Reputation Finder

[Chaos he/him]

I actually upvoted your post. That was a very cogent and well-written response. That always deserves an upvote. I'm not so very married to the idea that I wouldn't enjoy a good discussion upon its merits. Why would I dislike that?

Though, I must say, I disagree with you on a couple of matters. I, for one, have seen downvotes applied in a use appropriate manner, which I felt was valuable. I don't want to single anyone out, so if you would like examples, PM me. Since I've felt downvotes have been beneficial, I will at least discuss my reasoning for why I like having that in place. Before I begin, let me reiterate that if downvotes are abused, I will take very swift action and remove that functionality. As I said, I'm not married to the idea or anything.

Perhaps I should explain exactly what I meant with "self-policing". It is not related to offensive material (though it could be). Offensive material should be reported immediately, and we have many members who report such content almost immediately. I should know, I get an email every time people press that button! The only instance where something offensive happened, I believe it was handled very quickly. Offensive content is deleted or redacted.

With exception to the accidental downvotes (which are really annoying--I'd love for there to be a way to edit which vote you give, like you can on polls. Sadly, they are totally different systems.), I think downvotes have been used in a responsible manner, and have not been abused. It is another method for people to voice their opinions. 17th Shard is full of smart and cogent (and attractive) people, so

I, at least (and others, from what have seen), up-vote posts I see as particularly funny, witty, helpful, or insightful. People simply don't "vote" on posts that aren't particularly noteworthy, and any post actually bad enough to warrant imposing the stigma associated with a down-vote upon is probably tangibly offensive, and worth contacting a moderator to address. I imagine that the reason why we focus almost exclusively on up-votes is because of the universal nature of Reputation on this forum, tracked under each and every post and strongly related to image and prestige. Down-voting someone for saying something that you disagree with, or for using poor grammar, is thus counterproductive and harmful to the community at large as it discourages members from voicing their opinions due to fear of having their Reputation and reputation damaged as a result.

That's a good point. I do have faith, however, that our members are pretty awesome. If ten of these smart members told me I posted something completely idiotic, I want to not think "Wow, they hate me" but "Hmm, that wasn't the best. I could do better." I think downvotes do not, by themselves, immediately lead to a counterproductive community. I feel I have a job to be welcoming and help people feel at home so that discouragement doesn't happen. I like it as a self-improvement thing. And I like the feature for other reasons, as I explain below.

Especially given the current nature of Reputation and "votes" in this forum, I think that an attempted shift towards a more "negative" culture would be bad for us. It's always better to have actual input from someone who agrees or disagrees with you than just a number at the bottom corner of your post, which might have been a comment on how insightful it was, how that Portal reference was awesome (or annoying enough to warrant a down-vote), or just an accident as the anonymous forumite who clicked the down-vote button missed his initial mark. Even intentional down-votes don't provide as much tangible feedback as a well thought out criticism of a post that you genuinely disagree with.

If the community shifted to such a negative culture, I would disable downvotes. My goal--and I believe all the staff's goal here--is to foster healthy, intelligent discussions. I can understand the fear about a more negative community. That would be horrible. Not only would downvotes be abused, but there would be extensive flame wars, and other awful things no one wants. If downvotes caused such a widespread detriment to the community, I would take swift action.

However, I would argue that sometimes, you can't actually make a cogent response to a comment. If the goal is to foster healthy, intelligent discussions, we have to admit that it is possible for people to make less intelligent posts, which are not helpful. Sometimes the best reaction, instead of getting into an extensive discussion about how that person was unhelpful, maybe you just want to voice your general distaste for that. If more troll-ish people arrived, I think downvoting would be perfect. You don't want to feed the trolls--they would continue arguing with you, derailing the thread and certainly not adding to the overall discussion--so it could be more effective to have downvotes, and move on from the troll. That way, the troll knows, "Wow, a lot of people didn't like that." Sometimes, anonymity is better, because that reputation counter denotes the sum of the community's reaction to a post. By responding in a post, the "troll" could feel they are personally being attacked, and thus attack you back. With reputation, that person doesn't get the ability to lash out at any specific people. It is the community itself voicing that opinion. For old TWGers, remember UtopiaGreen? That's the kind of thing I am talking about here. Wouldn't you have loved to downvote him?

If you're thinking "It's not okay for a person to attack a specific person, but it's okay for the community to do so?" then a-ha! Yes, you got me. I don't want the community to attack specific people for the sake of attacking them. That's awful. But, in that troll example, we see that sometimes it is good to enable people from voicing their opinion on a post.

You could downvote me for this post. You could downvote any of my posts! But, let's say a member who just hates us downvotes every post ever, for no reason at all. Jerky Downvoter downvotes everything. I don't know about you, but if I see a downvote, I look and see "hey, did this contribute to the discussion? Was it good?" If I feel that a downvote was issued wrongly, I'd upvote it. (I'm speaking of myself as a forum member, not forum administrator, in this case) In an ideal world, over the average of many user responses, we get a reasonable view of the post. So Jerky Downvoter won't have a big contribution in the long run. But, let's say my post is so atrociously bad that many people want to downvote me. I can think of a few times where I'd be, "Yeah, I deserved that. I was pretty dumb." It can keep me accountable--it can keep everyone accountable--and thus increase the overall health of discussions.

That is certainly my hope. Hope is one thing, and if it does not go according to plan, then as I have said, I'd take action. I don't want a negative community.

In the general case, I imagine that a "neutral" voting culture would be one such that members up- and down-vote freely to voice their support for various positions in discussions. As a rule, I hold that actual posts with substantive reasoning are always better than a number tacked onto the end of a post, but perhaps this might be the best solution in massive communities where it's unreasonable to read the hundreds of "me-to" posts that cluster around major ideas, with most users instead anonymously supporting their champions through voting. We have a small community of people with good ideas though, and we really don't up- or down-vote enough or for the "right" reasons for this kind of system.

I like your neutral argument. That was exactly the intention. I feel that a combination of replies and up/downvotes is most beneficial. It gives people many possible ways of interaction. Sometimes, you don't have time to write an essay as a response, and so maybe you want to say "This is good!" or "This was no bueno!" It's a good hybrid system, and thus far, it's worked extremely well. I've been very pleased, and I think many people are pleased about the reputation system as well.

Does that make sense? Let me know if it doesn't. I'm all for good discussions--this isn't a replacement for that. Nothing would be.

[Joe ST he/him]

Indeed, I agree with Kurk, I've been on a community that had downvoting, and the members that got downvoted were ostracised and ended up posting badly as a result, rather than being encouraged to improve via a moderator warning.

It went something like this:

• poster says something mildly insulting or maybe necrobumps a topic
  
• all the 'upstanding members of the community' dive in like a pack of wolves and down vote
  
• poster replies 'WHA?!?!?' or starts digging them self into a larger hole
  
• ad infinitum
  

The administration ended up having to disable all reputation other than by asking the admins to apply it for you.

We also had a similar thing right after the upgrade to IPB, did we not? I can at least attest that I (even as a member of some responsibility) spent nearly a day going round downvoting all of Silus's posts in childish protest because he'd said something I didnt particularly agree with or some similarly mundane reason. (and I thoroughly apologise Silus)

[nikomis he/him]

We also had a similar thing right after the upgrade to IPB, did we not? I can at least attest that I (even as a member of some responsibility) spent nearly a day going round downvoting all of Silus's posts in childish protest because he'd said something I didnt particularly agree with or some similarly mundane reason. (and I thoroughly apologise Silus)

In the spirit of this thread, upvoted and replied to. Because this admission took a lot of chutzpah.

[Ironeyes he/him]

...maybe necrobumps a topic

What does that mean?

[CrazyRioter she/her]

What does that mean?

it means posting in a topic that nobody has posted in for a long time, lots of forums frown on that, especially if they don't say much.

[Kurkistan he/him]

I actually upvoted your post. That was a very cogent and well-written response. That always deserves an upvote. I'm not so very married to the idea that I wouldn't enjoy a good discussion upon its merits. Why would I dislike that?

Sorry for the implied belief that you were a vengeful monster there, Chaos. I was kidding with the "protect me" and "please don't down-vote!" comments, although I realize now that a less dour smiley would have conveyed that better. Discussion ftw!

Though, I must say, I disagree with you on a couple of matters. I, for one, have seen downvotes applied in a use appropriate manner, which I felt was valuable. I don't want to single anyone out, so if you would like examples, PM me. Since I've felt downvotes have been beneficial, I will at least discuss my reasoning for why I like having that in place. Before I begin, let me reiterate that if downvotes are abused, I will take very swift action and remove that functionality. As I said, I'm not married to the idea or anything.

Perhaps I should explain exactly what I meant with "self-policing". It is not related to offensive material (though it could be). Offensive material should be reported immediately, and we have many members who report such content almost immediately. I should know, I get an email every time people press that button! The only instance where something offensive happened, I believe it was handled very quickly. Offensive content is deleted or redacted.

With exception to the accidental downvotes (which are really annoying--I'd love for there to be a way to edit which vote you give, like you can on polls. Sadly, they are totally different systems.), I think downvotes have been used in a responsible manner, and have not been abused. It is another method for people to voice their opinions. 17th Shard is full of smart and cogent (and attractive) people, so

That's a good point. I do have faith, however, that our members are pretty awesome. If ten of these smart members told me I posted something completely idiotic, I want to not think "Wow, they hate me" but "Hmm, that wasn't the best. I could do better." I think downvotes do not, by themselves, immediately lead to a counterproductive community. I feel I have a job to be welcoming and help people feel at home so that discouragement doesn't happen. I like it as a self-improvement thing. And I like the feature for other reasons, as I explain below.

I'll trust your word that warranted down-votes exist.

It's good that people are already on the ball with offensive material, but I believe that you actually undermine your own argument with your "If ten of these..." point in the last paragraph. With down-voting as criticism, it's not ten people telling you that your post was "completely idiotic" in a productive manner that you can learn from: it's ten people who just universally downgraded your Reputation for reasons that you may not fully understand, leading much more naturally to a "Wow, they hate me" response. Looking further down your post, I would much rather that any genuine criticism be expressed as a reply, while "dude, just no" responses are issued as down-votes.

If the community shifted to such a negative culture, I would disable downvotes. My goal--and I believe all the staff's goal here--is to foster healthy, intelligent discussions. I can understand the fear about a more negative community. That would be horrible. Not only would downvotes be abused, but there would be extensive flame wars, and other awful things no one wants. If downvotes caused such a widespread detriment to the community, I would take swift action.

However, I would argue that sometimes, you can't actually make a cogent response to a comment. If the goal is to foster healthy, intelligent discussions, we have to admit that it is possible for people to make less intelligent posts, which are not helpful. Sometimes the best reaction, instead of getting into an extensive discussion about how that person was unhelpful, maybe you just want to voice your general distaste for that. If more troll-ish people arrived, I think downvoting would be perfect. You don't want to feed the trolls--they would continue arguing with you, derailing the thread and certainly not adding to the overall discussion--so it could be more effective to have downvotes, and move on from the troll. That way, the troll knows, "Wow, a lot of people didn't like that." Sometimes, anonymity is better, because that reputation counter denotes the sum of the community's reaction to a post. By responding in a post, the "troll" could feel they are personally being attacked, and thus attack you back. With reputation, that person doesn't get the ability to lash out at any specific people. It is the community itself voicing that opinion. For old TWGers, remember UtopiaGreen? That's the kind of thing I am talking about here. Wouldn't you have loved to downvote him?

If you're thinking "It's not okay for a person to attack a specific person, but it's okay for the community to do so?" then a-ha! Yes, you got me. I don't want the community to attack specific people for the sake of attacking them. That's awful. But, in that troll example, we see that sometimes it is good to enable people from voicing their opinion on a post.

You could downvote me for this post. You could downvote any of my posts! But, let's say a member who just hates us downvotes every post ever, for no reason at all. Jerky Downvoter downvotes everything. I don't know about you, but if I see a downvote, I look and see "hey, did this contribute to the discussion? Was it good?" If I feel that a downvote was issued wrongly, I'd upvote it. (I'm speaking of myself as a forum member, not forum administrator, in this case) In an ideal world, over the average of many user responses, we get a reasonable view of the post. So Jerky Downvoter won't have a big contribution in the long run. But, let's say my post is so atrociously bad that many people want to downvote me. I can think of a few times where I'd be, "Yeah, I deserved that. I was pretty dumb." It can keep me accountable--it can keep everyone accountable--and thus increase the overall health of discussions.

That is certainly my hope. Hope is one thing, and if it does not go according to plan, then as I have said, I'd take action. I don't want a negative community.

That's a quite well reasoned defense of the system, I must say. I had been focusing more on poorly-written or ill-informed posts than on the realm of posts to which no constructive response is possible, and I agree that there is some utility for down-votes within that realm. As long as you and the rest of the staff are keeping an eye out to make sure that things don't take a turn for the worse, then I suppose that we ought to attempt to retain this benefit of down-voting.

I like your neutral argument. That was exactly the intention. I feel that a combination of replies and up/downvotes is most beneficial. It gives people many possible ways of interaction. Sometimes, you don't have time to write an essay as a response, and so maybe you want to say "This is good!" or "This was no bueno!" It's a good hybrid system, and thus far, it's worked extremely well. I've been very pleased, and I think many people are pleased about the reputation system as well.

Does that make sense? Let me know if it doesn't. I'm all for good discussions--this isn't a replacement for that. Nothing would be.

As far as my "neutral argument" goes, the "hybrid" we currently have is just about as far down that road as I think we should ever go. I understand that sometimes people just don't have the time or inclination to write out full responses, but I still think that they're preferable.

Thanks for taking the time to address my concerns, and for not smiting me with your mighty smiting powers (note the amusing, non-serious smiley this time).

Edited January 29, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Eerongal he/him]

For old TWGers, remember UtopiaGreen? That's the kind of thing I am talking about here. Wouldn't you have loved to downvote him?

Heh, oh man. I remember that guy. After you mentioning it, i had to go back to the TWG archive and read some of his posts because they were so hilariously awful. Good (well, at the time, bad) times. Sad part is, i'm pretty convinced that he wasn't trolling, per se, but was rather just that outrageously clueless (based on some of the stuff turned up by google on him).

Edit: for those of you who do not know him, i bring to you his best (worst?) post

[Emeralis00 she/her]

@Eerongal

That is just...no.

[CrazyRioter she/her]

Heh, oh man. I remember that guy. After you mentioning it, i had to go back to the TWG archive and read some of his posts because they were so hilariously awful. Good (well, at the time, bad) times. Sad part is, i'm pretty convinced that he wasn't trolling, per se, but was rather just that outrageously clueless (based on some of the stuff turned up by google on him).

Edit: for those of you who do not know him, i bring to you his best (worst?) post

what is that i dont even....

[Eerongal he/him]

@Eerongal

That is just...no.

there's also this little gem of his.

[Windrunner he/him]

Wow... I just wasted an hour of my life finding all his posts in the TWG archive, and I think my IQ has dropped a few points. My favorite part was when he got banned, and someone mentioned that UtopiaGreen01 had made a new account, UtopiaGreen02, and then the next post in the topic was by UtopiaGreen03. I really almost couldn't believe he was for real.

On the flip side I think it's a real credit to this forum, the only online forum I'm active in, that I never knew such a person as this existed until now. While people here can disagree, they're always respectful and usually have something interesting, or a new insight to add to conversations. I've never seen anyone start so many useless topics here either. 17th Shard is a great community.

Edit: Realized I accidentally said Seventeenth Shard instead of 17th Shard

Edited January 29, 2012 by Windrunner

[Emeralis00 she/her]

I attempted for five minutes to come up with a proper reply to that and failed, and now my head hurts.

[Windrunner he/him]

Just noticed all the new rep levels! They're pretty sweet, I've noticed at least four or five new ones and I like it a lot! Great job!

[Ironeyes he/him]

Those threw me off guard when I noticed them, but they're cool. Is there a comprehensive list of the levels? All I know is that I'm an Awakener and anyone over 100 is a Shard.

[Windrunner he/him]

Those threw me off guard when I noticed them, but they're cool. Is there a comprehensive list of the levels? All I know is that I'm an Awakener and anyone over 100 is a Shard.

Yeah I did some sleuthing and I think I've figured them all out. However, I'm not sure the admins want the list posted, since they didn't do it themselves when they changed the ranking system. Also some people probably want to be surprised. If the admins are cool with it being public I'll stick it in a spoiler tag and post it here, if they don't want me to post it, I'll PM it to you if that's all right with you and them.

[Emeralis00 she/her]

Yeah I did some sleuthing and I think I've figured them all out. However, I'm not sure the admins want the list posted, since they didn't do it themselves when they changed the ranking system. Also some people probably want to be surprised. If the admins are cool with it being public I'll stick it in a spoiler tag and post it here, if they don't want me to post it, I'll PM it to you if that's all right with you and them.

I think I saw a list somewhere from Chaos, but don't quote me on it.

[Chaos he/him]

I posted it in "I would like to announce". It's cool. These are what the new levels are:

17th Shard Trainee - 0

Awakener - 5

Misting - 10

Mistborn - 16

Elantrian - 24

Shardbearer - 32

Full Shardbearer - 40

Knight Radiant - 50

Worldhopper - 64

Sliver - 75

Splinter - 100

Shard - 128

There are three other ones after, though. You'll just have to (as Musicspren suggested in "I would like to announce") UCAFO: Upvote Chaos and Find Out.

[Windrunner he/him]

Awesome, its a good thing I didn't post my list, somehow I missed the fact that there are now both Slivers and Splinters. Eventually we'll get to see all three, what with two or three more decades of cosmere books left to go. Any particular reason that Shard is 128, or was it just random?

[Chaos he/him]

Awesome, its a good thing I didn't post my list, somehow I missed the fact that there are now both Slivers and Splinters. Eventually we'll get to see all three, what with two or three more decades of cosmere books left to go. Any particular reason that Shard is 128, or was it just random?

It's 16*8, naturally Don't you guys know your powers of 2?

Er... we've seen both Slivers and Splinters. The Divine Breaths of Returned are Splinters, and the people who touched the Well of Ascension were Slivers. For a complete look, go to the wiki (I'm pretty sure it'll redirect you to the applicable segments in the Shard article). Though if you were talking about the rankings, both Slivers and Splinters have always been in the rankings here

[Windrunner he/him]

Yeah I meant the rankings haha, I don't know how I've missed seeing Splinters this whole time! Anyway I'll bet that when someone (Chaos) reaches 1024 Reputation points (or 2^10 or 4x16^2) we're going to discover a new rank

[Joe ST he/him]

it'd be awesome if you could somehow add the titles to hover events on the rep pip, and on the users list too

[Zas678 he/him]

Nah, the next level's probably at 256 (16*16)

[KChan she/her]

It's an idea, but I'm fine with leaving them in the main user profile for now. Especially since we've got bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Also, congrats to Zas on being the second person to have ever beaten Chaos for the top rep spot!

[Ironeyes he/him]

Who was the first?

[KChan she/her]

That would be me. I only held the top position for a short while, though.