Changes to the reputation system.

Hello, forumites!

We are brought here today due to changes to the reputation system. As of the 4th of May - we have removed the ability to downvote posts from all the forums.

Now you may be thinking, "Aww, but that means we cant downvote Tim[Supercell] anymore!" This is true, but that is not the reason for the change. A small group of people have used the reputation system to skirt around the rules - leaving comments on peoples profiles that are against the rules. There have been a few instances of members who have been doing nothing but leaving rude, racial and derogatory remarks for months on end. Something like this off-putting to new forum members.

In addition to the above-mentioned reasons, we have decided that negative voting is... well... nothing but negative. And we want for these communities to be positive, fun and safe places to be.

May the fourth be with you,
The Mod Squad

may the fourth be with you.

Kudos to Tim[SUPERCELL]....

Fun apart.....nice move👍👍👍

I have nothing to say tho

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Originally Posted by LachNessMeownster

Hello, forumites!

We are brought here today due to changes to the reputation system. As of the 4th of May - we have removed the ability to downvote posts from all the forums.

Now you may be thinking, "Aww, but that means we cant downvote Tim[Supercell] anymore!" This is true, but that is not the reason for the change. A small group of people have used the reputation system to skirt around the rules - leaving comments on peoples profiles that are against the rules. There have been a few instances of members who have been doing nothing but leaving rude, racial and derogatory remarks for months on end. Something like this off-putting to new forum members.

In addition to the above-mentioned reasons, we have decided that negative voting is... well... nothing but negative. And we want for these communities to be positive, fun and safe places to be.

May the fourth be with you,
The Mod Squad

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Any chance of being able to "upvote" some post on mobile version too? Would be nice not having to change from mobile to full and back again all the time :)

Hmmm okay 🤔

Glad to hear it. You mean like the time the guy left a comment "you're an idiot." :) I agree with him on the comment but the downvote was just wrong. Ajax fixed it. :)

Seems an odd decision. Because a small group leaves derogatory messages, no one can down vote. If people want to leave these messages then they will. They can do it via pm, vm or even on a thread. It has nothing to do with the rep system but the person behind it. Even if they wanted to leave a derogatory message, the can still do it via +rep - the people who leave these kind of messages often have less than 10 rep so their +rep wouldn’t count anyway.

To me, this seems like it should be simply covered by the forum rules - racist, vulgar, derogatory or whatever messages shouldn’t be tolerated and the mods are correct in whatever action they take. By this logic, will you be blocking VMs because I’ve had instances of abuse via that medium?

It looks like the abusive actions of the vast minority have dictated the rules for the vast majority. We voted for both positive and negative rep, but it looks like democracy most certainly isn’t the winner here.

Additional - normally I’d expect a few down votes for a post like that but I guess I’m safe now ;)

Great, finally i can have a double digit reputation points ��

Sounds good to me, but I'd be more interested in getting more weight by leveling up.

Interesting how this system now is going to be changed, after reports of abuse in several forms have never been dealt with, at least by some. Let's hope it will turn out ok.

Then in the future we have to answer to "why there are forum accounts with negative rep point or less than 10 rep point?" thread...

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Originally Posted by SilverX

Then in the future we have to answer to "why there are forum accounts with negative rep point or less than 10 rep point?" thread...

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Ah yes We are now 90s people who had the negative vote Button.

Yaaay I'm so happy! The forums will now shine. Thank you lach!:caticon: here's a cute cat meme for you =}

https://i.imgur.com/yvcmlQo.jpg
Okay that was for fun:smirk:

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Originally Posted by BlindHaze

Seems an odd decision. Because a small group leaves derogatory messages, no one can down vote. If people want to leave these messages then they will. They can do it via pm, vm or even on a thread.
It has nothing to do with the rep system but the person behind it. Even if they wanted to leave a derogatory message, the can still do it via +rep - the people who leave these kind of messages often have less than 10 rep so their +rep wouldn’t count anyway.

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The difference between doing it VIA rep and through other means is astronomical for a Mod. It is much easier to moderate posts, PM's or even VM's. It is easier for us to spot, deal with and keep track of.

"the people 'you have seen' who leave these kind of messages often have"

Keep in mind we see a lot more than you do. :)

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To me, this seems like it should be simply covered by the forum rules - racist, vulgar, derogatory or whatever messages shouldn’t be tolerated and the mods are correct in whatever action they take. By this logic, will you be blocking VMs because I’ve had instances of abuse via that medium?

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We do deal with in accordance to the forum rules. The difference being you can report VM's. :thumbsup:

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It looks like the abusive actions of the vast minority have dictated the rules for the vast majority. We voted for both positive and negative rep, but it looks like democracy most certainly isn’t the winner here.

Additional - normally I’d expect a few down votes for a post like that but I guess I’m safe now ;)

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Yes, the vote was something we discussed. It was voted to have both positive and negative. But that was also voted by the forum members of yesteryear. Who knows what would be voted on by the people of today. And yes, we could do another vote and see - but that wouldnt change our stance on it. The reputation system was uncharted territory for us, and now that we have had the time to digest and see how it plays out, we are confident this is the best approach.

Well I am a bit partial about this. Even though I have had a few down votes after a completely unwarranted witty comment, I do think these down votes have their place. They, for example, made me think: should I have refrained from commenting that witty remark. Even though I decided I still liked my comment, they at least made me think it over. Even though I could not care less about reputation.

What we have now, is half a system. Might just as well remove the rep system completely.

Hehe, it's something like I had suggested back when reputation was added, just a key to mark the post as "good/well written" as the negative reputation was just abused all the time (especially in CR section). I dont know about the derogatory comments but you could get negative rep for just giving an opinion which was pointless. Good change.

Downvotes/neg reps are generally a form of a community's self-moderating functions. For example, on Reddit, heavily downvoted posts get hidden and so on. Over here they were the closest approach to the forums' self-moderation, as a form of telling someone their extreme and gratuitous negative post style was undesirable resulting in them thinking twice about posts. Hence, their removal feels really off.

First off...wouldnt it be better to just add a reporting button onto the rep votes?

Secondly, this wont exactly stiffle toxicity. Maybe the extremes from the few, but from the more mild side of the many it'll become worse. There wont be a real way to tell/punish those being idiots (but not bad enough to break the rules and require mod interference) without negative rep. I know it's helped me not be a tool on a few occasions (I can be an idiot every now and then).

Also...cant they just use positive rep to do the same thing?

great start, but i would like to see the reputation system removed completely. i have seen completely random posts from certain members get upvotes with either no comment made or gushing fanboy love.

i suspect there is a certain level of undetectable abuse going on among some in the running for highest reputation....why would someone do this? well a higher reputation would certainly make it easier to bully others and receive favoritism from mods.

unfortunately i can not prove this claim, and it is only speculation.

For my part, I would vote that the negative rep remains in place. It has a function.

I've used it sparingly but I've used it nonetheless. Removing this function will not remove toxicity. In fact, it may increase the visibility of it as those sort of people will post whatever they want regardless.

Anyway it appears from your comment that the decision is final so meh it is what it is.

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Originally Posted by LachNessMeownster

The difference between doing it VIA rep and through other means is astronomical for a Mod. It is much easier to moderate posts, PM's or even VM's. It is easier for us to spot, deal with and keep track of.

"the people 'you have seen' who leave these kind of messages often have"

Keep in mind we see a lot more than you do. :)

Sure, of course you see more than we do. But the people who make these derogatory neg rep comments, are the majority under 50 posts? Less than 10 rep? If so, then they’ll continue to do it via +rep. And even if they do have the criteria above, the avenue would still open for them. I’d even hazard a guess that less people will want to report a toxic +rep than a toxic -rep. After all, it’ll drop off the bottom of the list pretty quickly and who wants to lose a rep point?

When it was introduced, numerous people were saying that the forum became a less toxic place. We may not see what goes on behind the scenes but we certainly do see and have our opinions on the overall toxicity of the forums.

We do deal with in accordance to the forum rules. The difference being you can report VM's. :thumbsup:

Absolutely you do. It was never in doubt but I appreciate the affirmation.

Yes, the vote was something we discussed. It was voted to have both positive and negative. But that was also voted by the forum members of yesteryear. Who knows what would be voted on by the people of today. And yes, we could do another vote and see - but that wouldnt change our stance on it. The reputation system was uncharted territory for us, and now that we have had the time to digest and see how it plays out, we are confident this is the best approach.

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I don't think it’s right to discount the forum users of yesteryear. After all, the changes you made here in late August were based on a vote made in January.

https://forum.supercell.com/showthre...-Forum-Changes

And you’re right, who knows what would be voted for today? I don’t, but I’d be interested to find out. Although as your stance won’t change, what would be the point. In fact, what was the point in voting how we’d like the rep in each sub forum implemented.

So who is this easier for? As you know, I’ve recently made my opinions on this clear before and it got me in trouble, so I won’t reiterate. But, I still feel it is a valid point which no one has addressed.

I wonder how long it will take Tim to get his reputation back in the green. He currently sits at -64.

This honestly doesn’t surprise me at all: this forum is already catered on the concept that we are all in kindergarten and aren’t allowed to hurt anyone’s feelings.

If someone even remotely says something that could be considered mean in any aspect of the word, it’s immediately followed by two or three junior mods posting about the rules and how everyone has to be nice,immediately followed by a moderator private message telling you not to be mean.

Now we can’t even downvote someone’s post. Give me a break. If it really causes someone that much grief to get a negative rep on an Internet forum post that the entire system has to be thrown out, that’s just sad.

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Originally Posted by smuckerskp

I wonder how long it will take Tim to get his reputation back in the green. He currently sits at -64.

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Why do you think Tim would ever get his Positive rep back?

Why haven’t the mods then just banned those forum accounts? I know we had few people here just trolling in the threads and leaving negative rep message to everyone who disagree with him. If mods see this as a problem enough to delete downvotes why not bann the forum accounts too?

Nice #MayTheFourthBeWithYou

Lame :smirk:

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Originally Posted by ClasherYukon

great start, but i would like to see the reputation system removed completely. i have seen completely random posts from certain members get upvotes with either no comment made or gushing fanboy love.

i suspect there is a certain level of undetectable abuse going on among some in the running for highest reputation....why would someone do this? well a higher reputation would certainly make it easier to bully others and receive favoritism from mods.

unfortunately i can not prove this claim, and it is only speculation.

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Well, I can only speak from my own experience but I’m sure that myself and the mods would agree that this certainly isn’t the case for me!

Maybe the mods should do their job and ban those members that abused the system.



ahhhh. No let’s just throw the system out with the trash.

If we can't down vote, positive rep has no meaning. All or nothing.we need both positive and negative rep or we need nothing.

Positive rep is abused far more then negative was.

I think I only down voted, like...four people in the last year. So I don't make use of the tool often, but it's nice to have it at my disposal. This seems to be an announcement though, not a discussion, so I'll just leave it at that. Maybe it'll come up in the future

I don't think I've ever left a negative rep point and the less than 5 times somebody has left negative rep for me, I've probably send them a positive thumbs up :-) (how's that for somebody who calls himself "Affront"?)

The only "problem" I see with the Rep system is, that it's not the posts you write that are voted up or down (like on Reddit), but a more up close and personal vote.


StackOverflow uses another reputation system than Reddit and Slashdot uses yet another one .. there are many ways to do the same basic thing.


/Affront

May as well get rid of the whole system then, what’s the point if we can only say ‘ oh well done you’ ...we may as well add a comment to that thread to that effect then, rather then giving secret little green points.

Childish system will get childish responses. :smirk:

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Originally Posted by Martvol

If we can't down vote, positive rep has no meaning. All or nothing.we need both positive and negative rep or we need nothing.

Positive rep is abused far more then negative was.

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True. I remember a thread about people who were deemed to be abusing the +rep system and had their rep reset to 10.

I also have to say I disagree with this change. Everyone else has said it a lot better than I can, but there are 2 main points in favor of the downvote for me:

1) Without it, upvotes have no meaning, and become a glorified post count more than anything else, and we all know post count means nothing.

2) You say in the OP that you all want to make the forum a positive, fun place. I contend (along with many more) that the downvote helps us do that on our own--I remember being skeptical of the system when it was first introduced, but it far and away exceeded my expectations for its self-moderation capabilities. Since the introduction of reputation, we've seen a lot fewer of the borderline threads that no one wants to see but aren't reportable, and that kind of self-moderation just isn't possible with only upvotes.

I can completely understand that abusive reps can be/are a pain to deal with, but I think it would be better for the forum (and maybe not quite as easy) to simply add report buttons to the rep page, as has already been suggested. TBH, this seems like the "easy way out" of this issue, and I know none of you are known for taking the easy way.

I don’t use the down vote often, but I’m disappointed to see it go. I think it helps keep some negativity off the forum posts. As for the players leaving messages that break the terms of service, they should be banned. I suppose now they will do it with private messages. All that said, I don’t know how much work is involved behind the scenes. If the down votes are causing the moderators an unreasonable amount of time, I understand their decision, even if I wish the down vote wasn’t disabled.

In the interest of transparency, yes - of course people are banned/infracted.

What you guys don’t see is people who make new accounts purely for leaving negative reputation comments. If this was only a small amount of cases, it wouldn’t be so bad. But it’s not a small amount, and it’s been going on for months. We don’t see them unless the person who received it - reports it to a moderator via PM, as vbulletin doesn’t have an option for reporting reputation.

As ‘actual’ forum users who abuse it. We have no option of soft deleting a reputation post to keep it for our records. Once we delete it, it’s gone. There is also no button for interacting off a reputation post. We have to leave a profile infraction, which will not link to anything (undesirable).

When we say it makes moderating more difficult, it’s not because we want to save ourselves a bit of work.

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Originally Posted by LachNessMeownster

In the interest of transparency, yes - of course people are banned/infracted.

What you guys don’t see is people who make new accounts purely for leaving negative reputation comments. If this was only a small amount of cases, it wouldn’t be so bad. But it’s not a small amount, and it’s been going on for months. We don’t see them unless the person who received it - reports it to a moderator via PM, as vbulletin doesn’t have an option for reporting reputation.

As ‘actual’ forum users who abuse it. We have no option of soft deleting a reputation post to keep it for our records. Once we delete it, it’s gone. There is also no button for interacting off a reputation post. We have to leave a profile infraction, which will not link to anything (undesirable).

When we say it makes moderating more difficult, it’s not because we want to save ourselves a bit of work.

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So now they can still do it as a +rep and it has no value! A member with less than 50 posts leaves a grey rep.....

How does this change actually address the issue? These people will still continue to make new accounts to leave toxic rep comments. I’m guessing it’s the same group of people making these new accounts because I can’t imagine hundreds upon hundreds of individual people doing this.

Sad, on my end: I was seeing the down votes as an opportunity for the poster who receives it to improve. Members that have no intention to support the forum, did not care, and will not care, but that is direct moderation.
I do not feel that from the explanation given, as others, the solution will fix the problem.

Let's see how this one-side rep system will work, and if abuses are solved.

Reminder to all about reputation abuse reporting:

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Originally Posted by Sharky

Q: What should I do if a forum member has given me an abusive reputation vote?
A: Report it immediately. The easiest method is to report the thread[post, ndlr] where you received the vote and provide an explanation of what transpired and why you feel the vote is abusive.

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I understand the problem and I understand that it must be annoying to deal with, but I don't really see how removing down votes helps at all. I'm gonna take a swing at BlindHaze's dead horse a bit and say that all of the abuse mentioned could be done just as easily via positive rep. Might a better solution be to disable rep voting for unqualified members altogether? Is that even possible?

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Originally Posted by LachNessMeownster

Hello, forumites!

We are brought here today due to changes to the reputation system. As of the 4th of May - we have removed the ability to downvote posts from all the forums.

Now you may be thinking, "Aww, but that means we cant downvote Tim[Supercell] anymore!" This is true, but that is not the reason for the change. A small group of people have used the reputation system to skirt around the rules - leaving comments on peoples profiles that are against the rules. There have been a few instances of members who have been doing nothing but leaving rude, racial and derogatory remarks for months on end. Something like this off-putting to new forum members.

In addition to the above-mentioned reasons, we have decided that negative voting is... well... nothing but negative. And we want for these communities to be positive, fun and safe places to be.

May the fourth be with you,
The Mod Squad

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Fair enough, but, obviously you guys can track things like that (since you knew it was happening) so why not just ban the members that are abusing the system?

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Originally Posted by Tiler

I understand the problem and I understand that it must be annoying to deal with, but I don't really see how removing down votes helps at all. I'm gonna take a swing at BlindHaze's dead horse a bit and say that all of the abuse mentioned could be done just as easily via positive rep. Might a better solution be to disable rep voting for unqualified members altogether? Is that even possible?

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It's "somewhat" already in play in that if you have no rep or a negative rep (I believe) then any negative rep you leave doesn't actually count against the OP. It shows up, but it doesn't deduct any points. Maybe a different solution could be to up the number of positive rep points required before you can leave reputation comments?

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Originally Posted by xc3ss1v30n3

It's "somewhat" already in play in that if you have no rep or a negative rep (I believe) then any negative rep you leave doesn't actually count against the OP. It shows up, but it doesn't deduct any points. Maybe a different solution could be to up the number of positive rep points required before you can leave reputation comments?

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I know that, but the problem seems to be coming from the comments themselves. It doesn't matter what the vote is worth if you can still leave a comment, which is why I'm wondering if they can't outright disable voting completely for new or poorly repped members. No comment, no problem. Right? That way, down voting doesn't have to go anywhere

If we got feedback from “report” feature, downvoting wouldn’t be necessary. I’m sorry this feature is gone. It was a powerful weapon against toxic behavior

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Originally Posted by Tiler

I know that, but the problem seems to be coming from the comments themselves. It doesn't matter what the vote is worth if you can still leave a comment, which is why I'm wondering if they can't outright disable voting completely for new or poorly repped members. No comment, no problem. Right? That way, down voting doesn't have to go anywhere

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That or just disable the ability to leave a comment. Then, it doesn't really matter if your new or not. Most reputations I've received don't have a comment anyway and really, they aren't necessary. The rep itself says enough.

that's disappointing to hear people were actually doing that, best that it's removed then

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Originally Posted by xc3ss1v30n3

It's "somewhat" already in play in that if you have no rep or a negative rep (I believe) then any negative rep you leave doesn't actually count against the OP. It shows up, but it doesn't deduct any points. Maybe a different solution could be to up the number of positive rep points required before you can leave reputation comments?

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You start with 10 rep points but if you drop below that then you can only leave grey rep (worth no points). You also need to have made 50 (I think) posts.

The problem seems to be that to leave a neg rep, you must leave a comment. To leave a positive rep you don’t need a comment. However the new accounts (I’m guessing they’re alts as we’re told there’s a great deal of them), are leaving toxic comments in negative/grey reps. As such, the removal of the neg rep isn’t a solution. No, you don’t need to leave a comment with positive rep... but you can! This change seems based solely upon the assumption that these new accounts won’t bother to leave a toxic comment if they’re not forced to. And if, as I suspect, they’re the same people with alt/new accounts then I can’t see how this stops it.

Does anyone think these toxic rep folk aren’t alt accounts? Lach said they’re all new accounts that do this and I find it difficult to believe that many, many different people sign up just to give a neg rep and a toxic comment.

Whats the fun in posting, if I can't get red points of the real good people?

I liked the easy (and short) way ..... now the do-gooders have to find a mod. to punish me, every time. :smirk:

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Originally Posted by Tiler

I know that, but the problem seems to be coming from the comments themselves. It doesn't matter what the vote is worth if you can still leave a comment, which is why I'm wondering if they can't outright disable voting completely for new or poorly repped members. No comment, no problem. Right? That way, down voting doesn't have to go anywhere

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If that is a possible change, it seems it would be a good one. I don’t know why people can give votes that don’t count anyway. It serves no purpose and apparently is able to be abused with toxic comments.

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Originally Posted by xc3ss1v30n3

That or just disable the ability to leave a comment. Then, it doesn't really matter if your new or not. Most reputations I've received don't have a comment anyway and really, they aren't necessary. The rep itself says enough.

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This makes sense to me too. If they cannot stop people from using the rep system at all until they qualify (as opposed to allowing them to cast votes and make comments that don’t count), then just remove the comments. People can send private messages if they want to give comments.

Some of this might be out of the control of the moderators, though. They might be limited to what they can change.

Now how am I supposed to catch lach in reputation points? I've been giving him downvotes just about every day for the last year :(

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Originally Posted by Smolson

Now how am I supposed to catch lach in reputation points? I've been giving him downvotes just about every day for the last year :(

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How are you both related? Friends.colleagues.brothers ?.
Sorry. I am relatively new here. Trying to know stuff.

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Originally Posted by madman53190

How are you both related? Friends.colleagues.brothers ?.
Sorry. I am relatively new here. Trying to know stuff.

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We were conjoined twins, separated at birth, born about 13 years apart... :smirk:

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Originally Posted by Smolson

Now how am I supposed to catch lach in reputation points? I've been giving him downvotes just about every day for the last year :(

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Ahhh........ now I see the real reason of Lachs desperate emergency breaking. :smirk:

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Originally Posted by Smolson

Now how am I supposed to catch lach in reputation points? I've been giving him downvotes just about every day for the last year :(

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If he’d made this thread announcing that neg rep would be removed tomorrow, I guess you’d be a lot closer to him now.. ;)

Oh great,,vote me������

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Originally Posted by fette

May as well get rid of the whole system then, what’s the point if we can only say ‘ oh well done you’ ...we may as well add a comment to that thread to that effect then, rather then giving secret little green points.

Childish system will get childish responses. :smirk:

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fette is always right

fette knows best

There are some modifications for vBulletin that let admin users disable comments for negative or positive rep. There is also one that requires a person leaving negative rep to report the post in question. Dunno how SC would feel about using them though.

Personally, I find it a bit daft to only have positive rep. Might as well have no rep if that's the case.

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Originally Posted by AJ07

fette is always right

fette knows best

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fette is the best.....................................cat.

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Originally Posted by Smolson

We were conjoined twins, separated at birth, born about 13 years apart... :smirk:

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https://i.imgflip.com/29n6g5.gifvia Imgflip GIF Maker
https://i.imgflip.com/29n6ig.gifvia Imgflip GIF Maker

Moderators: would you like us to report more posts/threads now? I’m thinking of posts that aren’t really horrible, but are a bit toxic, maybe a thread started when there already is a similar one, etc. Many users use the down vote on things like that and save actual reports for bigger problems. I don’t want to flood the moderators with too many reports to review if you don’t want it.

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Originally Posted by 2222

Moderators: would you like us to report more posts/threads now? I’m thinking of posts that aren’t really horrible, but are a bit toxic, maybe a thread started when there already is a similar one, etc. Many users use the down vote on things like that and save actual reports for bigger problems. I don’t want to flood the moderators with too many reports to review if you don’t want it.

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Anything you feel is a violation of the forum rules should always be reported. That should always be the case regardless of a reputation system. :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Smolson

Anything you feel is a violation of the forum rules should always be reported. That should always be the case regardless of a reputation system. :thumbsup:

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I just hate to flood you guys with so many things to review in between looking at threads about love magic specialists and merging 40 new threads about th12. I gather from your response, though, that if a person is just generally being a bit toxic and insulting, but not going really far, that we just let that be. Those ones that were not too terrible were the ones I would use the down vote for previously. If they go so far that it appears they are violating the forum rules, we should report them. Based on the below, there is no fine line, but I guess I will use the “you know it when you see it” standard and of course moderators can always tell forum users to ease off if they are not reporting correctly.

1. We will not tolerate rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks, harassment

Good move. I rarely down vote but I did that once to an obnoxious guy with a trump dp. Wrote him a rather unpleasant message which I regret. He got banned for repeated infractions anyway but Nevertheless, I should hv not lowered myself to his lv.

Good change. Reminds me of the saying, if you can't say anything nice, better not say anything at all

I'll just take a second and imagine my rep if it wasn't for all the down votes lol

I understand why it's gone - I have definitely seen cases where new members post an innocent thread and get -6 reps or more just because people deem it unnecessary. It's seems like there are a lot of things in the world that get ruined just because of a small group of people. Ah well, I never neg-repped anyone anyway, so I guess not much will change for me.

Makes sense really, I know someone who actually downvoted a particular moderator, legitimately, and man the blowback, even from Darian, was pretty intense. I guess this makes sense in order to protect the mods. Oh well, I guess the elitist attitude of "how dare you not to the line in your thinking" is not dead. Really did not expect anything different once I was made aware of the story I was was made aware of. Again, this is only my opinion based on the corrupt system this forum follows.:cool: (we need a tinfoil hat emoji)

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Originally Posted by jskoe

Makes sense really, I know someone who actually downvoted a particular moderator, legitimately, and man the blowback, even from Darian, was pretty intense. I guess this makes sense in order to protect the mods. Oh well, I guess the elitist attitude of "how dare you not to the line in your thinking" is not dead. Really did not expect anything different once I was made aware of the story I was was made aware of. Again, this is only my opinion based on the corrupt system this forum follows.:cool: (we need a tinfoil hat emoji)

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I hear all sorts of stories and some of them I find hard to believe.

I totally agree, but when you get sent the proof-- not so unbelievable.

Truth is I used it rarely, and most of those were retaliation when someone dropped a neg on me. Seems a good idea.

The rep system has always been a little silly; you can only point out so many good posts from a particular person, for instance. Now the ability to give positive rep without negative rep just adds to it, imo.

Sooo.... what’s the point of rep at all now? If It’s all positive. Seems like it’s just one more thing catering to the “participation award” generation. Don’t say anything negative, might offend a precious snowflake. Previously I would expect some negative rep for this but I guess I’m safe now!:smirk:

I was always skeptical of the down voting system since there are so many snowflakes everywhere nowadays. Nobody ever gave me rep for a logical or helpful post but would rather downvote me for unintentionally offending someone.

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Originally Posted by Kirky519

Sooo.... what’s the point of rep at all now? If It’s all positive. Seems like it’s just one more thing catering to the “participation award” generation. Don’t say anything negative, might offend a precious snowflake. Previously I would expect some negative rep for this but I guess I’m safe now!:smirk:

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The thing is, people can still leave positive rep that includes derogatory "you're an idiot" comments, which seems to be what they objected to.

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Originally Posted by ubba13

The thing is, people can still leave positive rep that includes derogatory "you're an idiot" comments, which seems to be what they objected to.

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So it solves 0 problems. And gives the appearance of catering to the sensitive snowflakes.

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Originally Posted by jaronhudson15

I was always skeptical of the down voting system since there are so many snowflakes everywhere nowadays. Nobody ever gave me rep for a logical or helpful post but would rather downvote me for unintentionally offending someone.

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That was one of the benefits of the down vote, people knowing when they offended someone unintentionally. It allows that person to review their posts that got down voted and figure out how to post differently to avoid unintentionally offending others. Of course there are times we got down votes where you could look at it closely could clearly see the down vote was not justified. Luckily, the upvotes outnumber them so it wasn’t a big deal to get those now and then.

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Originally Posted by BlindHaze

Seems an odd decision. Because a small group leaves derogatory messages, no one can down vote. If people want to leave these messages then they will. They can do it via pm, vm or even on a thread. It has nothing to do with the rep system but the person behind it. Even if they wanted to leave a derogatory message, the can still do it via +rep - the people who leave these kind of messages often have less than 10 rep so their +rep wouldn’t count anyway.

To me, this seems like it should be simply covered by the forum rules - racist, vulgar, derogatory or whatever messages shouldn’t be tolerated and the mods are correct in whatever action they take. By this logic, will you be blocking VMs because I’ve had instances of abuse via that medium?

It looks like the abusive actions of the vast minority have dictated the rules for the vast majority. We voted for both positive and negative rep, but it looks like democracy most certainly isn’t the winner here.

Additional - normally I’d expect a few down votes for a post like that but I guess I’m safe now ;)

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Exactly this. :thumbsup: The moderators are taking the easy way out, instead of taking disciplinary action against those violating Forum rules. Without the down vote the entire reputation system is meaningless. Might as well trash the entire system.

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Originally Posted by ubba13

The thing is, people can still leave positive rep that includes derogatory "you're an idiot" comments, which seems to be what they objected to.

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I mean, that's true. Maybe the rep system should just be removed.

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Originally Posted by RhaegarTargaryen

I mean, that's true. Maybe the rep system should just be removed.

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Orrrrr, just remove the ability to add a comment. It's not the down vote that is the problem. It's the comments that are attached according to what I'm understanding.

But, yeah, getting rid of it all together might be a better idea at this point. It really doesn't have much purpose other than offering some insight into someone else's overall forum presence when engaging in a discussion.

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Originally Posted by ubba13

The thing is, people can still leave positive rep that includes derogatory "you're an idiot" comments, which seems to be what they objected to.

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Spot on. And people with fewer than 50 posts and 10 rep leave neutral rep anyway....

Imagine a world where people are motivated by little green boxes...

As for reporting threads / posts instead of down-voting, I recall reading that a person received an infraction for reporting when the mod disagreed...

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Originally Posted by xc3ss1v30n3

Orrrrr, just remove the ability to add a comment. It's not the down vote that is the problem. It's the comments that are attached according to what I'm understanding.

But, yeah, getting rid of it all together might be a better idea at this point. It really doesn't have much purpose other than offering some insight into someone else's overall forum presence when engaging in a discussion.

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The comment, when used properly, is what would let people know what was the cause of their down vote. People would have to articulate something beside I disagree. Down vote without comment would not let the posting person to know what they said wrong and would let down voter do it because they disagree.
This rep system is an all or nothing deal, in my opinion. You can not have it, but neuter it at the same time. You have it, but it is completely worthless.

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Originally Posted by ClasherYukon

great start, but i would like to see the reputation system removed completely. i have seen completely random posts from certain members get upvotes with either no comment made or gushing fanboy love.

i suspect there is a certain level of undetectable abuse going on among some in the running for highest reputation....why would someone do this? well a higher reputation would certainly make it easier to bully others and receive favoritism from mods.

unfortunately i can not prove this claim, and it is only speculation.

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Originally Posted by BlindHaze

Well, I can only speak from my own experience but I’m sure that myself and the mods would agree that this certainly isn’t the case for me!

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Really? Scrolling through your reputation I can see that you received upvotes for the following post:

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Originally Posted by BlindHaze

I suppose my question is this:-

Will we have the answers to this Q&A before July?

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I'm not accusing you of anything, but it does seem like a random post to have upvoted twice doesn't it? And no comment was made either time. Mind sharing who upvoted your posts?

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Originally Posted by ClasherYukon

Really? Scrolling through your reputation I can see that you received upvotes for the following post:



I'm not accusing you of anything, but it does seem like a random post to have upvoted twice doesn't it? And no comment was made either time. Mind sharing who upvoted your posts?

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Not that it’s really any of your concern. But I would have upvoted it, had I seen it, because I find it humorous.

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Originally Posted by ClasherYukon

Really? Scrolling through your reputation I can see that you received upvotes for the following post:



I'm not accusing you of anything, but it does seem like a random post to have upvoted twice doesn't it? And no comment was made either time. Mind sharing who upvoted your posts?

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No comment is required for up votes.

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Originally Posted by Kirky519

Not that it’s really any of your concern. But I would have upvoted it, had I seen it, because I find it humorous.

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That is one reason people may have upvoted, forum users like a good chuckle. Another reason is people might like that it is both asking a question and making a point. Someone who was thinking the same thing (is SC going to respond quickly or when will SC respond) might decide to upvote the post rather than repeating the same thing.

I know I’ve given people up votes for something I found funny or for a post that made a good point I was about to type myself.

Well, I guess this post explains why things looked funny when I gave rep to a poster earlier this morning. I was like, "Huh, I can only give positive rep. Well, that is what I was planning to do. HOLY MOLY, THE FORUMS HAVE GAINED SENTIENCE!" Then I saw a post that I considered borderline. I wasn't planning on dinging it or anything, but I figured I'd take a look. I clicked the little icon and saw that this post as well I could only give positive rep to. Huh. That whole sentience thing? Not so much. I was a bit disappointed, thinking how cool it would be for the forums to simply know which way I intended to give rep on a post. Ah well...

I'll throw in with the lot that thinks good rep without bad rep is somewhat pointless. While the carrot encourages good behavior, without the stick, well... Perhaps the moderators will be enough of a deterrent for people. But then we had the bad rep system for a reason. Ah well, I'm just rambling now.

Thank you to the mods for the work you do. If the bad rep system makes your job overly tedious and burdensome, then removing it was (obviously) the right thing to do. I can't say I've dinged people more than once or twice, so in the long run it probably won't matter much to me or, I suspect, many people. I certainly hope that this decision will be good in long term, and that as a social stigma it does not make users more apt to post borderline content that previously would have harmed their forum rep even if the content isn't against the forum rules.

Cheers!

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Originally Posted by ClasherYukon

Really? Scrolling through your reputation I can see that you received upvotes for the following post:



I'm not accusing you of anything, but it does seem like a random post to have upvoted twice doesn't it? And no comment was made either time. Mind sharing who upvoted your posts?

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That's pretty much the definition of accusing. LOL. That's like when someone prefaces an offensive statement with, "no offense, but."

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Originally Posted by Kirky519

Not that it’s really any of your concern. But I would have upvoted it, had I seen it, because I find it humorous.

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Humor and blatantly smartbutt responses earn the most reps from me. After those, hard truths.

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Originally Posted by xc3ss1v30n3

Humor and blatantly smartbutt responses earn the most reps from me. After those, hard truths.

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Blindhaze is a particularly good at combining all three of those into one post. I am not surprised at all that the post referenced above received up votes.

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Originally Posted by ClasherYukon

Really? Scrolling through your reputation I can see that you received upvotes for the following post:



I'm not accusing you of anything, but it does seem like a random post to have upvoted twice doesn't it? And no comment was made either time. Mind sharing who upvoted your posts?

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That post was intended to be dry wit aimed at the length of times that previous Q&As took to complete - it was a couple of old timers that saw the funny side.

But the part I bolded when I originally quoted you was what I was referring to. To clear doubt it was this part ‘well a higher reputation would certainly make it easier to bully others and receive favoritism from mods.’

The point I was making is yes, I have a high rep but no I don’t receive any favouritism from the mods. In fact, I’m sure they’d come here and say the same thing. I am often, and was recently, in their bad books. And a lot of people here can attest and saw what happened to me too. Another forumer with high rep wanted me removed from the forum leaderboards for that very reason... but I can’t go in to details of that here!

And, although I may seem to disagree with a lot of people, I’m not a bully. Anyone who says something I disagree with is fair game. Such as I have done with poor Lach in this thread.... but they’re only my opinions.

I’m also happy for the moderators to go through my rep and see if there is any wrongdoing, whether it’s given or received. The funny thing is, 99% of the time on mobile version so I haven’t got a clue what’s happening with it anyway!

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Originally Posted by Kirky519

Not that it’s really any of your concern. But I would have upvoted it, had I seen it, because I find it humorous.

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Well, at least no one can downvote it anymore....

If I give positive rep but leave a rude comment, is that OK?

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Originally Posted by BlindHaze

That post was intended to be dry wit aimed at the length of times that previous Q&As took to complete - it was a couple of old timers that saw the funny side.

But the part I bolded when I originally quoted you was what I was referring to. To clear doubt it was this part ‘well a higher reputation would certainly make it easier to bully others and receive favoritism from mods.’

The point I was making is yes, I have a high rep but no I don’t receive any favouritism from the mods. In fact, I’m sure they’d come here and say the same thing. I am often, and was recently, in their bad books. And a lot of people here can attest and saw what happened to me too. Another forumer with high rep wanted me removed from the forum leaderboards for that very reason... but I can’t go in to details of that here!

And, although I may seem to disagree with a lot of people, I’m not a bully. Anyone who says something I disagree with is fair game. Such as I have done with poor Lach in this thread.... but they’re only my opinions.

I’m also happy for the moderators to go through my rep and see if there is any wrongdoing, whether it’s given or received. The funny thing is, 99% of the time on mobile version so I haven’t got a clue what’s happening with it anyway!

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All of this. It's absolutely impossible to always stay and/or be in the good graces of the Mods and at the same time speak your mind as you see fit. Just like in a marriage, there has to be some controversy or the two sides aren't being honest. When there's a synergy of both, you start seeing higher rep totals.

I, myself, have a few infractions on my tally and partook of a week ban for harshly calling a mod out on something. But, just the other day, that same mod dropped an up-vote on me and I've done the same.

How sweet. Happy starwars day all!

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Originally Posted by BlindHaze

Well, at least no one can downvote it anymore....

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Which is the part I don’t like about the change. I personally liked that post, but just to use it as an example. If someone is walking the line between being funny and being offensive, but they can ONLY get positive votes and no negative votes, they ONLY get positive reinforcement, unless they go far that it is worth of an infraction. I liked the down votes for the stuff that wasn’t worthy of an infraction, but was worthy of being told it wasn’t appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Ripple1972

If I give positive rep but leave a rude comment, is that OK?

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Nope and that one also cannot be reported. That is why I am surprised the choice wasn’t instead to keep both up and down votes but disable the ability to leave messages. People could then leave a rude comment in a private message, but those can be reported. I don’t know how it works behind the scenes, though. There may be good reasons for the change that go beyond that.

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Originally Posted by xc3ss1v30n3

All of this. It's absolutely impossible to always stay and/or be in the good graces of the Mods and at the same time speak your mind as you see fit.

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That depends on what you mean. If speaking your mind the way you see fit doesn’t include any toxicity, no breaking of forum rules, etc. you can do so without falling out of the good graces of any Mods. It is easy to be critical of SC here without getting an infraction. Now, if you mean discussing moderator discipline actions, well that is a violation of a forum rule, so, yes, you cannot speak your mind about that.

Ban the few people who are skirting around the rules then.


Pretty weak moderation.


And fun, safe and positive place to be? We aren't at kindergarten. The place is pretty positive. Having a downvote button just tells the person it wasn't a very good comment, and you shouldn't post something similar again as it's not liked.

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Originally Posted by 2222

That depends on what you mean. If speaking your mind the way you see fit doesn’t include any toxicity, no breaking of forum rules, etc. you can do so without falling out of the good graces of any Mods. It is easy to be critical of SC here without getting an infraction. Now, if you mean discussing moderator discipline actions, well that is a violation of a forum rule, so, yes, you cannot speak your mind about that.

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That's not ENTIRELY true because it's a two-way street. A person can speak their mind in what he/she believes is a fair, non-toxic way, but the person on the receiving end may not view it as such and issue a warning/infraction/down-vote etc. I probably shouldn't have said, "absolutely impossible" and instead used "nearly..." Speaking in absolutes is usually a bad idea.

From what I've seen, the mods do tend to be pretty level headed. But, they are human and I've heard instances and also been a part of some where the "offender" wasn't being overly dramatic in any way and still received some kind of punishment. Unfortunately, if it's differing opinions, there's no recourse for the commenters.

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Originally Posted by ubba13

The thing is, people can still leave positive rep that includes derogatory "you're an idiot" comments, which seems to be what they objected to.

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This is very true, and as someone said, it just seems like they are catering to the snowflakes

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Originally Posted by BL4CKN1GHT

Ban the few people who are skirting around the rules then.

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I believe that Lach has stated that they have done that in the past. However, the tediousness of doing that because of the way that negative reputation points work on their mod panels, has become overly burdensome. As well, there is a high volume of new accounts that pop up every day. Just take a look at all of the, "When is TH12 coming?!?OneOneOnePewPewPew" posts that pop up in General, and how almost all of them are started by 1-post wonders.

They either can't keep up, are having difficulty doing so, or are just plain tired of it. Given that they are volunteers, and that the Reputation system is hardly a necessity, if they do not want to police it any more, and an unpoliced system is not something they deem as being beneficial, then removing it is their prerogative.

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Just shows what a weak lot you are

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That seems... uncalled for. Being uninterested in a time consuming process is hardly a weakness.

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Originally Posted by Azroen

I believe that Lach has stated that they have done that in the past. However, the tediousness of doing that because of the way that negative reputation points work on their mod panels, has become overly burdensome. As well, there is a high volume of new accounts that pop up every day. Just take a look at all of the, "When is TH12 coming?!?OneOneOnePewPewPew" posts that pop up in General, and how almost all of them are started by 1-post wonders.

They either can't keep up, are having difficulty doing so, or are just plain tired of it. Given that they are volunteers, and that the Reputation system is hardly a necessity, if they do not want to police it any more, and an unpoliced system is not something they deem as being beneficial, then removing it is their prerogative.



That seems... uncalled for. Being uninterested in a time consuming process is hardly a weakness.

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People can still post mean comments in positive rep.

And how many people are leaving abusive comments? Anyway, if they are horrible in rep messages, they will be horrible in forum posts, so they'll be banned either way!