SRL Archive - Senior Discussions and Debates

Hey guys,

I know this topic has been brought up in the past, however, mainly at the discretion of the lower boards which often result in immature responses and those responses which can not be taken seriously.

Hence why I ask this to you, fellow SSRL member: why is there a need for negative reputation? Essentially ALL negative reputation that has been handed out thus far from one member to another has been for discriminatory purposes and is often blatantly unfair, and often consists of vulgar language. People are a lot more careful when handing out positive reputation, but don't hold the same weighting when handing out negative reputation. Reputation should be given as a result of hard work (effort), helpfulness, and to encourage, not to shun, despise and force those into hiding. If a user has made a horrible comment, then fellow forum members should report the respective post and have staff deal with them as they see fit (leave, redact or infract, or both). Not have some kids trample all over a users reputation he/she has worked hard for for years, in just a matter of minutes or days.

Negative reputation could be seen as a form of flaming. It essentially attacks a user and can hurt (there have been a countless number of threads on such issues). Flaming is against the rules, why not prevent users from giving negative reputation to others and just leave the report and infract buttons intact?

Please discuss.

EDIT: For some reason, in my tired state, this doesn't really make sense for some reason. So please don't criticise me on this aspect :)

Well it makes sense to me, you brought up some good points. Seems like negative rep, like you said, is just people's 'safer alternative' to flame another user, without the risk of receiving an infraction, ect… People work hard for even a little bit of a chance to be noticed by someone else, even then what are the odds that that person would spread reputation to the user? It's hard to come by, but far too easily taken away. Nothing good comes from de-repping, only flames and discouragement. :(

Great post, Daniel.

I've handed a little de-repping out, but not a whole lot. I personally don't see why people make a big deal about it. Especially when you hardly receive it.

I hear what you are saying for sure, but personally I don't really find it that big a deal, as Kyle said, we don't really see it that often (IMO). But yeah vulgar language in the derep is annoying…

Is there need for *any* reputation?

Everybody likes green balls

I dont get it smartz

[INDENT]Cheers to whoever gave me the negative reputation with the comment "Irony". ;) (my first negative rep in several years :()

@Zyt3x: Positive reputation is a form of encouragement. Reducing ones reputation is a form of discouragement and more often than not, a parallel to flaming somebody.

@cause/Kyle: You are the people that use the system responsibly. There are, however, others which abuse it and other users (often newcomers) cop this abuse. Also, the negative reputation jokingly handed out to me (as stated before) validates the fact that it isn't being used appropriately.

I don't make a big fuss out of receiving a negative reputation, but it is my firm belief that the entire premise of having a reputation system which allows users to deduct from others reputations, can (,has, and always will) be abused. It also presents an oxymoron for a community which has a primary focus of encouragement and education.

It is an issue that has been in my mind since the very beginning, when I first joined this community (and others). My mind just cannot seem to comprehend the logic behind this system. Ask yourself this, why is there a need to have such a system? Keep in mind the fact that you should only really deduct reputation points when a user does not follow the rules in a community (this includes flaming and the like). Keep in mind that we have a post reporting system. Keep in mind that an infractions and/or warnings system exists as-well.

People think before handing out positive reputation - it will always be given as a reward. More often than not, the same thought process hasn't been conducted when handing out negative reputation.

Reputation is like a home for you and your family. It takes time to build, but can utterly be destroyed in just a matter of seconds. People don't like to see their hard work vanish in such ways, so quickly. It will will cause resent among community members, and to this community as a whole, destroying their positive emotional thoughts of this community.[/INDENT]

So, we should just have positive rep then?

I don't think it's a bad idea, just like there's only a "like" button on facebook. I'm not sure if vBulletin supports it, though.

I think it makes more sense to have both than two have one, i don't see people complaining when they get positive rep for stupid reasons (for reasons that aren't really the purpose of rep imo), if it was that the system was being used in a way that it wasn't meant to be used, then your argument should have been to get rid of rep entirely. Which its not.

I think it would make more sense to simply have (if possible) the sender of the rep visible. It would make it much less likely that people would give negative rep at all, and when it was it would be justified. Positive rep would probably be unchanged seeing as half the time you see people say +rep in posts when they do it.

I think it's on us to provide an example of good and bad reping and when to add rep or detract it.

Your reputation can not be destroyed in a day, for that you'd need someone who hates you, which doesn't happen in a day, and even that hater is still bound by the rules on reputation: no repping twice the same post, no repping the same person twice in a row.

And if they do indeed go into a rep war, the alarm bells up in admin CP start ringing. So now too much to worry about there.

Can you really not see how a rep/derep system works better than just a rep system? Not everything is positive.

But anyway the point is that the major policy on SRL is 'there shouldnt be rep'.
So it's on whoever believes in rep to make it into something good and worthwhile considering for this major policy to change.

eg, do say rep+ when you give it out to a person, do say rep– when you take it from a person, or not, which one would you rather?

Does that reputation make you feel butterflies on your stomach?

Anyway, you're arguing to change a system most would do away with, and personally I find your argument to be bullshit, not because I'm in favour of negative rep, but because your argument seems to be in fear that people might misuse the derep button and ultimately crush our e-egos.

Also have you ever considered that if a big script maker made a shitty script and released it, maybe he'd deserve negative rep, cus he wasn't standing up to his old shiny reputation as a scripter? Or a big poster goes and makes small stupid 1 line comments ?

De-rep can be used as a warning to a person that their attitude is deteriorating.

Besides you need something to balance out positive reputation.

My ruling on this is Nay!

-RM

Lol ruling?
i think you have to grant that Daniel brings up some decent points, i mean especially since facebook only has the "like" button, so when you see something you don't like you have to think about whether or not it's worth commenting about. And what's wrong with 1 line posts? (Posted via my andriod)

From: cause
Lol ruling?
i think you have to grant that Daniel brings up some decent points, i mean especially since facebook only has the "like" button, so when you see something you don't like you have to think about whether or not it's worth commenting about. And what's wrong with 1 line posts? (Posted via my andriod)

Since when is facebook a standard of quality for anything?!?!?!

Anyway, one line comments can be harmful, and when I say so i mostly refer to unthoughtful one liners such as

hey mate yo script stupid, it says it works with SRL 4 so why not srl 2.7, yeh and your moma's a cow cus u can't script.

the only exception to the one line comments is Markus, in only one case:
"Your script sucks"

If Markus posts' that, I dont need him to justify his opinion, it is mostly justified on its own.

Jokes apart, most of the time, one liners which have negative connotations to them lack justification and force of thought and reason, which is why I singled them out.

-RM

Well I see the SSRL's ability to infract the counter to negative one liners, but yes I would definitely say facebook has raised the bar in terms of online socialization. Either way I think the only person who could implement the removal of the de-rep button is Wizzup, and it isn't really a pressing issue IMO.

I'm sorry, how can facebook have raised the bar?

Text on there is shit small. you can't write big messages, it is a pain to write them and a pain to read them on facebook.

Facebook didn't make internet interaction better, it just made it commonplace. In fact, it even came to detract from it. Many people used to hold blogs in which they'd post their private thoughts. Nowadays the blogsphere has much deteriorated due to lack of use, and you still don't see people being as open on facebook because it doesn't have one ounce of privacy compared to a personal blog or online forums.

Everyone can end up reading it. Close friends, friends, acquaintances, business connections, people who frequent the same club you do, anyone who looks into you, pretty much anyone can read what you post on facebook. The government.

Plus, you dont have the protection of an alias as you do on other platforms.

But anyway, that's just me ranting.

I guess the reason they don't have a dislike button is cus if you showed the names of the people who had disliked your posts it is likely that a lot of verbal abuse would happen on facebook and that just wouldn't be good for business.

Fortunately for us, when you de-rep someone, you have to be admin to know who did it.

-RM

Facebook sucks. Rep sucks. Abolish both.

If you dislike the reputation feature, just disable it on your own user. I don't really have a problem with negative reputation. I use it from time to time when a post really annoys me. There's no such thing as positive reputation without negative reputation. ;)