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Reputation system changes


Neil

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In order to better identify those users that make the most helpful contributions to the web site the following changes have been made to the existing user reputation system:

  • Every user's reputation level is now public and can no longer be hidden.
  • Reputation can be given for posts in all forums except for the Testing & Technical Problems forums.
  • Double weighting (i.e. double reputation points) will be given on posts made in any of the Articles forums, Feedback Forum, Gigs & Event Announcements forum, Music Discussion forum, Musicians' Corner forum, Networking forum and the News & Announcements forum.
  • All staff members are still exempt from the reputation system and cannot give reputation to users.
  • Reputation comments are now optional. However, reputation can still not be given anonymously.
  • There is still no specific rewards or punishments in place related to a user's reputation level. The intention is for this to change in the future though, depending on how well the system works.
  • All user's reputation levels have been recalculated and so you may notice that you now have different reputation and influence levels.

For more information on the reputation system please read this FAQ article.

If anyone has any queries regarding this then please reply below or contact me privately. Thanks.

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Don't change the system regarding rewards/punishments Neil - if you do, you'll just encourage backslapping among people. It's not really healthy for a community to have that kind of influence, and could very quickly resemble a lynch mob. If there was such a system in place, it wouldn't surprise me if two or three people on this site decided to PM people getting them to give/take away points.

Could you also reconsider the decision to make comments optional? Making it optional just takes away forcing people to have at least half a brain when it comes to these things.

Everything else is fine, though :)

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Don't change the system regarding rewards/punishments Neil - if you do, you'll just encourage backslapping among people. It's not really healthy for a community to have that kind of influence, and could very quickly resemble a lynch mob. If there was such a system in place, it wouldn't surprise me if two or three people on this site decided to PM people getting them to give/take away points.

There are controls already in place to help prevent this kind of behaviour. For example, users who have enough influence points in order to give positive or negative reputation (and users don't by default - they need to build up their post count and own reputation beforehand) can only give reputation to 10 different users in any 24 hour period. And they can only give reputation to same user again once they have given reputation to 20 other different users.

Could you also reconsider the decision to make comments optional? Making it optional just takes away forcing people to have at least half a brain when it comes to these things.

I'm prepared to reconsider this decision. We'll see how things go for now and I'll re-visit this.

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All staff members are still exempt from the reputation system and cannot give reputation to users.

I disagree with this. Staff members pitch in with discussions and debates, the same as everyone else, and they are wrong sometimes, just like everyone else. So why should they be immune from criticism if they say something stupid?

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I disagree with this. Staff members pitch in with discussions and debates, the same as everyone else, and they are wrong sometimes, just like everyone else. So why should they be immune from criticism if they say something stupid?

I think we can get given reputation (as I've got a list of what I've been given in my profile) but we can't give any ourselves.

Basically we're only receivers, not givers.

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I disagree with this. Staff members pitch in with discussions and debates, the same as everyone else, and they are wrong sometimes, just like everyone else. So why should they be immune from criticism if they say something stupid?

This isn't making us immune from criticism though. You can criticise the staff (only constructively please!) in the threads as normal, or separately in the Comments & Suggestions forum and of course privately via PM/e-mail. I accept the reputation system is a good way of giving on-the-spot feedback about a particular post though, be it positive or negative.

The reason I actually had in mind when I disabled staff from being able to use this system is the staff being accused of favouritism or victimisation if they were to give give/take away reputation from other users. Take myself for example, because of how many posts I've made and how long I've been registered on the web site, my influence level is probably around 25 points. So one negative reputation comment from me and that is someone losing 25 reputation points right there and then.

And what punishments and rewards? One of the rewards is likely to be Supporter status once someone gets X amount of positive feedback. Such a status would be of no benefit to a staff member. Punishments might include temporary bans once someone reaches X amount of negative feedback - what happens if a staff member were to get banned? Yes, it would be amusing, but if it happened to me then no-one would be in control of the web site! :p

Do see what I'm getting at? By keeping the staff out of it completely then we leave the users to rate each other and only each other. The staff remain neutral.

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I think we can get given reputation (as I've got a list of what I've been given in my profile) but we can't give any ourselves.

No, people shouldn't be able to give staff members reputation. If they can, then this is something I need to look at.

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Hahahaha...someone appears to have registered an account solely for the purposes of giving me negative reputation for a post on this thread.

Well, whoever it was must have known what you were thinking, as that poster registered the day before the post in question.

Maybe you're even pissing off the newbies as well as everyone else...

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Hahahaha...someone appears to have registered an account solely for the purposes of giving me negative reputation for a post on this thread.

If they have just signed up then they won't be able to leave you any positive or negative reputation as they will have 0 influence. They can still leave you reputation comments, but they can't affect your reputation score.

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Well, whoever it was must have known what you were thinking, as that poster registered the day before the post in question.

Maybe you're even pissing off the newbies as well as everyone else...

I'd love to know how many "emo skater girls" would register on a forum and bother to look at the Web Site Announcements forum, without making any posts. I don't know any, do you?

If they have just signed up then they won't be able to leave you any positive or negative reputation as they will have 0 influence. They can still leave you reputation comments, but they can't affect your reputation score.

Speaking of the influence scores, any chance you could tell us how influence scores are gained/lost?

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Is this EmoSkatergirl16 you are referring to? Because I've just checked and he/she has been trying to hand out reputation to all sorts of people - so don't feel hard done by. You'll notice if you look on your profile page, where the last 5 reputation comments can be viewed, that the icon beside the reputation they tried to give you is grey in colour - this means it has had no affect on your reputation score.

I think I'm going to made reputation comments mandatory again at least. And if I find out EmoSkatergirl16 is someone's second account then I think there is going to be a little bit of banning going on.

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Can you not just check from their IP address?

Yep, unfortunately some people go to the effort of accessing the web site through proxy servers hosted in exotic countries in order to hide their identify (yes, some people are actually that sad on here) so the IP address can often be no use.

I've found this particular user's Hi5 profile page though: hi5 - xxXxxXxxEmoSkaterGirl16xxXxxXxx

Fake or not fake? It's a lot of effort to go if it's fake.

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Yep, unfortunately some people go to the effort of accessing the web site through proxy servers hosted in exotic countries in order to hide their identify (yes, some people are actually that sad on here) so the IP address can often be no use.

I've always wondered why people go to so much bother on websites like this. Fuds.

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Yep, unfortunately some people go to the effort of accessing the web site through proxy servers hosted in exotic countries in order to hide their identify (yes, some people are actually that sad on here) so the IP address can often be no use.

I've found this particular user's Hi5 profile page though: hi5 - xxXxxXxxEmoSkaterGirl16xxXxxXxx

Fake or not fake? It's a lot of effort to go if it's fake.

My browser almost died when I clicked that there was so much to load. That cant be fake. She just must nae like Cloud. :p

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Yep, unfortunately some people go to the effort of accessing the web site through proxy servers hosted in exotic countries in order to hide their identify (yes, some people are actually that sad on here) so the IP address can often be no use.

I've found this particular user's Hi5 profile page though: hi5 - xxXxxXxxEmoSkaterGirl16xxXxxXxx

Fake or not fake? It's a lot of effort to go if it's fake.

An awful lot of effort to go to, indeed!

I'm sure you've already checked this, but does the IP address used to sign up resolve to Belize? Though I'm well aware that some IP addresses will show up a completely different location, even when no proxy servers are being used.

Could it just be a coincidence with the username?

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An awful lot of effort to go to, indeed!

I'm sure you've already checked this, but does the IP address used to sign up resolve to Belize? Though I'm well aware that some IP addresses will show up a completely different location, even when no proxy servers are being used.

It resolves to Belize. And the e-mail address she(?) registered with and verified on this web site matches the e-mail address on her Hi5 profile.

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