Retiring the Reputation System was the Right Choice.
 

It's now been about 3 months - about a quarter of a year - since the reputation system of Anime Suki has been retired. That's a decent length of time to work with when it comes to evaluating a recent forum change of this magnitude.

So let me admit - I was overly concerned about the effects of retiring the Reputation System.

Discussion does not appear to have suffered at all. In fact, I lately get a liberating feeling and vibe around the forums. Reckoner, Pocari Sweat, and several others were right about the liberating effects that would come with the retiring of the reputation system.

And thanks to the increase in PM Box size, PMs have become a good and truly viable way to express appreciation for individual posts.


So this post is for two reasons:

1. To express my personal thanks to the AS Moderating Staff for making a tough call that ended up being the right call.

2. To be a catalyst for others to express their own viewpoints on this topic if they so wish to.

I think that the Reputation System is just what the name says - reputation show in general.
Personally, I dislike that.

Members with High Reputation often feel good about it and like to show off.
Not to mention that it effects how other members look at someone's posts.

Same Quality of the post:

High Reputation: "Oh! This one is worth reading! Mhm, mhm, he/she is right! (Paying much attention or skipping and approving)
Low Reputation: "Hmm, I guess he/she wrote something. It doesn't concern me, so let's skip it."

Do not get me wrong, I do not think that everyone is the same, nor it should be, but showing how much "Reputation" someone has on each post was just bad.

Keeping things short:

Reputation and Respect are earned, and each person knows for himself/herself how much he/she respects someone, no need to show that in general.

So yeah, in the end, I agree. It was a good choice to remove it.

One small observation I would make as a retrospective on the last three months.

For a while, I (and others) noticed an increasing trend for people to either create or bump threads that were basically about "things I dislike about anime", and there were a number of rather 'animated' discussions from people who dislike some popular shows or trends. I suspect this may be a bit related to the retirement of rep, because some people may have thought "finally I can express my negative opinions without worrying about rep reprisal". But I think that wore out after a while (people started getting tired of it, and some people just moved away from those conversations as it got cyclic) and now things are starting to go back to normal where things are a bit more balanced and people want to discuss a wider variety of things. (I also thought it may have been a bit of the "winter blahs" as well, at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere...)

Other than that, I would say the staff are still considering feedback tools/systems. My own casual observation is that I think there is a bit more "meta" posting than before too, with both "thanks" posts and various forms of feedback (like "don't post spoilers", "that's getting off-topic", and so on). That sort of thing isn't so unusual on Forums in general, but I wouldn't mind if we could provide a way of redirecting some of that post feedback so the threads themselves stay more focused on the actual point. So the thinking about this wider issue isn't finished yet.

I'll let other people draw their own conclusions on whether the overall change was good or bad, but those are just some comments I would make about it from my own personal point of view.

Just to add to this observation, there is a thread I could link to this issue here:
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=118329

As you said, the outbursts seem to have faded, hope it stays that way.
However, if a sudden wave were to happen again, for which reason would be known or not, looking at that thread would not hurt.

Edit: I have just made a huge edit and when clicking "Go Advanced", it disappeared... Meh, and I was so proud of it, hehe.

I do admit I miss the rep system a little, but not so much the reputation as the ability to post little personal asides in an extra "inbox" reserved for semi-chatter. Occasionally, I find myself wanting to make a quick comment on a post that is unnecessarily silly and off topic (sometimes, not as frequent, I want to post some off-topic piece of advice), but since it is so unnecessary I find that I do not want to post it in-thread nor do I deem it important enough to post as a VM (let alone a PM). There is no real purpose to these little asides other than to provide an extra sense of community and maybe a moment of reflection on an individual post, but without the extra "inbox" I find I can not post such comments (or at least I do not want to).

I had that happen a few times so I installed the Lazarus form recovery add-on into my Firefox browser. It keeps track of what you type into forms and lets you retrieve text you have lost. I used it while posting here just today.

I usually just copy the whole text if I know that I wrote so much that I couldn't memorise it all, just for these kind of cases.
However, thank-you very much for the tip.

Sorry for going Off-Topic.

just dont put a dislike button in, theres nothing worst than getting neg rep for just stating your mind

I was under the impression that meta-posting was not allowed at all and that informing a moderator, such as via the report button, was the only acceptable solution.

I take everything I said against the removal of the reputation system.

Animesuki has become more democratic and freedom of expression is being felt without prosecution from the "wise men"...

Thank you for the staff !!!!

And for the new proposed system... Please, don't put something that will remind us of the neg rep again like "dislike" button...

Alternative: For a deserving post, have a star below it and not the poster's... It will signify that the post is appreciated.

No, in case the previous long thread about this wasn't clear, we wouldn't consider that. I think something more to the effect of what james0246 is getting at is the issue I'm referring to.

It basically isn't allowed, and I try to clean up what I can, but it's not like it's always so clear that "this is meta" and "this is on-topic". If we can further discourage these sorts of tendencies by providing another easy outlet, then it's easier to be stricter about it in the threads (and besides, people will be less inclined to do it in the first place).

(I have to say part of the issue is when people doing fan translation and so on start making posts that sort of "advertise" things they just finished translating. On the one hand that's somewhat useful to people who may want to know, but on the other hand it just results in a whole lot of "thanks!". Maybe it's better to not allow the "announcements", since you could see them as a sort of promotion for projects they're associated with, and thus forbidden... but... )

Even though I am now glad the Reputation System was retired, I also like the idea of bringing back a basic "post feedback" system. This aspect of the Reputation System is something I've found myself missing a few times over the past three months (just because, yes, it is a little bit easier than VMs and PMs).

However, if we do bring back the feedback aspect of the old Reputation System, please don't allow it to be anonymous. What was annoying about the old neg reps was less the point deduction they inflicted and more the simple fact you were typically getting snarked at anonymously. If a feedback system is introduced/restored and it allows for anonymous feedback, I do think some might go back to anonymous snarking. So I'd suggest that any feedback has to be "force stamped", clearly identifying which member the feedback is from.

I mean, if you're complimenting somebody's post, why would you be worried about the person you're complimenting knowing who you are? You'd only be worried about that if you were snarking someone, of course.

Reputation was just a pain and popularity factor. In my personal opinion, I actually didn't bother expressing my true opinions concerning things. Simply because the almighty "negative rep" will creep up on me and make people think my words aren't worth reading.

I think having another button on each post (where the rep button use to be) that takes you to the posters VM and links said post could be a suitable idea to look into. You still to retain the ability to make quick comments on a post without impacting the actual thread discussion, except now there's no rep points involved and it'd be public so less snarky jabs for the sake of it.

It's function would be operate similar to how rep did before, except no points, and messages goes straight into the users VM. The actuation would still be the same quick and easy method as the repping had in the past.
Notice a post that you'd like to side-comment on > click button > leave message > message is displayed in VM of poster.

If people wanted to leave private VM's, they should be using PM's in the first place.

I'll agree with one thing here... That nothing has really changed. And that's the point, because the reputation system has not changed anyone's behavior. It just gave all the mods a lot of work, and some people too much grief.

However, if people think the removal of the reputation system has allowed other people's voices to be heard any louder, then I think they are dead wrong. I have noticed no difference in who actively voices their opinion and who are actually making the more thoughtful, constructive posts. In fact, it's the same old, same old as far as I am concerned.

Indeed. People that worried too much probably weren't worth listening to anyways.

And you can't neg me now for this! /runs away. ;)

I thought the same way myself until just recently, when I got into long debates over Psycho-Pass' ending and the recent Nanoha movie.

The last time I was in a discussion that vibrant, it was over a certain Nisemonogatari episode that I'm sure we both remember well. :heh: Neg reps were flying during that Nise debate, and I think it eventually soured things a lot. If the rep system was still around, I think something similar could have happened with the Psycho-Pass and Nanoha debates. But instead, those Psycho-Pass and Nanoha debates became testy, but not quite as downright angry as the Nise debate did, imo. And I think the lack of neg reps might be why.

At the end of the day, I'd rather take a criticism/insult to the face from someone not wearing a mask of anonymity than take a criticism/insult to the back from someone who attacks from the shadows. The latter is significantly more annoying than the former, imo. And I don't think I'm alone in feeling this way.

It's not that people are fearful of a little bit of criticism, it's that it's annoying to get it from someone who you can't even respond to.

Mm yea, I must have like negged entire threads in those Nise ones. Suppose it was kinda fun, but kinda petty.

Both sides were doing it - I received some neg reps myself, and I know some on the other side of the discussion received some - so I don't think anybody in particular needs to feel guilty about this. It's just that sniping in "the background" makes debates in "the foreground" that much angrier. No neg reps means no background sniping.

Those recent discussions on the Nanoha movie really are very passionate. Sprinkle in some neg reps from both sides, and I think there's a decent chance it turns into a flamewar.

Though I must say that I feel a lot of the discussions would have taken a similar tract. I must say I haven't really noted a difference, but there's one area we can look at-- and that's the avatar/sig request area.