When I used the reputation system I had a similar situation.
People that negged me sent cryptic or just plain idiotic comments.

I disabled the reputation system because I feel that if somebody has something to say to me, then they need to have some guts and post it where I can respond to it.
If a user doesn't want it posted for everyone else to see, then they can PM me and we'll have a private chat.

I view the reputation system as complete cowardice and disabled it on my own forum using VBulletin's Admn control panel system because useful argument and debate normally comes from people having to deal with each other.
It does not come from a pussy-ass point system that allows anons to try and bully people they disagree with.

While I agree that the system overall is not important, I must add that it is damn distracting when you're trying to get into a debate and you get a notification about some jackass negging you because a comment you posted makes them want to go poopey.

Personally I'd like to see VB remove it from version 5 when it comes out.
All these new ways for users to snipe at each other from the safety of anonymity makes users more arrogant and childish IMHO.
I remember the good old days of the Usenet newsgroups on Netscape and AOL.
Those Usenet groups didn't have any mods, reputation, or other "distractions" when posting and we became stronger users overall due to that.
Back in the 90s, if you posted something on Netscape or AOL Usenet, you had better be ready to defend to the death...it was great. :heh:

Well, to be fair, at least on this site you don't normally get a notification if someone gave you reputation. It just shows up on your UserCP on a section you can collapse if you want to. So it's not that distracting in the current configuration.

I'm not certain if I read this correctly so I'll ask. Should people also let the staff know if someone is being abusive through neg rep? Is bad behavior in the rep department something that can lead to a member being banned? Reading the Reputation FAQ says nothing about any sanctions for bad rep behavior. Are there any? Should there be?

Some sites you get the [number] next to your "private messages" that indicates new feedback. Vb version 4.0.6 has this on it, the nice thing is it is easy for the Admn to disable.

That reminds me, if you ladies and gents here at animesuki decide to upgrade to Vb version 4.x.x beware of the "homepage" feature.
There is no current way to disable this and spammers will take full advantage of it.
Also, there are a few security risks with the facebook plugin (they are fixed in 4.1.x and up).

Just FYI. :)

I can verify yes :) ... and yes, there are repercussions along the usual range of potential penalties.

Rule 4.1:"Please remember that all General Rules apply to the Reputation System."


So that includes "1.2 Do not insult or harass other members"

edit:vexx beat me to it`Ì'll just add that I'm in favor of this,the rep system shouldn't be a place where you can get away with insulting members.

Yup, as was said, if someone is being abusive in their rep comments, then that's a violation of the forum rules. Some people think they can use (neg) rep as an anonymous way to attack/insult people, and that's not allowed.

As I said before, though, that doesn't mean people have to have a "good reason" for leaving you rep, or that the rep has to be "fair" or "deserved". Just that people can't leave nasty comments.

I personally never liked the whole reputation system (though I do love that people liked what I posted) because it somehow creates a hierarchy. If you have this opinion no one likes, boo neg rep. It's not like the mods can check every single user's reputations so if you were asking my opinion, I don't like the system.

Arbitrary and random mini-games! :p It's best not to think about it and thus I rep random people just because! So there's no need to reason it since it's done on a whim.

Attracting negativity doesn't mean that person doesn't have anything useful to say. Sometimes it's just what people don't want to hear. And just because people approve of what you have to say doesn't indicate quality.

Rep is rubbish. All you need to boost it is a circle of friends to circle jerk each other or having a friend who likes spreading rep. The feedback increases for people with high rep who give to each other like you might see in some subforums where people are more generous. A petty tool especially so many years in from a board wipe.

The reputation system is fun for people that like it, and if you don't you can easily disable it. Just because you have negative rep doesn't mean you suck and just because you have positive rep doesn't mean you are a great poster. That's all there is to it.

The funny thing though is that you can't exactly ignore it, even if you turn it off. Even if you personally don't care, it still affects how everyone else views you and your posts and how other people's posts are judged in comparison to yours.

The above is the main reason as to why it's so retarded. Let's affix a completely arbitrary "quality" metric to people's posts that - via the force of social pressure - strongly encourages people to either agree with the generally accepted opinion or group up into accepted "camps" (not that these people would be very likely to act independently anyway, of course), and then display it in a prominent way next to each poster's name. Surely this will encourage unbiased debate and judging posts by their content rather than by the size of the poster's e-penis!

As I said earlier it also tends to function as a social feedback loop, since getting +reps (or even -reps) makes the poster feel Important on the Internet, and that in turn makes them want more rep and care more about rep.

I really cannot think of a single positive effect of the reputation system. The trolling potential is good for laughs, but really, in all seriousness, the entire point of the system is to encourage circlejerking, and I cannot see that as positive even on a forum such as this one, which is basically all about circlejerking anyway (dem animes, man, need more deep philosophical debates about dem animes).

The reputation system isn't perfect, but overall I would say that, pre-mod days (since it's not fair to judge the way I've received rep since becoming a mod), it was a net positive. It was a fun way to hear from people from time to time, and I don't think I ever really let it bias what I was going to say. I suppose sometimes it was a small encouragement to keep participating, which was sort of the point.

It's definitely true though that some people use it for circlejerking. The rep patterns between certain members on this forum, while not manipulating the system, are certainly signs of a certain "in-breeding" of opinions, and the staff can see how that does impact some people's postings. Some people really are fishing for rep, sad though that may be. But, you know, people like that are going to be shallow anyway; if it's not rep, it's something else. For the longest while I didn't want to get an avatar because I thought it distracted from what I wrote, and people judge the quality of someone's opinions by the character in their avatar. But like I said, shallow people are shallow, and who really cares about them anyway. My two cents... :heh:

Like anything else, I suppose rep can be used for good or evil. In its most idealistic form, it's supposed to be a way to encourage people to keep posting. I think it can serve that purpose. But, as we've said a lot, we don't think this is the best way either -- but sometimes you have to try things to learn.

This. Most of the neg reps I get (is it okay to talk about this?) is because I stated an opinion that's largely negative and no one wants to hear anything negative. It's like the forums is asking everyone to put every opinion nicely and being harsh even though you aren't trolling is bad. If the whole point of the rep system is to promote a more qualitative post, then isn't the purpose defeated when people just want to hear happy opinions?

:heh:

Exactly. Rep may just be a "game," but there's little doubt that it is keeping some people from reaching their true posting potential. I disabled reputation so I wouldn't have to worry much about that anymore. When you consider the fact that many online communities don't use reputation at all, you miss it less.

Just curious would you prefer the perhaps more common system of individual posts being anonymous being upvoted and downvoted with no feedback allowed?, since it's used on a number of forums these days. And I personally consider it worse than the rep system, especially ones where downvoted enough posts become defaulted to hidden.

But it sure is funny though since it rarely makes sense and involves tons of butthurt! And yea, as said before it often is counter-intuitive due to the whimsical nature of it all.

Well, honestly, you should never feel like you have to do anything to feel comfortable. Thus, whatever it takes for you to powerup to over 9000 or whatever would help the most. ;)

It's much, much worse than the rep system we already have. It's basically censorship, except even worse because the power to censor is placed into the hands of every member. I think I might even leave Animesuki if it starts using that horrid system.

Thanks.

How about no silly system at all.

Rep has no "point" except to allow people to give you their feedback and to allow this feedback to be quantified on some arbitrary scale. This feedback just represents individual members, and doesn't represent "the forum's voice".

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Of course, even with all that said, rep is still arbitrary and there's no need to justify it. If someone wants to give rep just because they feel like it, they can, and no one's holding them accountable. Some people may thus choose to use the tools for petty reasons, and that's just part of the game. If the person posting the rep has a relevant point, then you should consider it. If the person posting the rep doesn't have a relevant point, you should just ignore it. If you're really doing something horribly wrong or afoul of the rules, the staff will let you know (and not through rep :heh: ).


Anyway, this thread is sort of going afield from the original point, which was a feature request to provide an option to completely disable rep on an individual basis. For the moment don't expect any changes until we complete the migration to vBulletin 4 (which is a bit daunting due to all the customizations we have, but we're working towards it). For the meantime, if you want to opt-out to the extent that is possible right now, you can do so through the settings.

We are not considering a "vote post up/down" system at this time.

Will lock the thread for now, pending further information about when the requested feature might be considered. If it needs to be re-opened, just let me or another staff member know.