[J]

(Original post by sil3nt_cha0s)
for starters, do you know if all the mods will agree to these changes? will they all agree to rep people (to some extent) for good post reports and suchlike? I get the feeling most mods will not agree to this.

This is our suggestion for how the system could be improved, we're looking to have a conversation with the mods and all of you about what bits would work, what bits wouldn't and after that has happened we'll make some firm decisions.

Later this year we're upgrading the functionality behind TSR
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/show...n#post20117691

and we're working away on that at the moment, if we have a rep system on the new platform we need to put development time into it because the version that comes with vbulletin isn't up to the job. So if we're building a rep system we want to do it right and come out with a system that everyone can use and enjoy. Bottom line is the current system is going to change.

[sleekchic]

(Original post by J)
I've pulled results from the Rep survey we did to support the argument that the current system is flawed.

567 people filled the survey in.

When asked what people thought Rep was for, the majority reason was:

'A means to recognise good posts'

HOWEVER

The majority of members asked felt that what having lots of rep meant that a user was...

Top choice – 'a long time user'
2nd choice – 'popular'
3rd choice – 'part of the TSR in-crowd'
4th choice – 'a moderator or subscriber'
5th most popular choice - 'someone who writes good posts'

So high Rep is not perceived to represent post quality, it indicates whether a user is popular and that popularity is mainly focussed around the Subs community (you have to go to page 7 of the members page before you find a member with high rep that hasn’t been a regular subscriber at some stage).

That's no bad thing, but there is a mismatch about what rep is for.

In addition members with lots of subs have a lot of authority over noobs and members with low Rep.


Here are some comments from members about their experiences of being Neg repped:

"Some idiot negged me just because my opinion contradicted theirs! What the heck! The whole point of the rep system is lost!"

"Was wiped out by someone twice- one a year after the original post I was negged for. Had not been on any threads with the person during that year. Reason given for Neg rep # 2 was 'because you are a tosser'"

"Being informed that I'm going to Hell. Not nice."

"Well if someone has 1000s of rep you sort of feel left out and not part of TSR, and really we all want to be seen as equal."

"i was told i was pathetic and ugly by someone i don’t even know and have never even seen before "

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So people are routinely giving or taking away rep not because a post is good but because they like or dislike someone.

We’d like a system that can be used to properly indicate a good post or poster from a bad one, and also provide a way for members to pass on personal greetings and respect to each other, for example if it’s your TSR friends birthday.

We want a fair system in place, that the whole community can use.

Awarding neg rep to posts will still be possible because it can have a very useful purpose but everyone will have equal power so no one person can totally wipe out another.

There is a case for getting rid of rep entirely but with the proposed updates, with your suggestions on top an improved system could add a lot of value to the site.

It’s also a fun thing to have, the top reasons people said they liked Rep when asked in our survey:


"It makes people happy if you get good rep "

"It encourages me to put more thought into my posts."

"The competitiveness."

"the pretty rainbow and flashy gems"

"Its fun! It makes TSR unique, it stimulates positive contributions to conversations, and as a PS Helper, it gives me some recognition by those I've helped (the riches are a good thing too :P)"

All that proves is people get repped/negged for stupid reasons but overhauling or changing the rep system is not going to stop people being stupid. In fact the way I see it, won't it be easier to abuse the updated rep system?

[tropical-twist3]

Spoiler:

Show

If it's your TSR friend’s birthday you'll seek out a post by them and rep them. The rep has nothing to do with the post through which you repped them. The system is being used as a post rating system and a 'you're my friend or a cool person have some rep' system and doesn't do either especially well.

There are on average 26,000 posts a day being made across TSR! Within a given forum how can you tell which replies are any good or come from 'reputable' posters?

For example, if I want help with a physics assignment and post a question into the physics forum, I want to know whose replies are most credible by being able to see where responders received their post rep. All replies will be valid and potentially useful but if I could see that a particular response was from someone who has received most of their rep in the physics forum or study help then I’ll take extra note of their suggestions. Rep at the moment is mainly an indication that a member is popular and or has been on the site a long time, it doesn't show that they necessarily write constructive posts.

At the moment you can only give or receive rep through posts there’s little incentive for the majority of the community to contribute to the site in other ways, e.g share wiki updates, photos etc.

Yeah true.

Members with lots of rep have an unfair authority over other members to whom they can award or take away massive rep value.

With great power comes great responsibility ..although if the rep system was to change then this shouldn't matter as the idea behind this was that people with more rep have more credibility and so would be more likely to rep credible posts.

Currently the Rep system is only used by a relatively small proportion of the community

I didn't know what repping was or how to do it until someone told me, maybe TSR should make it more obvious somehow. Also, some people just don't care: "get the A and get out"

Rep is in no way time bound currently so if you get lots and lots of it in your heyday you retain that rep regardless of whether you still make useful contributions today and new users who may make a hugely valuable contribution to the site are forever playing an impossible catch up.

Nobody told me it was a competition

The hope is that a more useful and fairer rep system would be used by all members on the site with members able to earn rep in various ways. Below is our suggestion for how an improved system would work, the detail still needs to be worked out and we need your help to do that.


An updated system


[list][*]All members have equal power to give and take away rep regardless of how much rep you have.

I'm not sure about this, surely you'd want more rep going to someone who is genuinely helpful than someone who pisses about?

For the first time Rep can be earned by contributing in various ways to the site:

- Substantial wiki updates (based on characters)
- Post thresholds – 50 posts, 100 posts, 200 posts, 500 posts, 1000 posts etc.
- Adding photos/video reviews etc.
- Post reporting (at the discretion of the mod)

You can add to or take away rep from a member by rating their contributions (thumbs up or thumbs down)

- Comments can be left
- Only subs can see who left them rep

good idea although for wiki pages and stuff it'd be nice for non-subs to see who repped them (after all they did put in alot of effort) and leave the subs only thing for particular posts.

There will be restrictions in place as now so members can only rep x many times a day and only the same user once a day

I'm not sure what you mean. I thought we could only rep someone once a day..

We will graphically show in a users profile or as a mouseover effect in their post header a breakdown or where their rep came from. E.g. 80% chat, 20% Life advice or 50% Study help, 40% Careers, 10% Hobbies and interests.

Good idea. I have another one

We'll have the option to tie rep into the end of year awards so the user with the most rep in the past 6 months in each major site area is awarded a prize, for instance.

ooo a prize?

At the moment rep moves you up the member table, Rep may be linked with further member benefits at a later stage, for example if you have over so much rep then you get access to upgraded site features.

oooo

Your accumulative Rep total will be displayed in your profile or as a mouseover effect in your post header along side your weekly rep figure along the lines of: 'Rep points earned this week 10'.

indifferent.

To leave greetings/comments/hugs etc. That are unrelated to another members contributions to the site, you can use the 'wall/notice board' that every member will have in their profile, for example a birthday greeting.

that's nice.

As I've said we need to talk more about the detail of this, so nothing is set in stone. What do you think of these suggestions?
[/QUOTE]

assuming your main concern is determining why someone has x amount of rep and encouraging everyone to use it.... I think you should just do the mouse rollover thing with where someone's rep or neg came from. Or, in the rep option you have either approve or disapprove....couldn't you just change those options to:

I like this person
Helpful post
Humorous post
Wiki (etc)
Other
I disapprove

(with a comment available too)

and have a percentage breakdown of these categories on a mouse roll over or something, that way a user can see why this person has a high rep and whether or not he/she is a helpful user.

I think the repping wiki stuff is a good idea too.
for encouraging other people to use it then you can make it more obvious about what it is and how you do it to new users? but tbh alot of people who actively seek out the helpful posts (like me before I became a member) don't know and don't reeeeally care, they just want the content of the post

I don't really see the point in the rest but I wouldn't be that bothered if stuff changed. Unless the changes make tsr crash alot or something :.....where's the ******* hash key on a mac?!?!? :[hash]

[ViolatedTreason]

(Original post by tropical-twist3)

Spoiler:

Show

Yeah true.


With great power comes great responsibility ..although if the rep system was to change then this shouldn't matter as the idea behind this was that people with more rep have more credibility and so would be more likely to rep credible posts.

I didn't know what repping was or how to do it until someone told me, maybe TSR should make it more obvious somehow. Also, some people just don't care: "get the A and get out"


Nobody told me it was a competition

I'm not sure about this, surely you'd want more rep going to someone who is genuinely helpful than someone who pisses about?

good idea although for wiki pages and stuff it'd be nice for non-subs to see who repped them (after all they did put in alot of effort) and leave the subs only thing for particular posts.

I'm not sure what you mean. I thought we could only rep someone once a day..


Good idea. I have another one


ooo a prize?


oooo


indifferent.


that's nice.

As I've said we need to talk more about the detail of this, so nothing is set in stone. What do you think of these suggestions?

Spoiler:

Show

assuming your main concern is determining why someone has x amount of rep.... I think you should just do the mouse rollover thing with where someone's rep or neg came from. Or, in the rep option you have either approve or disapprove....couldn't you just change those options to:

I like this person
Helpful post
Humorous post
Wiki (etc)
Other
I disapprove

(with a comment available too)

and have a percentage breakdown of these categories on a mouse roll over or something, that way a user can see why this person has a high rep and whether or not he/she is a helpful user.

I think the repping wiki stuff is a good idea too.

I don't really see the point in the rest but I wouldn't be that bothered if stuff changed. Unless the changes make tsr crash alot or something :.....where's the ******* hash key on a mac?!?!? : (hash)

but, if people are wanting to influence peoples rep, say the subs to other subs, it would be abused as people would simply click "helpful post" as opposed to "i like this person" as they know its useless in reality.

EDIT: quote went a bit wierd..

[tropical-twist3]

(Original post by ViolatedTreason)
[/spoiler]

but, if people are wanting to influence peoples rep, say the subs to other subs, it would be abused as people would simply click "helpful post" as opposed to "i like this person" as they know its useless in reality.

EDIT: quote went a bit wierd..

than don't have a prize for the helpful post, maybe for wiki? or not at all. if you get the same amount of rep (bar neg) for each category then it shouldn't make a difference....and do people really care?

[Aiko]

Admittedly, I've only read the opening post and a few thereafter, but not everything in this thread. As mentioned in dev, I'm of the inclination to have two separate systems, the current one and the 'Do you think this post was useful?' as the other. The current system has its place in the social context, whereas the latter can accommodate select areas of the forum (subject specific or PS Help, for example). This proposal is overly complicated and seems to favour the website itself over the individual member. That's just my stance, though.

[sil3nt_cha0s]

(Original post by J)
This is our suggestion for how the system could be improved, we're looking to have a conversation with the mods and all of you about what bits would work, what bits wouldn't and after that has happened we'll make some firm decisions.

Later this year we're upgrading the functionality behind TSR
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/show...n#post20117691

and we're working away on that at the moment, if we have a rep system on the new platform we need to put development time into it because the version that comes with vbulletin isn't up to the job. So if we're building a rep system we want to do it right and come out with a system that everyone can use and enjoy. Bottom line is the current system is going to change.

Ok, fair enough

One other thing you've got to somehow get rid of is revenge repping. If someone should be rightly negged, they should be rightly negged, regardless of whether they are a sub with over 100k rep points or a noob with 100 rep points just starting out. People shouldn't feel afraid of negging users with high rep just because they will have to suffer 10 times worse.

Not sure how you will solve this problem.

[J]

There are some good suggestions and very valid points being made, keep um coming we'll get all of your comments together and revisit the proposed plan and make updates and then post it back up.

Some screens at that point would be good too as really what we're proposing isn't that complex (I can understand why it seems it), images will help with that.

[ViolatedTreason]

how about a scaled system..

like 1 rep for a post gets you 1 point, but at scales alot more when you get several reps for that same post..

i.e 1 rep = 1 point
2 reps = 3 points
3 reps = 5 points and make the margins alot bigger as it increases, like 10 reps for 1 post gets you 100 points or something.

same principal for negs.

if it is a genuinely good and useful post, then you will get more rep for it. that also eliminates friend-repping, as doing so would make little or no difference unless there was a gang-rep or something.

[Alasdair]

I think something might be achieved by allowing people to give out some of their rep in each go.

So you have, say +300 or -150 rep points to give out each day, but you can give it out on a sliding scale, so +50 to one person, -25 to another, +100 to somebody else and -50 to another person. I think that would discourage high-rep users from walloping low-rep users with massive negs or massive pos reps.

[ViolatedTreason]

(Original post by J)
There are some good suggestions and very valid points being made, keep um coming we'll get all of your comments together and revisit the proposed plan and make updates and then post it back up.

Some screens at that point would be good too as really what we're proposing isn't that complex (I can understand why it seems it), images will help with that.

when are you planning to implement this, if you have an idea now, why not whack it onto the test site and let us play around with it a bit.. we can get a better feel for it then..

[J]

(Original post by ViolatedTreason)
when are you planning to implement this, if you have an idea now, why not whack it onto the test site and let us play around with it a bit.. we can get a better feel for it then..

We're installing some functionality onto the dev2 site in the next few days which we hope will deliver some of the features described, CJ will coordinate some testing of that when its up if it looks initially like it will do what we want.

the general time scale though is - decision on how we what we want the future Rep system to work within the next week. Then any custom development work thats needed will be done within the next 2 months and then everything being cool we'll be live shortly there after i.e end of year, early next.

[estel]

(Original post by ViolatedTreason)
how about a scaled system..

like 1 rep for a post gets you 1 point, but at scales alot more when you get several reps for that same post..

i.e 1 rep = 1 point
2 reps = 3 points
3 reps = 5 points and make the margins alot bigger as it increases, like 10 reps for 1 post gets you 100 points or something.

same principal for negs.

if it is a genuinely good and useful post, then you will get more rep for it. that also eliminates friend-repping, as doing so would make little or no difference unless there was a gang-rep or something.

This sounds like a super idea, though I'm interested in hearing J's method for preventing ghost accounts from repping themselves (though tbh, I don't really see it as being a really serious problem).

(Original post by Magnum Opus)
I think you've hit the heart of this; Why is it correct to say that someone's opinion counts more simply because they're more well known? I would have thought that 1000 people with 1 rep power repping someone shows more of a recognition for the post than one person with 1000 rep power, for example?

Having said that, I don't think this is the appropriate place to argue that issue, rather to discuss the proposed changes, so I'll shush

I have to agree with this entirely. A new user's opinion of the quality of a helpful post, perhaps in reply to a thread that they started, is surely just as important as anyone elses'?

[Jonah Ramone]

(Original post by Alasdair)
I think something might be achieved by allowing people to give out some of their rep in each go.

So you have, say +300 or -150 rep points to give out each day, but you can give it out on a sliding scale, so +50 to one person, -25 to another, +100 to somebody else and -50 to another person. I think that would discourage high-rep users from walloping low-rep users with massive negs or massive pos reps.

I've thought about this before, actually. I often see things that make me giggle in the chat forum and think "does that really warrant 1300+ points"? Obviously it's just got to a ridiculous stage that anyone can have such a big influence over other members' (consider that Jangrafess must be pos repping at about +2000 these days). I think, however, being able to spread your rep around each day would cause a fair few problems in itself - notably how to set the parameters of spreading - can you choose the amount of points to spread or is it set in percentages, i.e. you can give this user 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of your daily pos/neg; but also the prospect of repeatedly repping the same people will come up more often, (especially for people who only post in one or two forums) and the problem that already exists to an extent, where people are spreading their rep around simply because they want to use it before the day expires (see shoutbox ca midnight).

As an aside, while on the whole I like the idea of people having more rep power based on their contribution and received rep, the gap between people's power has devalued the system and I think that a more even distribution based from a 1 point each is probably a better way.

(Original post by Matisse)
Admittedly, I've only read the opening post and a few thereafter, but not everything in this thread. As mentioned in dev, I'm of the inclination to have two separate systems, the current one and the 'Do you think this post was useful?' as the other. The current system has its place in the social context, whereas the latter can accommodate select areas of the forum (subject specific or PS Help, for example). This proposal is overly complicated and seems to favour the website itself over the individual member. That's just my stance, though.

I agree in principle, but surely two systems would get pretty confusing? I dunno, I'm no whizz with these things.

[common_person]

But... many people with little/no power might neg just for the hell of it too. Having pointless negs from trolls worth the same as a neg from a decent member is surely unfair. As it stands, petty vindictive neg does little damage to reputation; the main issue people have with it is hurtful comments, which you will not be able to prevent. If trolls and flamers know that they can make a difference, surely this will encourage them to get neg-happy? Also, dupes could be set up to neg a person multiple times. How do you intend to counter this?

Of course, the same applies to pos rep. The difference is that pos rep never makes anyone upset. Pointless pos reps currently undermine the system, which is why you want the change, but even more people will complain about neg if the hurtful comment also carries power. It would make rep circles harder but bullying so much easier.

[Jangrafess]

This all seems unnecessarily complicated. But whenever I post in these threads people reply to me saying my opinion doesn't count because I have lots and as JR says, give out over 2000 a go, so I'll stay out of it and I don't really give a **** what you change it to. It's rep, blah blah.

[Jangrafess]

(Original post by common_person)
But... many people with little/no power might neg just for the hell of it too. Having pointless negs from trolls worth the same as a neg from a decent member is surely unfair. As it stands, petty vindictive neg does little damage to reputation; the main issue people have with it is hurtful comments, which you will not be able to prevent. If trolls and flamers know that they can make a difference, surely this will encourage them to get neg-happy? Also, dupes could be set up to neg a person multiple times. How do you intend to counter this?

Of course, the same applies to pos rep. The difference is that pos rep never makes anyone upset. Pointless pos reps currently undermine the system, which is why you want the change, but even more people will complain about neg if the hurtful comment also carries power. It would make rep circles harder but bullying so much easier.

This is an excellent point though, I'll say that much.

[Alasdair]

(Original post by common_person)
But... many people with little/no power might neg just for the hell of it too. Having pointless negs from trolls worth the same as a neg from a decent member is surely unfair. As it stands, petty vindictive neg does little damage to reputation; the main issue people have with it is hurtful comments, which you will not be able to prevent. If trolls and flamers know that they can make a difference, surely this will encourage them to get neg-happy? Also, dupes could be set up to neg a person multiple times. How do you intend to counter this?

I think this is a very good point. The only times I've ever had what you might call 'malicious' negs (as in the ones highlighted in the Survey) have been from very low or zero power individuals. People who have high rep 'abuse' it much less often.

[Aula]

(Original post by common_person)
But... many people with little/no power might neg just for the hell of it too. Having pointless negs from trolls worth the same as a neg from a decent member is surely unfair. As it stands, petty vindictive neg does little damage to reputation; the main issue people have with it is hurtful comments, which you will not be able to prevent. If trolls and flamers know that they can make a difference, surely this will encourage them to get neg-happy? Also, dupes could be set up to neg a person multiple times. How do you intend to counter this?

Of course, the same applies to pos rep. The difference is that pos rep never makes anyone upset. Pointless pos reps currently undermine the system, which is why you want the change, but even more people will complain about neg if the hurtful comment also carries power. It would make rep circles harder but bullying so much easier.

This says many of the things I was thinking.

[Jangrafess]

It sounds like it's making rep too important a part of the site too. At the moment it's a little quirk that's a bit of fun which a minority of people take way too seriously. Adding it in for post reporting, wiki updates, etc, just seems to make it the be all and end all of TSR usage and the mods will have their work cut out deciding who to give arbitrary amounts for making post reports. There was a thread recently in which some mod said repeatedly to Hubert Poo that rep and so on creates a surprisingly small amount of work for the mod team. That said, this system is going to be implemented regardless of what we say, so there isn't much point.

I realise I said I wasn't going to get involved but I keep on thinking "and another thing!" like some old fart in a pub who lost the argument twenty minutes ago.