Chaos

(Warning, this is a long post! This is why it's taken me so long to respond to things brought up here.) I think there's been some miscommunication regarding "the purpose" of up or downvotes, and everyone having a little different impression of them. There has also been some talk that there are rules regarding them. That's really never been the case: we've actually had basically no real rules aside from going on a concentrated up or downvote attack on a person. It's been a "use it how you want and the community self-corrects small aberrations." So, when I say, "there will be a topic clarifying things about usage of reputation," this is actually one of the first times we've ever made such a definitive list. Among the reason we are doing this is to prevent conflicts on differing opinions regarding the system. It's caused a lot of work for us, and so we will simply refer to this document in the future. There will be do's and don'ts, and other things to make it a smooth operation, such as not derailing topics regarding the use of the system (to say +1 or complaining, etc.). I don't think anyone will be surprised by what's on the list. It's stuff we've already said, really. It will contain a large, very broad list of things that can be upvoted, and also a list of reasons that one could downvote a post. On that downvote list, it explicitly will say that you shouldn't downvote a thing just because you disagree with it. However, on that list, you might find that a post is rude, abrasive, or otherwise a poor contribution to the site... well, there are a lot of reasons to downvote a thing. But don't downvote stuff that's well written and respectful just because it doesn't match your viewpoint. The intent of the reputation system is to promote good posts and good discussion. Good posts include anything from theory discussion, character discussion, an awesome joke, or an awesome RP post (there are some really good ones!). All of these should absolutely be upvoted, and have value. I have always maintained that the reputation system reflects a "community average" on what marks a good contribution. I know others have commented that they see upvotes as "a post that made them smile," but we consider upvotes as a marker as to what a good or bad contribution is to the site--whatever that may mean to you. This community average idea has a lot of value. (In fact, since downvotes exist, that gives such a number more value than if that would not be a thing.) You will see that in this document about reputation, reputation will focus on the contents of a post, not the post's author. That's the essence of the community average idea, after all: to see which posts are good contributions, and not about the person. As such, I am strongly leaning that a member's reputation total not be displayed on every post. The reputation title can stay--because those are fun--but by obscuring the numbers, the focus is lessened on the total reputation of a person equalling the value of the person. Reputation is primarily valuable in seeing which posts are good contributions or not, not the value of a member. Let's tweak the system to reflect that. Let's talk about quotas and scarcity. Kobold, among other people, has raised some good points. Why does there need to be a scarcity of such a thing? And I think there is the fear that scarcity does disproprotionately hit power users of the forum more. That is certainly true. There are two sides of these things. Obviously, we want to do what is best for the site, and keeping users who come here on a daily basis is important there. What is also important is to make sure the site is inviting to new members, or members that lurk around. So while appeasing our base is important, the site dies if we don't get new people. "Eric, what the crap does this have to do with reputation?" you ask. Absolutely everything. You see, the reputation system helps new members because they can see that their content is good. Rewarding that is important. (The reputation ranks also can get quite addictive, which also helps keep people in.) Downvotes, in particular, help keep the tone of the site moderate. Believe it or not, there have been some who have left the site because we didn't ban certain people they didn't like, or didn't ban them fast enough. In their mind, we moderated the site too little. But by having downvotes, if you find something offensive or rudely stated, the ability for a random member to be able to not feed a person they find trollish and downvote them is an empowering ability. It also prevents the perception of a random person browsing the site for the first time to look at a post on the site, and thinking, "Wait, seriously? This is a post that's acceptable?" And they leave in disgust. (This has actually happened.) Downvotes allow for the very positive community we have here to decide what is tonally acceptable or not. If we lacked downvotes, then what happens to a post that some might find rude is that it has a +3 or some sort rank, and then another post goes to refute that, and gets another amount of upvotes. It becomes Upvote Wars. Whoever has the biggest upvote count "wins" the argument. Random browser, however, looks at the first rude post, doesn't see the counterargument, gets offended, and leaves. By having downvotes in a system, random browser can look at a post and roughly see how acceptable it is to the overall community. One person might find a post abrasive, another might not, so its net neutral. If a post has -3, then that was probably too harsh. It should be obvious that a downvote quota is necessary to prevent discussions from turning into Downvote Wars. Two or three downvotes in a day seems pretty reasonable. (If you're curious as to what it was before, you had four downvotes per day. It was another very low number.) People aren't going to be able to look at a person's post, get offended, and say, "Wow, screw that person, I'm going to downvote all their stuff." Not only is that super rep abuse, but it's just not possible now. I'm rambling about downvotes. Sorry, that has also been extremely topical in my mind, and that was the primary reason this system is being clarified in the first place. We're making a big post clarifying acceptable use on downvotes. They are broad, so it basically covers most people's usage in this thread. The upvote quota was not the primary thrust of this. Why, then, are upvote quotas a good thing? Why is this artificial scarcity a good thing? For me, it comes down to empowering new members. If a power user has unlimited upvotes to give, then the attitude of said power user is to give them out very freely. This, of course, has positives. But if you compare a power user's amount of upvotes given compared to a new user, a power user gives out way more of them. This isn't surprising. If you browse more, you are more likely to upvote things. But what that does mean is that a newer user's +1 matters less than power users, simply because power users give so many more upvotes than a newer member. We have multiple bases of users on the site. There are theorizers. There are people who love character discussion. There are people who like memes. There are people who like off-topic discussion. There are multiple successful RP groups, like the Oregon RP and the SE games, that each have distinct subcultures. We also have anywhere from 250-350 members log in daily, to say nothing of the horde of lurkers who don't even have a registered account. That's a lot of people. Now imagine that amount triple, both in user count and in the number of subcultures on the site (because you are darn right that when there is enough people for a particular subculture, we want them to feel at home and cultivate that). That means there will be a ton more posts, and more users means a lot more upvotes. I imagine that if things were unlimited, posts could easily average 50-100 upvotes. That doesn't seem unreasonable. What that means is that a new member's upvote does have less say on this "community average" on a post than others. However, by limiting the amount of upvotes people can give, you are giving new users a more equal footing in this regard. Sure, there might be triple the members and triple (or more) posts, but the amount of upvotes won't go up exponentially. It will be a lot more linear growth. A new user has more "effective weight" on the community average score on a post, because he or she deliberately spent this upvote to show, "yeah, this is a good contribution!" I think this is really, really important. I don't think someone should be able to go through every new post on the site and up or downvote every one to see if the contributions are good or not. By making upvotes more scarce, this allows the "say" that you have on a post to have more value. I want to dissuade the notion that quotas are here to promote book discussion in particular, because they are more "valuable." Book discussion is, of course, valuable and near and dear to my heart. But those are sure as heck not the only things that have value. Have an awesome piece of fan art? Upvote it. Have a piece of awesome RP? Upvote that. Did you have an awesome theory? Upvote it. But, by instituting quotas, we make that number more valuable. The member that receives it gets more value. Across all areas. Yes, this change does affect Community boards more, but I would also like to say that if we really wanted to say, "Yeah, screw those guys, we want to promote book discussion!" we could, in theory, disable the reputation system on all the "off-topic" boards. That's a thing that could be done. We could arbitrarily remove reputation, too. Would we do that? Of course not. We've tried so hard to make this site more than just heavy theoretical cosmere stuff, so attacking the Community boards seems like the worst idea. They do have value. They are important. Quotas are going to make it so, numerically speaking, upvotes do still retain value. We did intentionally start by making it a low quota. The off-topic discussions have continued. As I said before, we are increasing the quota more, but not to the "effectively unlimited" stage again. There may be future tweaking to this number. But surely, the balance between new members and old members is satisfied by having some sort of quota system in place. I don't think it'll be the end of the world. That's all I really want to say regarding quotas and downvotes. I hope this makes sense and I hope everyone can see why this is, overall, a positive change. As an aside, if downvotes make the community toxic, reputation as a concept will just vanish. We have always retained this an option. Downvotes have kept the site moderate, rather than polarizing things into opposing viewpoints, but they do have the possibility to make discussion toxic. This is always a possibility. You can be %$#@ sure we are going to make this an awesome place for discussion and defend that to hell. The guidelines topic on reputation will be coming very soon, so don't worry. We're finalizing it!

To clarify, this topic regarding Reputation will have some guidelines to make it more clear what both upvotes and downvotes are utilized for, in a very broad manner that should satisfy every use case. I also have a post with more information regarding things brought up in this thread that is forthcoming, hopefully today.

I don't know off the top of my head. Yes, that's why we're asking about it after the change.

Sixty.

Garfield and Ninja Yodeler. Knock it the hell off. Welcome to the moderation queue where we will manually need to approve your posts. We closed the previous topic and will be sending you messages very shortly regarding both of your behaviors. I am disappointed in you both. Some more than others. Everyone else, please get back on topic. EDIT: If you are curious, PMs will come to you in the next day, maybe two max.

Hi all, in regards to the Upvote/downvote thread, we are curious to see how many of you hit the upvote cap that has been in the past few days. As I've said, I do think it's low, and that the number will be tweaked. But this poll will be really helpful for us. Thanks!

Regarding awards: They must be physically given out. They are not automatic. I've been asked various permutations on "why can't we implement this thing." I would like to paste you. The Young Bard had asked me: "Yeah... I was thinking about this not too long ago. How much freedom does the site have to go bespoke with the code? Is it possible to do something that isn't directly supported by Invision?" My response: So, while in theory we could implement basically anything, that doesn't mean it is actually a long-term, sustainable course of action. I would ask everyone to not get super hyped by the award system. I think it will be cool, but for now, just pretend it will be awful and then be pleasantly surprised when it's a bit better than that The software package is very complex and I don't like rocking the boat unless it's really necessary.

Not the primary reason, haha We've looked into him a long time.

Yes, he did!

After the site update. And since I've failed to meet other estimations on when that is done, I'm just not going to say when that will be xD. Basically I don't want to reimplement a system only for it to need to be overhauled in a new version.

Josh had a Rubix cube award for impressing him in particular. That might be what you're thinking of.

I am extremely tired and can't respond to the many excellent posts that have been made here, but I do want to say that the quota will be increasing. Power users will still hit it, I imagine, but it has been decided that indeed, 10 is too low. Other things I want to post about include an in-depth explanation on why quotas should probably exist, why downvotes should exist, and balancing book discussion and off topic discussion--two extremely valuable pieces to 17S. That and more... Coming soon, when Eric has had more than a little sleep and is home from traveling for two days.

You are getting a bit aggressive and heated. Relax, take a sip of tea, and don't be aggressive to other members. Seriously, watch it. It will be okay. Chill. You want a conversation? Then I encourage them to post. I am happy to see Twi and Slowswift post here.

As much as I'd love such a thing, having multiple "lines" to go down is not a thing easily implemented. Also, mark my words about the awards, Twi. When that becomes a thing there'd probably be a few awards for each different big area of the site. Mark my words, I will make a pony award just for you guys. Perhaps with rep levels and awards we can all be happy? I don't foresee the quota ever going up to the previous cap, though, but could be a bit higher than 10, potentially. Regarding the Bad Day thread, though that is very sweet to do, I do worry that that idea of upvotes as sympathy is a little dangerous and is toeing closeish to reputation abuse. "Post in this thread for sympathy upvotes" is not really the intent. I would again argue that quotas balance this. But I suppose this is the whole counterargument from Kobold, that that is an acceptable use. Maybe, I don't know.

You will have to excuse another hastily written reply (and a double post at that--I know, look how much of a rebel I am. I cannot WAIT for proper multiquoting on the mobile site). I am currently on the road traveling back to Montana. Every time you see me post today, I am at a rest station or I pulled over the side of the road. Regarding splitting reputation systems: inelegant at best. But I generally dislike it because though in theory, with enough effort this is possible, making custom alterations really makes upgrades and security patches MUCH harder to implement. The less custom stuff, the better we can be on top of that stuff. If we did implement this, every new version we would need to test to make sure our custom systems work, or are not broken. It is a huge pain. Regarding removing the tallies from under your name: possible and easy to implement, but I do really like the silly ranks. Regarding overall voting: probably not, but please comment.

Okay, two things. Firstly, I mean that arguing which way the majority of the forum's opinions skew is not particularly relevant. It isn't. Secondly, I highly encourage people to make their voices heard. As I had said previously, the numbers can be adjusted here, and are not final. Third, I would like you to chill out a little bit. I would also like to comment that the reputation system is not a "right". Again, as I said before, we may decide, eventually, that the reputation system is not a useful thing for the site and turn the entire thing off. We would likely notify of such a drastic change. But altering quotas is not a change on that level. We wish to see how this works out as an experiment. Numbers will surely be tweaked. But, systems can and will change and we might not give notice on this. We generally feel that reputation has less value nowadays, for reasons that others have described in this thread, and are testing a good quota. You see, this is not intended to be an attack. It is intended to be a balancing act. There's obviously two sides to the coin here and we need to try and balance both of them to what hopefully can be an agreeable middle ground. Maybe that is unachievable. As I said earlier, there might end up being no one happy. That may be a scenario where we turn off the system and say good riddance. Also. Please take a deep breath and relax. This is getting very heated. I do see what you are saying (though personally, I feel saying that this damages what you want to communicate is... Extreme, to say the least).

I tended to think that with how vocal you are about this (and have been) that it may be skewed the other way. Maybe a lot of posts come from there, but not the majority of people post there? But arguing this point is not particularly relevant.

The idea that if a post has an 8 and a person feels it should be a 7 was one of the very first things I wrote in my "reasons you could downvote someone." Quite a few people, in private, have told me of this kind of usage. I think it is totally fine and reasonable usage. That a member who I had not interacted with thought this was reasonable usage only reinforces the prevailing opinion. You probably just don't notice this because noticing the much more obvious -2 on a post is much easier. Those tend to be really rude remarks--another fantastic reason to downvote a thing. The reputation on a post is a community average on how the overall community feels about a post. If someone finds a post that has a high amount of upvotes and feels that, hey, the post really wasn't that funny, then it is perfectly reasonable to lower that average a bit. This is why an individual downvote rarely matters, because the very positive community on 17S balances out the voting. This is also why it confuses me that some get so upset that someone dared to downvote a post, and yet I see the post ends up at a +5. As for Kobold, I do think some scarcity has value. I also think downvotes have value. I think with the low downvote quota it is not an issue, and allows a posts rep value to be an accurate reflection of how the community feels about such a post.

Great. You can be in charge of it

I am double posting, because I'm on my phone, and I'm in a hurry. This is another attitude that will be discouraged: moralizing over downvotes. There is nothing wrong with it. This will be made crystalline clear in a future post about reputation and its usage, coming very soon. I know some people do feel morally opposed to them, but we are not going to have a thing where people should feel shamed into not using that. It is totally fine to downvote things. You have a ridiculously low quota on those anyway, and you can use them (basically) however you wish. Clear guidelines on the matter of downvotes will be coming very soon.

The rep system may be removed for all sorts of reasons. One might be downvote abuse (I'd rather have no system than removing the balancing that downvotes provide). Another might be that everyone feels so strongly about their imaginary internet points that it becomes increasingly difficult for staff to spend time developing a system that can please everyone. There's a ton of good for such a system but it does tax on me. "Rep system needs to be changed!" "Rep system is good. Don't change it." "Change the reputation system to be exactly how my usage pattern desires it to be." I don't want such a thing to go away, but it does grate on me. It makes me have the thought that maybe the imaginary internet points are not good overall. It is a fleeting thought of mine and not a very serious one, but the thought is on our minds. Not everyone will be pleased and we will see how well we can balance all the different desires here.

The quota amount will be tinkered with, but I want to see how this works in practice for a bit. Even if we increase the quota, however, certain power users on the board will probably hit that cap. Though the number will be tinkered, don't expect it to go back to the previous quota which was effectively infinite. Some of this is experimental and as is plainly obvious no system will be without its detractors. We do read the feedback, though.

What do you want me to do? Read the minds of the multiple people and tell them to like your posts more? There will be a post describing effective uses of downvotes, but downvoting because someone didn't like a thing is okay. I am sorry. If posts get a downvotes that is equalized out, the system is working as intending. Never think of these as personal attacks on you. I don't know, read what you wrote and see if there is another way things can be phrased. It may be something very innucuous, that you are rubbing various people the wrong way. I now am considering this off topic, maxal, and will hide future posts on the matter. You take downvotes extremely seriously and you need to relax quite a bit. You should not be taking this so seriously. Your posts net positively. That indicates your contributions are well liked. That's where the story ends. And no one needs to reveal their reasoning, either. I am not going to go PM people and demand they tell me why a post rubbed them the wrong way. They are not attacking you, personally. Because no one has repeatedly downvotes you. This post we will make regarding reputation will be posted soon. Please stand by. This will enumerate a large list of reasonable reasons there could be to downvote a thing that should not have a person think that someone is out to get them. Maybe they were just mildly irked and don't feel like writing a long response about it. In any case, let's get this back on track. This is off topic.

I can. It is typically difficult to do anything of reasonable complexity. I don't want to break core functionality. In addition, all custom things make site upgrades even harder as it requires testing to make sure neither the custom stuff nor the upgrade were broken in the process. Layout things are just templating and such, and are far easier to do. Coding changes requires not only a deep understanding of PHP (which I don't have especially deep knowledge on), and also a deep knowledge of IPBs... Everything. I'm sure there's logic to what they do coding wise, but let me tell you... It is really difficult to make sense of it all. Basically it is a ton of time (which I don't have) and work for something that will almost assuredly break upon upgrades and isn't future proof. So... Not a thing I like doing. But can we do such a thing? Yes, it is legal to do so. Is it practical? Not so much.