Idea for Reputation System

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#1

Okay, one of the hottest things right now in the forum community (worldwide) is the use of reputations. Users feel some kind of respect or sense of accomplishment if they have a great reputation in a forum. A user with a high great reputation usually wears it with pride, like a badge of honor or a jacket full of commemorative ribbons. Likewise, someone can lose a medal/badge for misconduct.

With that said, what do you guys think of creating some custom reputation medals (we can use it from real military forces of the world) to use in place of the current reputation system (the green icons you see on a user profile). We need to also somehow get our expert users more exposure–like giving Librarian or Panzerknacker some kind of medal for his prospective field of expertise.

We should be careful not to go aboard on this. This may involve getting rid of some of the ranking system or clamp down on the excessive use of eye-candy.

Thoughts?

#2

Sounds awfully similar to the current awards system…

#3

Yes, we should do away with that and apply the medals to the built in reputatoin system as that’s what it’s for. It will be able to automatically assign and remove medals depending on the reputation formula.

Another less thing to have the mods stressing over.

#4

You’ll want to have the users able to turn it off - there are a number of serving and ex military about on here who would find themseves rather uncomfortable at the idea of wearing real life medals they haven’t earned.
The transition to the new system may also be fairly stressful - people having their current medals “taken away from them” may be a little upset.

#5

This sounds like the old eBay system where negatives and positives could be posted by sellers and buyers against each other.

There’s a very good reason that that system was abandoned, because it was full of holes that allowed all sorts of unreliable ratings to be given.

I didn’t know that we had green thingys until WW2admin’s post above, but on looking at my profile I’ve got 13 reputation points, whatever that means, with no history on them or why I got them. Beats me how they got there, because that’s the first I knew it could be done.

Frankly, who cares?

I couldn’t care less whether I or anyone else have reputation points or infraction points or anything else.

If a post is worthwhile it’s worthwhile and if it’s not then debate it in the thread. That’s the only ‘reputation’ that matters.

(Also, people like Nickdfresh who lack my subtlety, delicacy and diplomacy could be disadvantaged compared with balanced, objective and always diplomatic people like Panzerknacker, and me. ;))

#6

Hmm, I proposed something like this a while back. Users didnt want it.

However I have a few thoughts about it.

  1. It has to be set up properly so that its not abused.

This means that you have to limit the amount of reputation any poster can give in a 24 hr period. You also have to ensure that they are not giving out negatives just because they dont like someone.

  1. I’m all for it. Regardless of what some members here want to do about posting medals etc, if its set up correctly it doesnt matter. Some guys get too upset about a few graphical medals. They arent real after all.

  2. It has to be done thoughtfully.

At the end of the day mate, its your site, you do what you feel is right for it. Every other site Im a member of has one and they work OK.

#7

Reputation

To all. You will note that the reputation system is up and running right now. Abuse of this system will be treated exactly the same as abuse in the Forum. Awarding negative points as a way to annoy or harass members will not be tolerated. If you feel that someone is abusing this system, please contact a Mod or myself and I assure you it will be investigated.

The reputation is there for the post and not the individual.

Thank you.