The AnimeSuki Forum Reputation System has been retired

[Infinite Zenith]

Originally Posted by Ichuki

I am actually glad that the reputation system is being retired because it isn't fair to have a bad reputation in the forums when you aren't trolling and just saying your opinion on things.

Unfortunately, some members view "disagreeing with me" as trolling, leading to the issues that we saw. That said, the system has been retired already So ends an era of shooting people down for disagreeing, and welcome to a new era of discussion!

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Well, if only it were "crazy homeless guys". We're talking about people who masquerade as a community leaders most of the time and play the part of the "crazy homeless guy" just so they can call people names and get away with it. I was not too impressed with the way some supposedly-respectable people were using rep to push their agendas, both on the plus and the negative side.

Oh, sorry. According to your descriptions, I would change the analogy to... politicians.

I guess I've personally never felt intimidated and prevented from disagreeing with someone with many bars since I've registered for AS. But that's only because I would roll them all in a debate.

Well, it's more like: why have a system that supports this implicitly? I don't want this to be pitched as "a bunch of whiners couldn't take the hits and complained and that's why the mods are eliminating rep". That's not it at all. This is why a lot of the comments like "oh, just get rid of neg rep and you get rid of all the complaints" are missing the point too.

In other words, I think the "pettiness" comes in many forms.

Yea I really guess it does and it goes beyond negrep; I brought up earlier that it's quite easy to troll people even with no neg rep since it is the text that matters more. "Post like these make me feel better about myself" wouldn't really violate any rules but it's still a thinly veiled PA way of attacking people

I made that statement because I would constantly noting people complaining and was like "is this really necessary?" Just seems like a lot of unnecessary hassle. The rep system was like the sewer system of Animesuki. It was the least moderated channel of communication, the most seedy, and most likely full of people's shit.

Well, yes, and I suppose it's mostly because rep (as implemented) gave you no way to address the criticism, which stung particularly if it was unfair.

Actually, there was a way of "addressing it" (sort of) but it required you to be aware of the etiquette. You could edit your existing post to clarify something, or post again (provided you weren't double-posting), but you couldn't refer to the fact that you were responding to rep. And I did actually see some people do this. Sometimes it actually did cause people to restate their opinion in a way that was more clear, balanced, or considered. But other times it just caused people to retrench their positions and become even more outspoken. I guess it depended on the situation and the nature of the comment they were sent. Ideally, you'd never take rep comments too seriously, or presume in the reasonableness of the person sending it...

Ah, that just encourages more passive aggressive behavior. Sometimes I'm petty enough to guess who negs me, so either I make a post addressing it without saying I got negged or I neg them with a similar style of text. It's kinda funny to bend the rules, but once again I must ask "Is this healthy?"

I'm not really for or against the rep system. I'll be a little disappointed that our little toy is removed, but am positive this won't cause any earth shattering events. What some people call circlewhacking can be construed as community. Why shouldn't I be able to rep someone if I appreciate their presence and feel like being lazy? And why can't I neg someone that I think is being annoying without throwing down the thread? But then again when people take the game too seriously, stuff happens. And while we all like to say we are all mature and open minded, sometimes we might lose control.

So is the rep system necessary? I'll end it with this video to explain the correct answer.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Well, if only it were "crazy homeless guys". We're talking about people who masquerade as a community leaders most of the time and play the part of the "crazy homeless guy" just so they can call people names and get away with it. I was not too impressed with the way some supposedly-respectable people were using rep to push their agendas, both on the plus and the negative side.

And now I'm paranoid. Well done.

[NoirX]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

And now I'm paranoid. Well done.

Why need to be paranoid? It's actually really happenning though.

[HasuMasu]

Well since we're mentioning this, most of my anticookies were for the way I speak (err...type?) rather than what I actually said.

The most memorable one being back when
I used to type all my posts like this. Man
did people not like that.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by hyl

I agree that if a show doesn't seem to get negative replies, that doesn't mean that the people posting those were deterred from it because other people were giving out negative reputation to them.
Like a recent example, Little busters: people are still complaining about it every week but the ammount of complaints has dramatically decreased. The reason for this might be that either the people gave up on the serie or complaining about the same thing every week has become tedious.

That's just normal...degree of repeated, I don't want to say whining but in most cases it really amounts to that, decreases with time because they either drop the show, or go tired when they realize people who like something won't be swayed.

The amount of neg repping one can do is actually quite limited...unlikely to deter complainers in episode threads.


Note though...complaining is different from refraining from posting actual contrarian view points. Most whiners fully intend to drop their complaints in each ep thread then leave. So they wouldn't care about rep anyway.

[SaintessHeart]

Interestingly, practically all of my negreps I have gotten in the past few months leading up to its dissolution are for my posts commenting about politics. Almost all of it are related to discussing about China (one anonymously posted of which I remember fondly is along the lines of "Western ass kisser"), with a few calling me "xxx democrat" and "mindless conservative" (REALLY? I am considered pretty liberal if I am an American).

Most of my reps came from what Daniel. E had described as "neverending sense of humour". I do admit, it is my subconscious way of dealing with stress IRL and it carried over the forum, and I have never actually intended for it to hurt anyone here. I am glad that a large majority of the people on this forum are sensible, if not, courageous enough to confront me about those offensive posts with a PM instead of a negrep - I would like to apologise to these people if I did not manage to follow up on a posrep for that action due to forgetfulness and/or monthly rep limits.

The negrep is a pretty interesting way for lousy debators to feel a sense of supremacy through anonymity. Seriously though, if these people actually spent more time reading, interacting, watching from another perspective and not allowed themselves to be leashed like political bulldogs barking at anyone who disagreed with their "masters", they would have triumphed and gained an enemy who respected them - there is much to be wisdom to be understood from someone who dislikes you and is honest about.

To reiterate, the rep system is pretty much like a love/like/dislike/hate grading system used in the real world. It is a mixed bag, and on this forum, is a pretty good report of your behaviour. Those warning and bans did improve my presentation of writings - being a fool is still better than a retarded kid despite both are an idiot's act.

[Akito Kinomoto]

...The only thing close to criticism I've gotten was on the Fate/Zero sub-forum. I can't remember ever getting attacked no matter how scathing my thoughts on a show were, either blatantly or under the table. Then again, I stay away from all of the raging hurrdurrcanes and wait 'till the storm passes.

I'll still criticize all of your favorite shows though.

[Non]

If you want people to use the Reputation System like a game, why not allow cheating for those that do not want to play the game?

Add an option to add, remove or set it to any amount of rep, without the ability to prove yourself if you ever cheated or not. Rep should be known as meaningless.

You can decide for yourself never to cheat, only to offset rep you feel unjustified or some other self-imposed rules.

[escimo]

I suppose I'll drop my 2 cents in as well.

First of all I absolutely agree that something had to be done to the rep system. I think it's problems have been discussed enough so no need to go into that again but as far as I'm concerned removing it was as good a solution as any.

As I'm forced to admit at times obsessing over my rep once in a while, I'm just a bit disappointed that I seemed to miss the biggest rep parties while neglecting my forum duties doing real life stuff... I think I was in top 10 when I pretty much disappeared from these parts.

Joking aside, let me preface my suggestion by saying that I did tl:dr quite a bit of this thread but a system that I found quite useful in one of the forums I used to frequent was as far as I could tell quite summarily dismissed.

I actually think that the per post "reputation" system could actually work. Not in terms of promoting or demoting posts (in display order) but by simply giving them a ranking. Let me explain the system I came to like quite a bit.

You could + post. This didn't affect the display order of the thread. There was an option in the thread view to sort the messages in ranking order but there wasn't an option to use this thread ordering as default. (There used to be and it was an unmitigated disaster.) So basically the only way this affected the post was the little post ranking icons. Which were incidentally represented by green boxes.
Ranking was based simply on points, one point for each + regardless on the members rating (more on this later), join date or post count. What was the corresponding amount of boxes to points was known only to moderator and administrator staff. (There was quite a bit of speculation in the thread dedicated to the feedback of the ranking system and it ended up being the longest single thread on the board. )

Anyway post ranking system was in some cases very useful tool going through long threads. You could easily find the posts other members found the most useful.

There was a user ranking system as well. I'll not go into what it was initially because it ended up being a miserable disaster but what it evolved to was following.

Users had a user ranking based on the rankings of their posts. This was done by a simple system of points as well in essence you received 1 point to your user ranking each time one of your posts reached a ranking exceeding some arbitrary limit which was once again not known outside of mod/admin staff. In any case this number was high enough that as far as I could see there were no circles of users trying to increase each other's ratings. Furthermore user ranking points were valid for one year. (And yes... More green boxes visible in the users profile page, but only there.)

This actually represented to me quite well the recent contributions of the member in question.

Anyway I found this system to be quite equal and useful.

[Qilin]

Originally Posted by escimo

I actually think that the per post "reputation" system could actually work. Not in terms of promoting or demoting posts (in display order) but by simply giving them a ranking. Let me explain the system I came to like quite a bit.

You could + post. This didn't affect the display order of the thread. There was an option in the thread view to sort the messages in ranking order but there wasn't an option to use this thread ordering as default. (There used to be and it was an unmitigated disaster.) So basically the only way this affected the post was the little post ranking icons. Which were incidentally represented by green boxes.
Ranking was based simply on points, one point for each + regardless on the members rating (more on this later), join date or post count. What was the corresponding amount of boxes to points was known only to moderator and administrator staff. (There was quite a bit of speculation in the thread dedicated to the feedback of the ranking system and it ended up being the longest single thread on the board. )

Anyway post ranking system was in some cases very useful tool going through long threads. You could easily find the posts other members found the most useful.

There was a user ranking system as well. I'll not go into what it was initially because it ended up being a miserable disaster but what it evolved to was following.

Users had a user ranking based on the rankings of their posts. This was done by a simple system of points as well in essence you received 1 point to your user ranking each time one of your posts reached a ranking exceeding some arbitrary limit which was once again not known outside of mod/admin staff. In any case this number was high enough that as far as I could see there were no circles of users trying to increase each other's ratings. Furthermore user ranking points were valid for one year. (And yes... More green boxes visible in the users profile page, but only there.)

This actually represented to me quite well the recent contributions of the member in question.

But then "contributions" in this case would still pretty much refer to how many people agree with a particular poster's opinions. It all goes back to becoming a popularity contest at the end of the day.

Also, the very notion of ranking opinions based on how many people agree strikes me as somewhat distasteful. People should rely on their own good sense and logic to determine whether a particular post is "helpful" or not. It's not good to rely on other people to influence how one forms his or her opinion. Or perhaps that's just me.

[Dhomochevsky]

I actually think that the per post "reputation" system could actually work. Not in terms of promoting or demoting posts (in display order) but by simply giving them a ranking. Let me explain the system I came to like quite a bit.

Are you thinking of the LoL forums?
That +1/-1 thing there is even worse than our old rep system.
People create alt accounts just to mass vote posts and anything slightly controversial gets downmodded into oblivion.

Also majority != truth.

Just because a lot of people share an opinion, that does not make it superior. Masses can be (and often are) quite stupid. Democracy is not a good idea in every application.

[escimo]

Originally Posted by Qilin

But then "contributions" in this case would still pretty much refer to how many people agree with a particular poster's opinions. It all goes back to becoming a popularity contest at the end of the day.

Also, the very notion of ranking opinions based on how many people agree strikes me as somewhat distasteful. People should rely on their own good sense and logic to determine whether a particular post is "helpful" or not. It's not good to rely on other people to influence how one forms his or her opinion. Or perhaps that's just me.

That's all good and nice... However communities with voluntary membership are formed by generally like-minded people. You generally need at least one common interest or opinion to even bother participating. Let's look at anime ratings for instance. If there weren't any factors contributing to some kind of consensus among those rating them, on a scale from 0-5 every anime should receive a rating of roughly 3.

So in my opinion better just face it, that's how the world works.

Originally Posted by Winston S. Churchill

“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

If there is to be some kind of system to follow the members contributions to the community, it to have any resemblance of fairness it should be based on popularity of those opinions or actions. Other options would be oligarchy or dictatorship. Better?

Is ranking members on a discussion forum strictly necessary? Perhaps not. However there are positive effects to this as well. If there's a reward for being constructive or at the very least articulating and rationalizing your opinions reasonably well, it tends to nudge members to that direction. I personally think this is a major benefit of this kind of system.

Naturally any system of this kind promotes popular opinions. However these opinions are popular because a majority or at least a significant part of the community agrees with them, which statistically increases the probability of a random person finding them agreeable.

I think it's a bit silly that in these days of idolized individualism, the very thought that humans are gregarious animals is perished. Still we display most of the behavioral models associated with it.

If the very prospect of popular opinion is too offensive you could naturally ignore any system that promotes it. Or better yet you can resign from the entire human race and never be offended by majority disagreeing with you again. That being what most of the animosity towards these kind of systems is based on. It's very human to think that if one doesn't agree with you one is automatically wrong.

This naturally doesn't work the other way either, majority doesn't make an opinion right. Still there's very little harm in recognizing popular opinions, analyzing them and then forming one's own opinions.

What I've found (at times the hard way) is that I'm not nearly as smart or intelligent in comparison to other people as I used to think. And I've found that realization being one of the most useful I've ever had. It tends to help being at least a little more objective on judging the opinions of others. It has never hurt anyone to base an subjective analysis of an opinion on a premise that even though I don't agree with the said opinion now there might be something to it.

Nobody is asking anyone to sell out their principles even if some system of the aforementioned kind is reimplemented.

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

Are you thinking of the LoL forums?
That +1/-1 thing there is even worse than our old rep system.
People create alt accounts just to mass vote posts and anything slightly controversial gets downmodded into oblivion.

No.

As for alt accounts that's a risk of any ranking system. I think you would have been run your own cookie circle here with ten accounts. I haven't come up with an example of this happening here before and alt accounts are forbidden in the rules as well. Would someone really risk a ban on all his or her accounts just for green boxes..?

Alt accounts were a problem on the other board as well which is why the system was adjusted so that increases in member ranking weren't directly based on + counts on all posts that had received them but a single point for each post exceeding a certain + count.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by escimo

That's all good and nice... However communities with voluntary membership are formed by generally like-minded people. You generally need at least one common interest or opinion to even bother participating. Let's look at anime ratings for instance. If there weren't any factors contributing to some kind of consensus among those rating them, on a scale from 0-5 every anime should receive a rating of roughly 3.

So in my opinion better just face it, that's how the world works.

Well, the world also works on diversity. There's a reason why imbreeding is bad, and it goes for discussions too.

If there is to be some kind of system to follow the members contributions to the community, it to have any resemblance of fairness it should be based on popularity of those opinions or actions. Other options would be oligarchy or dictatorship. Better?

I cannot allow you to misrepresent the great man Churchill like that.

First off, the concept of democracy doesn't run off mob rule, as a rank system would dictate. In fact, most functioning democracies of the day are representative democracies. People do not vote on every law, and neither should they-- we have representatives to legislate and be informed on the matter.

Furthermore, an individual's actions should not get voted on in a democracy, or any reasonable free society. Rather, social norms and acceptance are the standard tools that we're using for thousands of years. If someone is doing something considered unacceptable, then we shun then.

Majority rules, minority rights is key to a free society. If we're allowed to shut down those in a method sanctioned by those in authority, then this would become a tyranny of the majority, so it's best to not keep options to such polarized bases. My country's constitution is rooted as such.

[Qilin]

Originally Posted by escimo

That's all good and nice... However communities with voluntary membership are formed by generally like-minded people. You generally need at least one common interest or opinion to even bother participating. Let's look at anime ratings for instance. If there weren't any factors contributing to some kind of consensus among those rating them, on a scale from 0-5 every anime should receive a rating of roughly 3.

So in my opinion better just face it, that's how the world works.

All I'm saying is that the system you're suggesting rewards conforming with popular opinions, which is contrary to the purpose of a discussion board to begin with, which is to serve to espouse a large variety of ideas. Or perhaps we simply have different conceptions of what a discussion board "should be". A forum thrives on diversity of opinions, and I feel that such a system will stifle it.

It's your mistake to say that the richness and depth of a well-conceived opinion can be captured in a crude quantitative value such as that from a numerical ranking scale. Each opinion is unique, and it is up to the individual to distinguish the worth of each one. It is for the purpose of capturing that uniqueness that any discussion board exists.

Just because we can perceive group think and conformity to be unavoidable does not mean for one bit that that we can't mitigate its harmful effects. The validity of an opinion should judged based on how it is defended or refuted, rather than something like popular opinion. I view this forum a setting for intelligent, rational discourse, as opposed to an exercise of taking sides or finding people who share the same opinion.

Originally Posted by escimo

If there is to be some kind of system to follow the members contributions to the community, it to have any resemblance of fairness it should be based on popularity of those opinions or actions. Other options would be oligarchy or dictatorship. Better?

Again, this kind of change would discourage deviation from majority opinion, which is counterproductive to what a discussion board is for. This forum is not necessarily the microcosm of society you perceive it to be.

Originally Posted by escimo

Naturally any system of this kind promotes popular opinions. However these opinions are popular because a majority or at least a significant part of the community agrees with them, which statistically increases the probability of a random person finding them agreeable.

But again, is a forum's purpose to espouse agreeable opinions? I would rather say that it is dissent and a contrary perspective creates discussion, develops new ideas, and modifies existing ones. How can ideas evolve and develop if no one is given incentive to challenge the popular opinion?

Originally Posted by escimo

I think it's a bit silly that in these days of idolized individualism, the very thought that humans are gregarious animals is perished. Still we display most of the behavioral models associated with it.

You know how it works, don't you?

An individual, by himself/herself is a reasonable, rational being. A group of people, on the other hand, is a mindless mass of entities spurred on by slightest provocation. It's the very concept of emergent properties right there.

Originally Posted by escimo

This naturally doesn't work the other way either, majority doesn't make an opinion right. Still there's very little harm in recognizing popular opinions, analyzing them and then forming one's own opinions.

I lament that I do not share your optimistic view of human nature.

While you may not let such popularity rankings interfere with your opinions, there will always be those that equate popularity to argument validity, in the same way that there are those that equate things like seniority and post count to respectability. Confirmation bias is a lovely thing when it comes to these kinds of popularity-based arguments.

[escimo]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Well, the world also works on diversity. There's a reason why imbreeding is bad, and it goes for discussions too.

I cannot allow you to misrepresent the great man Churchill like that.

First off, the concept of democracy doesn't run off mob rule, as a +/- system would dictate. In fact, most functioning democracies of the day are representative democracies. People do not vote on every law, and neither should they-- we have representatives to legislate and be informed on the matter.

Furthermore, an individual's actions should not get voted on in a democracy, or any reasonable free society. Rather, social norms and acceptance are the standard tools that we're using for thousands of years. If someone is doing something considered unacceptable, then we shun then.

Majority rules, minority rights is key to a free society. If we're allowed to shut down those in a method sanctioned by those in authority, then this would become a tyranny of the majority, so it's best to not keep options to such polarized bases. My country's constitution is rooted as such.

Starting an argument on political systems certainly wasn't my intention.
I live in a multi-partisan representative democracy which admittedly has its strengths and foibles. But none the less is certainly not directly comparable to the issue in hand.

The point was simply that having a system biased towards majority rule to somehow quantify contributions of a member to a discussion forum has its benefits and dismissing them simply on the fact that they are biased towards popular opinion is in my opinion runaway idealism.

True, a +/- system does not represent democratic process in this case but it's based on the same basic principle albeit with perhaps even larger foibles.

But let's face it having a system to promote (I use the term quite loosely considering that the only reward is a few extra inches on the virtual penis.) users based on their contributions as evaluated by their peers is hardly a civil rights violation and saying that it somehow subjects individual action to a vote is stretching the metaphor quite thin.

I hold that if some system like this contributes to forum members being civil, constructive and active the benefits of the system outweigh the problems caused by the polarization of opinions or majority rule. (Which is a massive misnomer since we're still talking about little green boxes that do only a little else than take screen real-estate.) Even if that system works through popular opinion.

It's just that I really can't come up with any system to promote posting well thought of, well constructed and informative posts as a behavior than some kind of peer review resulting to some kind of reward even if it's pretty much based on placebo effect.

I would see a benefit of post ranking in several areas of this forum. Take episode discussions for example. Some will like it, some will not and some will be indifferent about it. In cases where these views split relatively evenly the top ranked posts would probably include representatives of all aforementioned views ranked in the order of popular opinion on the episode. However beyond that they would represent the most informative and well articulated opinions.

Originally Posted by Qilin

All I'm saying is that the system you're suggesting rewards conforming with popular opinions, which is contrary to the purpose of a discussion board to begin with, which is to serve to espouse a large variety of ideas. Or perhaps we simply have different conceptions of what a discussion board "should be". A forum thrives on diversity of opinions, and I feel that such a system will stifle it.

It's your mistake to say that the richness and depth of a well-conceived opinion can be captured in a crude quantitative value such as that from a numerical ranking scale. Each opinion is unique, and it is up to the individual to distinguish the worth of each one. It is for the purpose of capturing that uniqueness that any discussion board exists.

Just because we can perceive group think and conformity to be unavoidable does not mean for one bit that that we can't mitigate its harmful effects. The validity of an opinion should judged based on how it is defended or refuted, rather than something like popular opinion. I view this forum a setting for intelligent, rational discourse, as opposed to an exercise of taking sides or finding people who share the same opinion.

I don't think that in most cases the lines between opinions would be that clear that this would actually become a problem. I trust the diversity of opinion on this forum enough to believe that in any argument there would be reasonably equal representation on all sides. And thus the real ranking would more or less be based on the articulation of the opinion rather than content. This is an anime discussion forum. Some will like certain series or episodes and other will not. If there's a major divide between likes and dislikes that by itself tells you something. And still the top ranked post would be the one that best articulates the popular opinion.

And in matters of taste validity of an opinion is a mute point anyway.

The benefit of this system comes from not having to go through 30 pages of something like:

Post1:
It was OK.

Post2:
I agree.

Post3:
Bad

Post4:
No it wasn't, you're stupid.

And so on and so on before you get to one that actually put some thought into articulating his/her opinion. As I see it it would encourage putting that thought into what you post and help you filter out the frivolous rubbish if you just want to check something out quickly. If you still want to go through the entire discussion as I think most would it's an option available for you. In fact in the aforementioned system it was the preferred option.

Again, this kind of change would discourage deviation from majority opinion, which is counterproductive to what a discussion board is for. This forum is not necessarily the microcosm of society you perceive it to be.

I just don't see that happening in the extent of it becoming a problem. If the off chance of gaining a green dot on your user profile is enough to change the opinion you express to it's opposite, good luck to you... Mostly how I see this playing out is rewarding users for expressing their opinions well because there's bound to be others that agree with the that point of view.

In fact the system that we had was way worse than in this aspect than the one I'm advocating for. All of the negative reputation I got was from expressing an opinion on an episode I didn't like of some anime. I may have been a bit provocative at times in the way I made my point but still I caught flak for not liking something and expressing my displeasure. Expressing opinion on something negatively affected my "perceived status" on the board.

Having the option to only promote an opinion in a positive manner would in my opinion mitigate the damage while still providing a rewarding system. The worst case scenario for expressing a unpopular opinion being null effect.

I lament that I do not share your optimistic view of human nature.

While you may not let such popularity rankings interfere with your opinions, there will always be those that equate popularity to argument validity, in the same way that there are those that equate things like seniority and post count to respectability. Confirmation bias is a lovely thing when it comes to these kinds of popularity-based arguments.

Oh... That's certainly not my view of human nature. I certainly wish that I could be justified to say that it is but there's quite a bit of social evolution ahead of us until that can be said. I believe that humanity is capable of it in the future but I believe more firmly that we'll find a way to blow ourselves up before that. This is just the way I want to try to form my own opinions.

I don't think that systems like this can be designed to conform to the lowest common denominator and as we're talking about discussion about anime, not making decisions regarding nuclear proliferation I really don't see the harm being all that major.

[Triple_R]

I've spent some time on internet communities that used a plus or "thumbs up" system for individual posts. Back when I produced a lot of YouTube videos, I also spent a lot of time reading YouTube comments (and naturally noticed how the highest rated comments went straight to the top). My observations are as follows, admittedly just one man's anecdotal experience:

1) A plus/"thumbs up" system works well, but not a plus/minus or thumbs up/thumbs down system. The problem isn't in rewarding popular opinions, it's in punishing unpopular ones (which is particularly problematic for anything of a political nature). I say this because...

2) Generally speaking, I do find that the highest rated YouTube comments tend to be the best YouTube comments. If nothing else, they certainly tend to be the wittiest YouTube comments.


I think it's important to remember that almost everybody here is at least a somewhat knowledgeable anime fan. You pretty much have to be in order to care enough about anime to comment on it on an anime message board. It's not like we're taking a hundred or a thousand completely random people and asking them to evaluate comments on anime. If so, I'd be very concerned about "mob rule" myself. But within a community of dedicated anime fans, I think that "likes" or pluses or thumbs up could say a lot.

[Akito Kinomoto]

Originally Posted by escimo

And in matters of taste validity of an opinion is a mute point anyway.

The benefit of this system comes from not having to go through 30 pages of something like:

Post1:
It was OK.

Post2:
I agree.

Post3:
Bad

Post4:
No it wasn't, you're stupid.

And so on and so on before you get to one that actually put some thought into articulating his/her opinion. As I see it it would encourage putting that thought into what you post and help you filter out the frivolous rubbish if you just want to check something out quickly

Even if you put a lot of thought into your writing, people won't up-vote it unless it agrees with the popular opinion. People are also too influenced by the first couple of votes. Whichever posts get the Read Me Flag will have a lot of luck behind them as well regardless of the quality or lack thereof argument. Refer to reviews on MAL.

Originally Posted by escimo

Having the option to only promote an opinion in a positive manner would in my opinion mitigate the damage while still providing a rewarding system. The worst case scenario for expressing a unpopular opinion being null effect.

Non-stop praise is the best way to kill a man.

Originally Posted by escimo

I don't think that systems like this can be designed to conform to the lowest common denominator and as we're talking about discussion about anime, not making decisions regarding nuclear proliferation I really don't see the harm being all that major.

If we stifled the variety on discussing entertainment, we wouldn't have debates about the quality of art to begin with.

[escimo]

Originally Posted by Akito Kinomoto

Even if you put a lot of thought into your writing, people won't up-vote it unless it agrees with the popular opinion. People are also too influenced by the first couple of votes. Whichever posts get the Read Me Flag will have a lot of luck behind them as well regardless of the quality or lack thereof argument. Refer to reviews on MAL.

How exactly does this work?

Say you agree with the content of the post and the post is in your opinion helpful and well constructed, you don't "promote" it because it doesn't conform with the popular opinion?

This would suggest a situation where your opinion is a polar opposite of everyone else's which is never the case.

Non-stop praise is the best way to kill a man.

Well... That's true enough. Although I find it hard to believe that the praise floodgates would open to that extent.

If we stifled the variety on discussing entertainment, we wouldn't have debates about the quality of art to begin with.

All I'm saying that the if the system's benefits outweigh the issues, as they would in my opinion, the fact that there are foibles in the system isn't exactly a matter of global extinction. So it wouldn't hurt to lighten up a little.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Do you know how the elder members of the community influenced me the most when I was still pretty new to Anime Suki? Through posreps.

Posreps helped ensure that I didn't hold back and stop voicing dissenting opinions. The reputation system allowed people to encourage others without having to actively get involved in the debate themselves.

And these people can't encourage you via private or visitor messages? I would personally prefer if people PM/VM me instead of pos rep... it also allows for an extended dialogue. I mean sure seeing rep like "Finally someone telling it like it is!" is nice and all but I would rather they say that to me via pm/vm.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

There's of course a fair bit of subjectivity to this, but I think that any significant change will be noticeable to most active members. For example, if over the next few months we see a rise in threads with loads of great discussion then the current theory of "Neg rep held some people back" would gain more credibility. On the other hand, if over the next few months we see a rise in the number of flaming posts, a noticeable increase in flamewars, and/or more infractions having to be passed out, then the current theory of "Neg rep served to reinforce civil discussion" would gain more credibility.

If little change occurs over the next few months, then we can probably determine that the reputation system's impact was negligible (neither particularly positive or negative) and hence it becomes a simple matter of member's personal preference for or against it.

A rise or decrease of great discussion throughout threads is also dependent on what is being discussed... I mean if Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru sparked massive amounts of fanboy was are you seriously going to try and pin that on the removal of the rep system?

Did you read the Macross Frontier forums as it aired? Rep did f all for the amount of shit slung between the massive amount of Sheryl shippers and the smaller Ranka contingent. The only reason you don't still see shipping wars in that forum today is because Relentless and the other mods had enough and banned it outright.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Back when Haruhi's E8 was airing, I felt genuine anger and disappointment over what KyoAni had chosen to do here. But when I expressed that, the pushback from fellow Haruhi fans was at times heavy. It could be discouraging.

Then a couple forum elders that I didn't know that well, but am now glad to call friends, posrepped me for my posts criticizing Haruhi's E8. That proved to be valuable encouragement to me in continuing on with my politically incorrect criticisms of the great KyoAni and their "brilliantly artistic!" E8.

First things first, it was what Kadokawa decided to do, you should know that by now, secondly lol @ "not liking Endless 8" being a controversial opinion. What next, you're going to be brave and say SAO's ALO is a horrible arc?

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I really don't think negrep had much to do with it. It just wasn't a show worth discussing, even for those who finished it.

Personally I agree, it wasn't worth my time to discuss, heck if it didn't have Gundam in the name it would've had as many posts as Gyrozetter dpes... but in lurking through the threads after posting the lol ratings I see stuff like "Even Wingeddarkness doesn't post here now" from the few people who didn't like it who were masochistic enough to finish it. People were getting neg bombed and flat out being told to stop posting in the thread if they didn't like (ironic as shit considering who was pushing that line and his past behavior)

And besides the mods confirmed it, I never complained about the negs from laughing at AGE, obviously other people did though.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I honestly think this argument is getting overplayed.

I faced just as much counterargument for posts where I said something critical about Fate/Zero, Nisemonogatari, or Sword Art Online as I did for posts where I said something critical about Haruhi 2009 or Ore no Imouto.

Lets be real, when it comes to shows that popular noone really cares what a member says, no matter how well regarded.

Originally Posted by Dextro

I have however seen some strange cases of people who week after week complain endlessly about a show. I sometimes wonder why those people keep watching if they can come up with so much complaints in something they willingly watch week after week. I'm not talking about critiquing some segments, I'm talking about a complete dismissal of most of the show. It's really strange (at least to me).

It's called hatewatch man, get with the times