Quote:
Originally Posted by relentlessflame
What makes you so sure that this is not the "widely-held 'common truth' that isn't really true at all"? I saw posters influenced by rep nearly every day, and tracing the actual rep point flow made this more clear. There was a distinct pattern of people stopping posting in certain threads after getting negative rep whether their opinion was well-stated or not. There was also a distinct pattern of people who posted obnoxious opinions continuing to post in threads where their opinions got them more "rep rewards". And all of this was completely invisible to everyone else.
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I don't doubt that this may have occurred, but how is this any different than standard discussions? If you have one person saying something and then a group of other people are speaking against them, they're less likely to keep participating. Similarly, if someone says something and then a bunch of people express agreement - whether by outright saying it, by quoting them approvingly, or by echoing similar lines of thought - they're going to feel emboldened by perceived support. That's just human group dynamics. The reputation system may have put some of the support and detraction behind the scenes, but the dynamics themselves won't change.