such as this.

 

Going with your example, if I sold you a PTW (urgh.... PTW's :bleh:) and the condition was not as described, you should then post a thread in the 'Problems With Sales' sub-forum, and not jump straight to spamming my profile with negative feedback.

 

Any negative feedback that is proven to be unwarranted could be removed by the mods.

 

As to whether this would mean a heap of extra work for the moderating team or not... It'd have to be tested, I suppose.

 

The only other feedback system that I think might work well is an eBay-esque percentage-based mechanic; where your profile gives an overall rating of all your feedback, and then people can click for more details and see the individual ratings and comments.

 

Ben.

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yes rules would be great but to give you an example, I have a list of ten rules for posting in the for sale section on my local boards, of the items that get posted 2 out of every 5 ads are in violation of more than one rule. Never mind the fact that these people have to read the rules to post the damn ad. Rules will give guidelines to those who have common sense, the rest, would just continue to do what they are doing, especially with the large member base we have here.

 

 

As for removing unwarranted feedback, if I have someone claiming to be on my side, well, it might not get removed for a while.

 

as for the PTW, WOC didn't come to mind fast enough when I was thinking of overpriced junk that people go crazy for, and "random circuits and a bed spring" sounded much better than going with the AEG version "no gears and a bed spring".

 

For me the best system for a user group this large is no system, there simply isn't the amount of time in the day for arnie's mods to monitor that stuff.

 

 

the best solution to make everyone happy is we could set up a forum section to be self policing (you report problems to a mod then action is taken), like you said, this could be a positive only and we can keep the "problems with" section (might help when trying to find good or bad feedback) or it could be a general feedback. We would all need to make sure each person who had a feedback thread would only have one, because there is the potential for over 50k plus threads, even though of that only a limited user group uses the classifieds. Still with multiple feedback threads, and many people who still don't know how to use the search feature, I'm sure I could easily have 3 review threads in under 6 months, but again I could report that problem to a mod if I knew it existed.

 

The RCgroups system I linked to is ebay esque, I don't know if these boards have the tools to do something like that, but they work very well on RCgroups and with the volume of sales here they could work well here, and provide statistics for people to get a clear picture, rather than having to read page after page of feedback to identify problems.

Edited by frogfish
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Going with your example, if I sold you a PTW (urgh.... PTW's :bleh:) and the condition was not as described, you should then post a thread in the 'Problems With Sales' sub-forum, and not jump straight to spamming my profile with negative feedback.

 

 

Ben.

 

Tempted to give you a neg point for your rampant PTWism :P

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Lol thanks, I vouch for you too!

errr umm, well eventhough I'm mates with frogfish; we actually had a trade of somewhat pricey items and everything went smoothly. I know I try my best to be honest...and frogfish did too.

I ONLY know frogfish from Arnies...he just happens to live a couple of hours from me and is going to the same school as I did back in the day...I based my initial trust on earlier dialogues that had nothing to do with transactions...blah, blah, blah anyway

bring on the negative points for being honest!!!flamed.gif

Edited by jotohomomoto
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The thing is, people would reather give - than + feedback.

 

Further, if there are trolls who absolutely hate someone will give - rep on any post.

 

I wrote, I think like 5 or 6 reviews here, and I currently have a rep of -23. I mean, I haven't noticed it until a few seconds ago when I found this thread, and I don't really care. For a fact though, I know there's a guy who hates me personally for some childish reasons, so I guess my rep's actually getting worse the more I post.

 

Also, there are valueable members, like frontries, how knows what (stick to him as an example) knows what's going on in chinasoft, and therefore declines rumores and untrue statements, and just for revenge reasons, the original posters of those statements leave neg. rep. for his tur comment just as a payback.

 

Personally, I think such a rep system is not very useful, due to the fact mentioned in the beginning, but if you guys decide to keep it listen to the suggestion L4byr1nth gave and make it mendatory to leave a reason why someone gave feedback.

 

And my last thought, at least let the users know where they got (this kinda interferes with my last point)rep. I mean, you can leave neg. rep. on posts that are years old. So if people don't know what they got rep for, they have no clues where to improve their contribution to the community, so it's just so kind of marking people.

 

Oh, and another thing I just noticed:

The ***** (star) user ranking is still there. I like that way of rep, because you couldn't "hate" someone.

Edited by somegirls
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The thing is, people would reather give - than + feedback.

 

Further, if there are trolls who absolutely hate someone will give - rep on any post.

 

I wrote, I think like 5 or 6 reviews here, and I currently have a rep of -23.

 

 

This is exactly what I'm talking about, thank you somegirls, I'd give you + rep but I'm boycotting it for now.

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This is exactly what I'm talking about, thank you somegirls, I'd give you + rep but I'm boycotting it for now.

 

Yeah no biggy, some else already gave me another - for my post that actually subcribs your very first post which got 4+. Weird?

 

Anyways, I still got my 2 star user ranking. For that you have to at least go to someones profil to vote instead of giving a fly by rep ;)

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Yeah no biggy, some else already gave me another - for my post that actually subcribs your very first post which got 4+. Weird?

 

Anyways, I still got my 2 star user ranking. For that you have to at least go to someones profil to vote instead of giving a fly by rep ;)

 

 

It's that guy who hates you systematically going through all your posts and giving you - rep, I wouldn't be surprised if you get -1,139 in the next few days, lol.

 

At this point I think a disclaimer in the sale section would be enough for me to convince people I'm not what my rep said I was (surprisingly I'm at +4 now). Just something that says....

 

"Reputation points in a users profile are not representative of the user's status in the community, or their history of sales and trades. If you are looking for background or potential problems on a user, please go to the "problem sales" section, or look for their previous topics in the sale section."

 

I'd be able to link that and say, "I don't know where I got bad rep, I probably said something someone didn't like. Here is a topic discussion how rep effects sales, (and if we have it) here is a thread discussing what rep can be given for, sales is not something it represents."

Edited by frogfish
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