The reputation system is dead, long live the reputation system!

[sean]

Just had a pow-wow with the rest of the concierge team about the "reputation system" and concerns from the community.

 

My intention for activating this feature was really for the focus to be on likes/dislikes of posts and not on any sense of accumulating positive/negative reputation for members here.

 

As Stigweard's announcement post explained:

Hit PLUS for particularly well-written, interesting, respectful posts that contribute to the discussion and overall vibe, even if you disagree with the actual viewpoint presented.

 

Hit MINUS for particularly pointless, troll-ish, self-absorbed, hijacking, de-railing comments out of resonance with the spirit of TTB and that add nothing to the discussion or the community (even if you for some reason you kind of agree with the actual point of view of the post).

Naturally this valuation we would all be doing is totally subjective, I don't want to provoke existential crisis over what valuation means, is this in the Taoist handbook, etc.

 

Really the gesture behind using it is, "Wow, this post was really insightful and probably took this member an hour or two to type all this out and contribute this to the community. And it's a wonderful response to the original poster. I don't know if I have anything to say in response to this right now but I do want to show I like this post *click* LIKE".

 

There are also some longer term benefits of us using this feature.

 

For example, I can create a feature to show you "most popular posts", or "most popular posts this week".

 

Also I can make different kinds of topic views available to you.

 

Imagine being able to click a setting where when you view a topic, replies to the topic-starting post are sorted by liked-count descending first and date of post ascending second.

 

Could be interesting. (This is how Reddit works).

 

In any case, I do understand the concern from some of you, especially with the ominous sounding "Reputation System" title.

 

So I made some changes.

 

First, I removed the reputation visibility component that calculates accumulated reputation points and shows them on member profiles. That was never the point, I should not have even turned that on to begin with.

 

Second, I turned off "dislikes". I don't think they're necessary. Facebook is doing just fine taking over the entire manifest universe with only a Like button, I don't think we need a Dislike.

 

Now there is only the one happy option to "like" a post.

 

I hope this alleviates any weird feelings about this feature. Sorry if we freaked you out with the whole reputation thing.

 

Let's play with this simple "Like" function for a few months and see how it pans out.

 

Best,

Sean

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

+1

[Trunk]

Imagine being able to click a setting where when you view a topic, replies to the topic-starting post are sorted by liked-count descending first and date of post ascending second.

*That* is how I see the coolness in this feature.

 

A weak pt of the forum has always been that historical threads are hard to search through. You have a thread of 15 pages or more and a few really excellent posts are scattered through the thread. Months later it's difficult to tell a newbie, "go read that ginormous thread". How much better to say, "go read the most popular posts of that thread (then read the whole thread if you want)". So much easier for us to distill our wisdom, as a community, for those joining later or on a time crunch.

 

For example, I can create a feature to show you "most popular posts", or "most popular posts this week".

Also hip.

 

[Apech]

The light is beginning to dawn - I get this now.

[VCraigP]

For all those of you who miss the minus you can just post the following after an offensive post;

 

 

I give you a minus for particularly pointless, troll-ish, self-absorbed, hijacking, de-railing comments out of resonance with the spirit of TTB and that add nothing to the discussion or the community

 

 

But good on you Sean. anonymous minus giving is probably not a good thing.

 

Craig

[Mal]

[Marblehead]

Long live the "plus" button!!!!

[Ninpo-me-this-ninjutsu-me-that]

 

Really the gesture behind using it is, "Wow, this post was really insightful and probably took this member an hour or two to type all this out and contribute this to the community. And it's a wonderful response to the original poster. I don't know if I have anything to say in response to this right now but I do want to show I like this post *click* LIKE".

 

 

That's a fair play. I'm sure no one would would disagree with that.