What do you think about the Reputation System on TSR?

Hi everyone :bl:

I want to kick off a conversation around the reputation system on TSR. We have made some time over the next 6 months to see if there are any improvements we could make to the current system. I personally believe there are a few problems that I would love to solve with the reputation system but I will keep those to myself for now. I want your thoughts and help right at the first stages of this work.

Our rep system has been around in its current form for a very long time now and I would like to have a go at tackling it with a fresh pair of eyes, potentially simplifying it for new users and making sure it rewards the things we think are most important in our TSR community.

Below are a few kicking off points to help conversation along but please do feel free to have a general open conversation or throw any ideas our way!:

•

How easy is the current reputation system to understand, follow and use? (PRSOM, personal vs. post rep, limitations on rep not made clear)

•

Do you know where to go if you want to read more about the reputation system or show it to newer users?

•

The current system means long term members give more rep points than newer members and brand new members have no way of giving rep points. Is this fair?

•

There is a current ceiling with reputation points, how do people feel about this potentially increasing?

•

Does the current rep system work in all types of conversations we have on The Student Room? Is there disparity in some of the Life Around Learning forums compared to the education forums? Is that a problem?

I’ve purposefully kept details fairly vague on all of the above, and in this post generally. I want us to have an open conversation about what the rep system is on TSR, what it ideally would be for you all and the changes we could make to get there.

I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts on rep on TSR and hope some of you will enjoy getting involved in helping us move forward

EH

(edited 2 weeks ago)

I think that the PRSOM system can be annoying. I don’t want to go around having to rep several different users (which makes the rep less genuine in my opinion) before I can rep the person that I actually want to rep again. There’s also the cool-down issue but not that big of a deal compared to PRSOM.

Reply 2

Adam Woodbridge

15

Original post by Talkative Toad

I think that the PRSOM system can be annoying. I don’t want to go around having to rep several different users (which makes the rep less genuine in my opinion) before I can rep the person that I actually want to rep again. There’s also the cool-down issue but not that big of a deal compared to PRSOM.

I agree with you, Toad. I also find it unfair that new members have less or no rep and I don't know the difference between personal rep and post rep.

Original post by Adam Woodbridge

I agree with you, Toad. I also find it unfair that new members have less or no rep and I don't know the difference between personal rep and post rep.

I’d like to See new members start on +1 or +2 rep Instead of 0

Reply 4

elareare

17

How easy is the current reputation system to understand, follow and use? (PRSOM, personal vs. post rep, limitations on rep not made clear)
difficult IMO. i vehemently dislike PRSOM
•
Do you know where to go if you want to read more about the reputation system or show it to newer users?
nope i had to ask other users abt it. very unclear. 😭

The current system means long term members give more rep points than newer members and brand new members have no way of giving rep points. Is this fair?
nope new users should start with 1 or 2

There is a current ceiling with reputation points, how do people feel about this potentially increasing?
should be limitless that'd be fun

Does the current rep system work in all types of conversations we have on The Student Room? Is there disparity in some of the Life Around Learning forums compared to the education forums? Is that a problem?
i have no idea tbh. but i dislike PRSOM and the cool-down. cos then im just repping users from 10 years ago so i can rep somebody else again and that aint how it's supposed to work, yaknow

@sdfj this is your thread...

Reply 5

sdfj

17

Original post by Adam Woodbridge

I agree with you, Toad. I also find it unfair that new members have less or no rep and I don't know the difference between personal rep and post rep.

Ok so post rep is when you thumbs up a post. Personal rep is when you go into someone’s account and press ‘give rep’ and it allows you to write a message alongside it. They both give the recipient the same amount of rep points.

Reply 6

sdfj

17

Original post by Evil Homer

Hi everyone :bl:

I want to kick off a conversation around the reputation system on TSR. We have made some time over the next 6 months to see if there are any improvements we could make to the current system. I personally believe there are a few problems that I would love to solve with the reputation system but I will keep those to myself for now. I want your thoughts and help right at the first stages of this work.
Our rep system has been around in its current form for a very long time now and I would like to have a go at tackling it with a fresh pair of eyes, potentially simplifying it for new users and making sure it rewards the things we think are most important in our TSR community.
Below are a few kicking off points to help conversation along but please do feel free to have a general open conversation or throw any ideas our way!:

•

How easy is the current reputation system to understand, follow and use? (PRSOM, personal vs. post rep, limitations on rep not made clear)

•

Do you know where to go if you want to read more about the reputation system or show it to newer users?

•

The current system means long term members give more rep points than newer members and brand new members have no way of giving rep points. Is this fair?

•

There is a current ceiling with reputation points, how do people feel about this potentially increasing?

•

Does the current rep system work in all types of conversations we have on The Student Room? Is there disparity in some of the Life Around Learning forums compared to the education forums? Is that a problem?

I’ve purposefully kept details fairly vague on all of the above, and in this post generally. I want us to have an open conversation about what the rep system is on TSR, what it ideally would be for you all and the changes we could make to get there.
I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts on rep on TSR and hope some of you will enjoy getting involved in helping us move forward

EH

I think with a 24 hour cool-down, the PRSOM is not so required. As Toad says, it makes the rep less genuine.

So I would suggest: remove the PRSOM entirely but keep the cool-down to avoid double accounts and rep spamming. We don’t want random users ending up on 12 rep gems cos they had a lot of time with multiple accounts. I would also agree with: keeping PRSOM but making a monthly restriction of 60 reps for a single user in a month. And maximum of 5 a day maybe. Just putting it out there as food for thought.

Reply 7

sdfj

17

Original post by Evil Homer

Hi everyone :bl:

I want to kick off a conversation around the reputation system on TSR. We have made some time over the next 6 months to see if there are any improvements we could make to the current system. I personally believe there are a few problems that I would love to solve with the reputation system but I will keep those to myself for now. I want your thoughts and help right at the first stages of this work.
Our rep system has been around in its current form for a very long time now and I would like to have a go at tackling it with a fresh pair of eyes, potentially simplifying it for new users and making sure it rewards the things we think are most important in our TSR community.
Below are a few kicking off points to help conversation along but please do feel free to have a general open conversation or throw any ideas our way!:

•

How easy is the current reputation system to understand, follow and use? (PRSOM, personal vs. post rep, limitations on rep not made clear)

•

Do you know where to go if you want to read more about the reputation system or show it to newer users?

•

The current system means long term members give more rep points than newer members and brand new members have no way of giving rep points. Is this fair?

•

There is a current ceiling with reputation points, how do people feel about this potentially increasing?

•

Does the current rep system work in all types of conversations we have on The Student Room? Is there disparity in some of the Life Around Learning forums compared to the education forums? Is that a problem?

I’ve purposefully kept details fairly vague on all of the above, and in this post generally. I want us to have an open conversation about what the rep system is on TSR, what it ideally would be for you all and the changes we could make to get there.
I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts on rep on TSR and hope some of you will enjoy getting involved in helping us move forward

EH

I believe the current system works on the basis that users give the recipient of the rep the same number of rep points as the rep gems the giver has. Not the age of the account. I think this works but it could be an idea to base the strength of the ‘rep power’ given on the number of posts of any user in question, or a combination of the age of one’s account with the number of posts. This would obviously be a logarithmic scale so gradually increasing number of posts means a low progression to the next ‘rep power’ stage. I don’t know whether any of that makes sense.

Original post by sdfj

I believe the current system works on the basis that users give the recipient of the rep the same number of rep points as the rep gems the giver has. Not the age of the account. I think this works but it could be an idea to base the strength of the ‘rep power’ given on the number of posts of any user in question, or a combination of the age of one’s account with the number of posts. This would obviously be a logarithmic scale so gradually increasing number of posts means a low progression to the next ‘rep power’ stage. I don’t know whether any of that makes sense.

The only issue with that is you could hella spam in forum games then bang you can give more rep.

maybe forum games but not the rest of chat could be excluded and not count towards the post count when it comes to this.

(edited 2 weeks ago)

Reply 9

sdfj

17

Original post by Talkative Toad

The only issue with that is you could hella spam in forum games then bang you can give more rep.
maybe forum games but not the rest of chat could be excluded not count towards the post count when it comes to this.

Yeah that’s a good point. I don’t think people care as much about how much rep they give over how much they receive though.

The rep there actually worked so I didn’t need to PRSOM you.

Reply 10

sdfj

17

Original post by Evil Homer

Hi everyone :bl:

I want to kick off a conversation around the reputation system on TSR. We have made some time over the next 6 months to see if there are any improvements we could make to the current system. I personally believe there are a few problems that I would love to solve with the reputation system but I will keep those to myself for now. I want your thoughts and help right at the first stages of this work.
Our rep system has been around in its current form for a very long time now and I would like to have a go at tackling it with a fresh pair of eyes, potentially simplifying it for new users and making sure it rewards the things we think are most important in our TSR community.
Below are a few kicking off points to help conversation along but please do feel free to have a general open conversation or throw any ideas our way!:

•

How easy is the current reputation system to understand, follow and use? (PRSOM, personal vs. post rep, limitations on rep not made clear)

•

Do you know where to go if you want to read more about the reputation system or show it to newer users?

•

The current system means long term members give more rep points than newer members and brand new members have no way of giving rep points. Is this fair?

•

There is a current ceiling with reputation points, how do people feel about this potentially increasing?

•

Does the current rep system work in all types of conversations we have on The Student Room? Is there disparity in some of the Life Around Learning forums compared to the education forums? Is that a problem?

I’ve purposefully kept details fairly vague on all of the above, and in this post generally. I want us to have an open conversation about what the rep system is on TSR, what it ideally would be for you all and the changes we could make to get there.
I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts on rep on TSR and hope some of you will enjoy getting involved in helping us move forward

EH

Sorry for the disjointed posts (I’m on the app so I can’t post if the message is too long) but I oppose starting new members off with 1 or 2 rep points just because members with a lot of time could use that and make extra accounts to get lots of rep. I doubt many will get far but it’s a possibility. I would also say that it’s probably better to keep it as it is because most new users don’t really care about rep. I would also say that rep on study help usually has a low power because a lot of new members post on it so maybe a x2 rep multiplier on here is a good idea. Or maybe this problem could be solved with the idea of starting new member with 1 or 2 rep power (which I’m generally opposed to).

Original post by sdfj

Yeah that’s a good point. I don’t think people care as much about how much rep they give over how much they receive though.

The rep there actually worked so I didn’t need to PRSOM you.

I mean I’d like to see a stat on how much rep I’ve given.

Reply 12

sdfj

17

Original post by Talkative Toad

I mean I’d like to see a stat on how much rep I’ve given.

So would I. I actually gave zero rep for like 2 weeks apart from accidents until I realised the rep system was cool and started actively trying to earn it.

(edited 2 weeks ago)

Reply 13

Genesiss

20

The current system means long term members give more rep points than newer members and brand new members have no way of giving rep points. Is this fair?

what is the point of that? apologies if i'm being daft but i don't get it. am i'm supposed to get more excited if a certain user likes my post? isn't it all the same?

edit: actually i didn't know the age of the account means giving more rep. thanks

(edited 2 weeks ago)

Reply 14

Trinculo

21

Any social media, but especially a forum, that has only +ve voting values is always going to have a problem with how the quality of posts is represented. Quite simply, because TSR for whatever reason which has never been properly explained (and I suspect it's because there is no good rationale) does not have downvotes, it means that bad advice can very easily be represented as good advice.

Let's say you have a post on an unpopular forum - Everyday Employment Issues. You ask "How do I call in sick today?" and someone gives you a well reasoned, friendly and factually accurate answer. The thread isn't very busy and that answer gets two upvotes. If there were downvotes, very likely no-one would downvote it, and what is displayed is +2.

Now lets say you're on a busy forum. Medicine or something like that. Let's say you have a question about the UCAT and someone who clearly knows nothing about medicine gives you a boneheaded and factually inaccurate response. Because its a busy forum you might get two upvotes just because there are silly people out there. But were there downvotes, that post would likely garner 20 downvotes. A net score of -18 would at a glance tell anyone casually reading that the post is for some reason unpopular and not to trust it. But because TSR doesn't have those, all you see is the +2. The casual reader is lead to believe that a bad post is a good post.

This is done by social media all the time and in reality its just a manipulation and has no good intentions behind it. Youtube removed visibility for dislikes a while back, and surprise surprise - it has had exactly that effect. The Lord of the Rings : Rings of Power is reasonably well known to be the most expensive TV show of all time, with Amazon spending hundreds of millions on it - ranging between $700m to $1bn, yet it was received quite poorly. The official trailer on Youtube shows 130k likes. In isolation, that sounds quite positive. But if you have the extension which allows you to see the dislikes, you can see that there are 1.3m dislikes, an absolutely mad 1:10 like to dislike ratio, which should be a signal that what you are doing is not being well receieved. However, just like with TSR, all you see are the likes, so the casual observer thinks the trailer is being well regarded, when the opposite is true.

(edited 2 weeks ago)

Reply 15

MedMama

Universities Forum Helper

13

Original post by sdfj

Sorry for the disjointed posts (I’m on the app so I can’t post if the message is too long) but I oppose starting new members off with 1 or 2 rep points just because members with a lot of time could use that and make extra accounts to get lots of rep. I doubt many will get far but it’s a possibility. I would also say that it’s probably better to keep it as it is because most new users don’t really care about rep. I would also say that rep on study help usually has a low power because a lot of new members post on it so maybe a x2 rep multiplier on here is a good idea. Or maybe this problem could be solved with the idea of starting new member with 1 or 2 rep power (which I’m generally opposed to).

think it can, in a few cases at least, take several posts from a completely new poster to know if they are genuine

that is why would prefer that it was slower gaining accreditation via rep at the beginning of their time on TSR rather than the opposite, as it seems to get harder to acquire the badges and so on the longer youve been on the forum, if that makes sense!

Reply 16

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

21

I still feel the system would be better if reps in threads (i.e. at the bottom of a comment) all gave a fixed increase in rep regardless of the user repping, but that personal reps through the profile page (which may no longer exist?) should give the "full" rep based on the rep gems of the repping member. This makes it so new users can rep people in threads but retains the ability for established users to "super rep" someone they think posts well generally. I think this could also remove the PRSOM system from reps in the threads and just leave it in place for the personal rep from the profile page.

Reply 17

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

21

Original post by Genesiss

The current system means long term members give more rep points than newer members and brand new members have no way of giving rep points. Is this fair?

what is the point of that? apologies if i'm being daft but i don't get it. am i'm supposed to get more excited if a certain user likes my post? isn't it all the same?

edit: actually i didn't know the age of the account means giving more rep. thanks

It's not about the age of the account, it's about how many rep gems the user has. The amount of rep given for a rep is equal to the rep gems of the repping user (so in my case I think 12?).

By "long term users" they mean the ones who have consistently used the site over a longer period of time who will invariably have some rep gems by random reps by that point. Getting 12 rep gems is really more a function of time than anything else - if you spend long enough on the site you'll get 12 rep gems as long as you are posting somewhere consistently!

Newer members will have fewer rep gems due to having been posting on the site for a shorter period and having had less time to get repped (and fewer posts to be repped on).

Brand new users have no rep gems so can rep someones post but it doesn't give any rep points.