Reputation points

[ltam]

How do reputation points work on this forum? How many approve reputations do you have to receive before getting 1 point?

[SlowJet]

It works like magnets, polotics, and religon. :)
But Karma jumps the quantum fences of group think when needed.

SJ

[ltam]

It works like magnets, polotics, and religon. :)
But Karma jumps the quantum fences of group think when needed.

SJ
:confused: :confused: :confused:

[dickinsd]

Reputation is a little odd here at Fedoraforum, or more importantly, I think it is a little odd at any VB based site.

If I post a question, you answer it, perhaps producing a nice little step by step guide to resolving my problem, I can click on Reputation next to your name, as long as it says I approve, I write a little remark (not needed but useful) your reputation points will increase by 1.

That is the most basic type of reputation, but as I said it is a little odd. so now for the bits that make it a little odd.

If you have posted less than 20 posts (I think this is the minimum but maybe 50 - can someone confirm?) then if you add to my reputation I will be able to see your comment in my control panel, BUT it will not actually increase or decrease my reputation score.

Different 'ranks' gave different amounts to your reputation,
Not 100% on how the different ranks give different points, or what the different points scales are.
I think it is something like this:
Registered user +1
moderator +3
admin +5

Another post that may give you some insight:
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showpost.php?p=131786&postcount=51

If you have reputation, (you can see your reputation when you click on User CP) it comes in 3 colours, RED, BLUE and GREEN

Green - reputation is POSITIVE AND COUNTED
Blue - reputation is "just for fun" and NOT COUNTED
Red - reputation is NEGATIVE AND COUNTED
Posted HERE (http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showpost.php?p=132374&postcount=70) by Pegasus

One final point, you do not have to leave a comment, or your name, it is nice to leave your name, and it is useful to leave a comment, that way the person your leaving the reputation for, know what they did right or wrong.
Example:
That was a really great 'How To' //dickinsd

Hope that explains a little about the reputation.

Dave

[ltam]

Wow, this seems complicated. Thanks for answering my quesiton. Much appreciated.

[james_in_denver]

LOL, so when I answer obscure questions about multiple SCSI controllers on Netfinity servers, and spend an hour or two googling around, even though I help the guy, I don't get a point 'cause it's not an admin, or an admin didn't read it?

[jtang613]

I'm not really a big fan of the whole reputation thing - as you can see by the lack of a beg in my sig. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if many of the users with exceptionally high reps got them by scratching each others' backs. You know - trading rep for rep.

When I write replies to users having trouble - I do it because I'm trying to help. I don't expect, request, or usually receive any reputation. Even though I do try to help out quite a bit (IMHO).

Likewise, I don't usually give reputation, unless the post was *really* usefull. But that doesn't happen too often because most of the issues I have trouble with don't get resolved here.

[bob]

Jtang, your comment about the 'high reps' is quite a bit off the mark. Actually, I think the set-up is that once you award one member a point, you have to award 50 other members points before you can give a second point to that member. (This is just my recollection from a much earlier post - could be wrong). But, more to the point (pun intended), do a search on the posts from the guys with the big numbers. They know their stuff and they are in the Forum day after day helping others. YOU are in here daily too, know your stuff, and I see your points climbing all the time.

I agree 100% that what we are here for is to help each other get the most from Fedora. We've all been at wit's end over one problem or another and we've all received help from our Forum. So, if we can then spend 5 minutes to pass that help along, we've built a stronger OS and maybe kept one guy from giving up.

[Woad_Warrior]

well, dickinsd was relatively close in what he said about the points. i'm not even completely sure how it works, but essentialy he was right. the higher the level of the person giving you points, the more points you are given. ( or conversely lose) early on in this forum (for me at any rate) i answered the post of someone who did a mass post ( more than 1 post of the same problem in different topic areas) and got deducted a crapload of points for whatever reason i have yet to figure/find out. (i got a point or 2 back when i *****ed about it to the person who closed the thread, but it was still less than was deducted) ( /rant) (p.s. no offense to those admining the site, it's a fantastic resource and has helped me a few times, but there should be some way of resolving things like that without having someone lose points unnecessarily and making them look bad)

[greatscot]

I love this forum... points or no points... I love this forum. I love it because it works. It has good admins, good moderators and good members. There is no way to put a pricetag on this kind of support.

[crackers]

I'm appreciative of any comments I get on what I post. And I try to be accepting of the constructive negative responses.

But here's a little of the philosophy behind the "points:"

1) It is not a contest - you don't win anything, you can't "buy" anything, and it certainly doesn't change your status within the community. (Admins picked the first Moderators, and we all select any new ones - benevelent dictatorship with a hand-picked hatchet squad, if you will :D )

2) Awarding points is purely up to the person doing so - no pressure one way or another. (The reason for the sigs in most of the moderators is to just make sure people are aware of how to use the feature.)

3) Giving and receiving a recognition of aid, knowledge, or just plain ol' helpfulness is just a nice thing to do and makes both people feel good. Why not? On the other hand, it is a way to tell someone off without (hopefully) starting a flame-war. Neither option works perfectly all the time - but it does rely on the human element.

4) People can, at their option, weight potentially conflicting answers from two posters based on at least some criteria.

As for the "weird rules" around who gets how much, when you can use them, etc. it's really quite simple: drive-by visitors (less than 10 posts) don't get the priviledge of being able to award points. You have to stick around and participate. As for the point differential, er, "rank has it's priviledges?" And I can be pretty rank... ;)

[imdeemvp]

benevelent dictatorship with a hand-picked hatchet squad, if you willI hope you are just being sarcastic or you will actually make me believe you.

[Jman]

I love this forum... points or no points... I love this forum. I love it because it works. It has good admins, good moderators and good members. There is no way to put a pricetag on this kind of support.
On behalf of everyone who helped you, thanks. I encourage you to rate their posts (positive or negative). It's what makes the system work.

It is not a contest - you don't win anything, you can't "buy" anything, and it certainly doesn't change your status within the community.Perhaps, but I'll argue that there is an incentive to help others more with this kind of feedback.

[james_in_denver]

Reputation and accurate positive feedback are important to the forum.

Sure, I spend time on the forums, based on Reputation, (and posts) I like to think that I have a pretty good feel the abilities and knowledge of several of the top posters here. If Crackers, Ilya, ideemvp, just' ol bob or any of the others that I have come to respect are last posters on a thread, then I usually just move on to the next one, knowing that good advice has already been given.

That being said, a new poster doesn't have that understanding or knowledge. Without reputation, all answers would carry the same weight. (take for example the advice to increase available disk space by issueing the "rm -rf /" command).

Mythical???, let's hope so.

But how is a new "visitor" to know whom to trust? and what advice to take?

They have nothing to base their "choice" on advice to follow than reputation or apparent knowledge of the "advice giver".

In that respect, yes, reputation CAN be important, not as much for the person answering a post, but in who the original poster is likely to rely on for advice.

I also do not nescessarily agree with the way reputation is being calculated. The fact that an individual may have more than a certain number of "reputation points" should not bar them from recieving "reputation" from first time posters, or infrequent posters. These are sometimes the most challenging, unique, and diverse, problems posted to the forum.

Sure, it's easy to answer the easy questions asked by "newbies", such as "how do I change my password" and get good "recomendations"

But I feel that in the long run, skill and reputation for answering the easy AND the more challenging questions, is what will set fedoraforums.org apart from the several other forums on the 'net.

[james_in_denver]

PS, left out ewdi, jman, and I am certain some others.

Hope you are not offended ;)

[ltam]

To me reputation points are really an indication of appreciation. It's not about how senior you are. It's about your willingness and good intentions to help the fellow linux user. Does a newbie helping another newbie make his/her effort less appreciative then if a senior user helping a newbie? A community is just that, equal partnership contributing to the same cause. Comraderie is what makes this community strong. I can name the numerous forum members who have consistently helped me out. I love this forum as the community spirit is strong but disappointed by this complexity.

[ilja]

Not official information:
As far as I know the reputation is allready included into the bulletin board, that is used here. And it is that complex. And changing its complexity would be a great coding effort very deep in the code.
So the complexity isn't there just because of the fedoraforum, but is just there.

[jtang613]

Jtang, your comment about the 'high reps' is quite a bit off the mark. Actually, I think the set-up is that once you award one member a point, you have to award 50 other members points before you can give a second point to that member. (This is just my recollection from a much earlier post - could be wrong). But, more to the point (pun intended), do a search on the posts from the guys with the big numbers. They know their stuff and they are in the Forum day after day helping others. YOU are in here daily too, know your stuff, and I see your points climbing all the time.

I agree 100% that what we are here for is to help each other get the most from Fedora. We've all been at wit's end over one problem or another and we've all received help from our Forum. So, if we can then spend 5 minutes to pass that help along, we've built a stronger OS and maybe kept one guy from giving up.

Point taken :D

[greatscot]

Yes, I can see the positive side to having the reputation point system. I always rate posts that are worthy of it.

[crackers]

I hope you are just being sarcastic or you will actually make me believe you.
Well, the tone was meant to be humorous...

[BoneDaddy13]

Thanks for the calrification, gang! Pretty much works as I expected, with a couple of hitches. I always give points to helpful or insightful threads as they are the ones that make this kind of community go around. :D

[t3gah]

The vBullentin forum software has a feature where you can give positive or negative rep points to a particular post. The positive one is enough because it shows your reputation for those who care about such things other than a real answer to the query they have. The negative way I've seen and heard gets abused more and more every day by users that gang up on people to discredit them. On a few forums I've been to the admin's removed the negative way becuase it was abused and people left because they were being harrased in their view. I myself ignore that little thingy because people on one forum I went to just gave rep points for fun and for no reason at all. But it takes vBulletin to come up with something like that and then there's the disorganized Quick Links thing, but that's another story entirely.

Rep points will always be abused or misused or ignored, etc.

Someone gave me a bad rep point the other day and it seems to have been deleted by 'the establishment' but my net gain of 20 is still on 19 after whomever used thier paint ball gun on me. Ridiculous is what it is.

People come to forums for whatever the forum offers, but mostly to get an answer, not to get a reputation prize or mud.

Maybe vBullentin's release of 4.0 will fix this inherent problem....