Petition to remove rep points from the forum (1 Viewer)

Started reading this thread with interest at the first but then got tired and scanned though the second and thrid page. However, one point it did pick up on was the reputation aspect. More directly giving someone rep points for something that origninated in the watercooler. Why would anyone want to increase a persons rep for something said there? To me you should only get rep points for technical issues, not because you told a good joke or agreed with someones political preferences.

IMHO I feel that rep points are an indicator of the persons goodstanding and the ability to offer solutions, mayt be not straigth away but by doggedly teasing out the actual issue from the OP.

Conversely, I have offered excelent solutions (well I think so) to users and have not received a thankyou, kiss my ass, anything. This only disuades me from helping them in the future. As Bob mentioned people who want to, and attempt to, cannot due to their status, but you can see that they have at least attempted to. So in fairness the current score may well be 20-30% less than the actual. Not that this makes any difference to me. The only time I look at the score is when I use the User CP to test for replies.

I have to say, that I would prefer a system like I've seen on another site where you have a maximum number of points you can give and you can, as the person handing out the rep points, choose how many you would award for that post. Right now, I rarely give out any, even though I would like to, because I have to ask myself - is this worth the 45 rep points that my profile will give? That handicaps me in a way as well, because I can't give rep to others that might deserve all of that because I have to provide rep to so many other users before I can rep someone again.

So, anyway, I guess not many people would have the same problem but it can become one as you are on the board longer, have more posts, and have a higher reputation (in points). I just think it is not a real equitable system and should be scrapped or at least severely modified.

boblarson said:

That would take someone to have it be their full-time job and since we don't get paid for this, I think you'll just have to grin and bear it.

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Or you could appoint more moderators or open up editing posts etc. to the vip group.

I've seen what I suggested work elsewhere, they don't pay their moderators and their boards are busier than these boards.

DCrake said:

Conversely, I have offered excelent solutions (well I think so) to users and have not received a thankyou, kiss my ass, anything.

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It's been like that for years, you'll get used to it

I just noticed this thread so I am late to the party. My name was mentioned as being low in reputation points. I believe that my points are so low because the green jellies were implemented when I was not posting for a few years because of a job change and I rarely used Access. I came back about eight months ago because my new job heavily uses Access. I never cared for the points system so I voted to remove it. I do not want the post counts to go away because I will use a person’s post count and membership date to determine how I might answer a question or respond to another user. I rarely respond with a your welcome post when I am thanked for helping someone just to pad my post count like you see some folks do on other forums. I do not allow PMs so I let my inbox get filled up many years ago because I kept getting too many personal requests for help and that is not what this forum is about. That’s my two cents (not green jellies ;-) worth.

Personally, I generally like the rep feature. It is one of the only aspects of the forum that encourages me to return and provide assistance anymore. (Although, I have been away for the last few months due to work commitments.) The most irritating part of it is where someone leaves you a glowing comment but somehow ended up awarding you negative points by mistake. C'est la vie, though.

I think the thing I like about the system is it gently reminds folks to show some form of appreciation for the time and effort that folks put into helping others on site. The number of posts where the OP doesn't even respond, let alone show the manners to thank people who are attempting to answer, is a bit depressing.

I suspect much of the issue with the rep system is the watercooler section. My solution is simply never to go there again. And the originators of much of the angst on the site have been on my ignore list for aeons. Works for me.

So my vote is no. But I would suggest rather that it would be greatly improved if folks could disable the feature, or make the results privately viewable only, for their own accounts.

But if it turns out it gets canned it's no big deal.

Ok I just voted NO

I think its useful - it must be good for people asking questions to know the answers they get are likely to be reliable.

OK - there's a bit of an ego-trip going on as well probably - its always nice to get a bit of recognition

and I would NEVER ever give neg feedback - if someone took the time and trouble to answer, thanks and great - even if they may have missed.

I'll offer the perspective of an occasional outsider and general forum question-*****... erm I mean dedicated individual in the pursuit of more varied ponderings.

To mention something on the various issues raised in this thread...

VIPs:
The concept works very well at UA. Partly due to community implementation, the length of time the programme has been in place and the force which drove its conception. I wouldn't see any point of abolishing such a scheme on any forum unless it was flawed or causing bad feeling in some capacity.
Throwing extra responsabilities at VIPs probably wouldn't help that though. If more mods are needed, then surely more mods it is. A forum will usually find its own equilibrium of role numbers and rides the ebb and flow of the traffic tides as required.

Rep Points:
Not having participated at any other VBulletin forums, the reps are a strange concept to me. They're a weird halfway house between no required acknowledgement (as at many forums, not least of which UA as Bob mentions) and the full on mandatory assignment of points such as at Experts Exchange.
As Bob said, such things can be a force to drive some folks on, though the reps are, comparatively, hit and miss.
I all but abandoned EE some years ago when I just couldn't stomach the points squabbling any longer (and that the site owners profited from my freely donated time).
Obviously the reps are nothing like that - but I suppose they could also be a similar cause for some opinions to be overlooked in favour of someone who's a bit further up the pip tree. (Which I saw happen at EE all the time - and still it continues).
But then, I've seen such behaviour exhibited for something as irrelevant as the number of posts!
It gives a vague indication of likelihood to answer with reliability - but nothing more.

Post Count:
Essentially meaningless from a technical point of view but, at the same time, an indication that someone at least has some history under their belt at this forum. (Either in asking or answering).
Even if the technical perspective isn't always bang on, at least the format and process will be familiar.
It's a good way of measuring how truly tragic you've become too, and therefore when it's time to get more work done!
If someone has given of their time to a substantial extent, then I don't see the harm in showing that, nor the point of obfuscating it.

Thread Resolved Flag:
I'm never in favour of this. At EE (which, by definition, requires that a thread be considered as resolved - i.e. awarded) I've felt that this so often sees many threads go with a makeshift or just plain bad suggestion left for all eternity as a definitive answer. Never ending threads may be incorrectly added to be noobs occasionally, but they can also be improved upon where it's necessary. Even those experts who don't concentrate on points or reps inevitably tend to gravitate less towards threads considered to be resolved.
You're almost always asking someone who came requiring help to be in a position to determine when they've received the most appropriate method of achieving their goal. Whereas they'll usually go with the first concept that let's them carry on working.
It's then up to the other collective experts to ignore such a status of thread (assuming they still show up in a list for consideration) and continue to offer better answers if required.

As this, and therefore the rep points, are not mandatory - I don't see that they do any real harm. They're just there. Ignore them or don't.
(My poll choice would have been ambivalence

Cheers.


P.S. The phrase "question-*****" is just my take on a phrase in common use at EE to describe certain individuals who go there purely for the accept and to climb that ladder: "point-*****".

Sufficient predisposition to warrant asking for fame implies inappropriate intent.