AnimeSuki Forums

RRW · 2012-12-19, 04:12

you get rep point for everyday you staying in animesuki?

NoemiChan · 2012-12-19, 05:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by RRW

you get rep point for everyday you staying in animesuki?

Impossible... I always check my rep points every 5 minutes whenever I post to check my post was interesting or irritating to some people..

synaesthetic · 2012-12-19, 07:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

TL;DR…

Tangent

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

This happens with any entertainment media, but it happens bad with MMOs. Real bad. People keep playing them, even when they hate pretty much everything about it, because the damn things are designed to be addictive.

I found myself doing this with an MMO recently and it took a lot of effort on my part to break away from the game despite being beyond frustrated with it, and I spread that same sort of bitterness on the forums, just like we see here when someone gets into a show, decides (perhaps subconsciously) they don't like it, but can't stop making negative posts about it.

Crontica · 2012-12-19, 09:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

I congratulate the moderators for finally doing away with this system. Ever since its introduction I have found the rep system to be a hindrance against expression. Under this system most people only want to post things that others want hear. This leads to an atmosphere where people are afraid of expressing their core beliefs for fear of reprisal.

Personally i was less inclined to post because i felt people where only listening/responding to the higher ranked members on many occasions, to the point that i felt that it was just one massive bandwagon, wtf was up with the kyubei debates?

yononaka · 2012-12-19, 22:41

I usually only remember to check out the feedback forum once every few months or so, and whenever I've done so, I've almost always seen threads with complaints about the reputation system in general and the negative rep in particular. For the longest time, the answers given were always the same: read the rules about rep, don't pay too much attention to rep, report rep with rule-breaking messages, disable rep if it's really a problem for you. These threads appeared to get locked fairly quickly, which made sense given the asked-and-answered repetitiveness (it would appear that most of those threads have either been removed or moved to a mod-only subforum, because I could swear that there have been more of them than are still left in the index). The policy always appeared unwavering and not subject to reconsideration based on this periodic member input. Personally, I was pretty closely aligned with both the attitude the mods seemed to have towards rep and their suggestions to members, so that wasn't a problem for me.

Now, quite abruptly (at least it feels this way to me), the rep system is presented to us as the source of fairly fundamental festering problems on the board and something that had to be eliminated for the greater good, with no additional input solicited from members before making this decision. The description of the abuses that have been taking place certainly seems to make for a compelling argument for such a decision. What strikes me as odd, however, is the abruptness of this change in direction. Most of the abuses enumerated in this thread were (I thought) fairly obvious for a long time even to non-mods, so if the board could live with them before, what changed? Please don't misunderstand, I don't have a problem with disabling the rep, I'd simply like to better understand what caused the sudden phase shift between the two opinions. Because the thing is, as much as the mod opinions presented here feel like deeply held convictions, so did the earlier opinions in rep complaint threads.

To reiterate: I didn't have a problem with the previous policy and I don't have a problem with disabling the rep system now. It's just the abrupt about-turn that makes me quite curious. I hope I've managed to express myself without sounding like I'm making accusations, because what I'm interested in are the mechanics of the decision-making process, not passing judgement on anyone. As you can see from my post history, I haven't exactly been very active here for the past year, but I've still been reading the board quite regularly, so I think my use of the word "abrupt" above is justified. If I'm wrong about that, corrections are most welcome.

***relentlessflame*** · 2012-12-20, 00:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by yononaka

Now, quite abruptly (at least it feels this way to me), the rep system is presented to us as the source of fairly fundamental festering problems on the board and something that had to be eliminated for the greater good, with no additional input solicited from members before making this decision. The description of the abuses that have been taking place certainly seems to make for a compelling argument for such a decision. What strikes me as odd, however, is the abruptness of this change in direction. Most of the abuses enumerated in this thread were (I thought) fairly obvious for a long time even to non-mods, so if the board could live with them before, what changed? Please don't misunderstand, I don't have a problem with disabling the rep, I'd simply like to better understand what caused the sudden phase shift between the two opinions. Because the thing is, as much as the mod opinions presented here feel like deeply held convictions, so did the earlier opinions in rep complaint threads.

I appreciate your comment, and your puzzlement over the apparent contradiction. I'll do my best to answer from my point of view, even though I guess the truth is that the decision-making process is often long and complex.

First, I guess I should re-emphasize a point that was raised earlier that we did listen to everyone's feedback over the years, including all those many repetitive threads about not liking "unfair" negative rep (and yes, they seemed to come up fairly frequently, and I was usually the one to respond to them with the same sort of answer time and again). We also of course received a lot of feedback from members privately, both to report rep they received and also to express their frustration.

Even to this day I think that the whole concept of "unfair negative rep" is a bit silly because people weren't using positive rep fairly either. It's not like I don't understand the emotional reaction (I felt the same way when I received "unfair" neg rep), but if you think about it logically, there's really no cause for complaint. The system was already heavily biased towards positive rep anyway, and we did deal with any offensive comments... so usually it was much ado about nothing in the grand scheme of things. As was pointed out repeatedly in this thread, even some people who tend to be seen as "troublemakers" by some typically end up in the green. So this is why my message about this was basically what you described: it's just a game, don't take it seriously, you get way more positive rep than negative anyway... and so on.

But the truth is that we've known about a lot of these other problems we're now discussing about rep for some time (years, even). And on the staff, various ideas had been floated about a system or systems to replace rep. But these would have involved extensive customizations, and because of issues related to the vBulletin upgrade, this plan seemed to be always getting further and further out on the horizon (which is just as much my fault as anyone else's -- finding the motivation to upgrade and test vBulletin modifications in your spare time is hard when the benefit seems way out there).

Over the last year or so, the "rep inflation" problem has become that much more pronounced, which makes sense given that it's exponential. While nobody guessed the exact formula yet, you can surmise from some of the earlier comments here that rep power was tied pretty heavily to your rep points. The discrepancy between the top ~50 rep holders and the whole rest of the forum was rather extreme. And we also noticed that, with this increasing discrepancy, there were more visible instances of "silencing" happening in the threads: where people would start making these not-so-veiled comments about why they were leaving certain threads and discussions, and these were often tied to "power rep".

So, basically: years of internal acknowledgement and accumulated frustration with the weaknesses of the rep system + no clear timeline for vBulletin upgrades that would facility a new system to replace rep + rep inflation that was causing an ever-increasing mess = time to retire the current "round" of rep. It was felt (partly by me) that the end of the year would be a good time to retire it so we can start the new year fresh. And it was decided that we could use this opportunity to figure out just what benefits we would miss without rep there at all, to help inform any future decisions about new feedback systems that may be desired or beneficial.

I think I already said this before, but the reason we didn't do a public consultation before retiring rep is because it was pretty clear to the staff that the current system wasn't sustainable anyway due to the inflation. Plus, knowing that the rep system was in flux could have caused runs on rep as people try to manipulate the system for various reasons. (It'd be hard to discuss some of the problems of rep without also revealing some of the "secret sauce" behind how rep points are distributed...) So, the decision was made.

I should also say that, even back when rep was turned on back in the day, not everyone on the staff at the time was so sure if it was a good idea or not. It was basically allowed to be left on as an "experiment". As I alluded to above, I think most people on the staff would have agreed that the rep system the way it was implemented wasn't a "fully-successful experiment" even before, but it wasn't necessarily a complete failure either, at least in terms of some of what it allowed. This is why we were investigating alternate ideas even back in the day that would carry over the benefits while removing some of the drawbacks... and I think that process will continue now, but in a slightly different way.

Okay, those are a lot of words... I said it was long and complex... But I guess the main point is that, given all the many years of discussion we have had about this among the staff, to us this seems anything but sudden. It's more like "we're finally doing something about this". But that's the nature of a volunteer group... you think about things, discuss things, get distracted, wait for other things... and then at some point there's enough of a push that something happens.

Anh_Minh · 2012-12-20, 02:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

While nobody guessed the exact formula yet, you can surmise from some of the earlier comments here that rep power was tied pretty heavily to your rep points.

It's proportional to your (rep points minus 10) and the number of members?

Fahd · 2012-12-20, 02:24

I'll refrain from posting my own list of TheFluff's greatest hits posts, but I've always thought anyone getting worked up at one of his posts was taking themselves too seriously (i.e. forum posts are srs bznz and all that)

.

As for rep, when I found out what those green bars were all about I disabled my rep indicator, as I had no interest in trying to show off a virtual "poster-quality" indicator. I wanted people to judge me on the content of every post I made, and not give me a pass because of the green-bars. However, the side-effect of turning it off was to then discourage anyone from anonymously commenting on said posts, so it was kind of a double-edged sword. So in the end I switched it back on to see what sort of comments I'd get.

I guess it'll be interesting to see if people are still willing to comment on each-others posts through private/visitor messages, or if was just the virtual gold people were chasing after

.

***relentlessflame*** · 2012-12-20, 02:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

It's proportional to your (rep points minus 10) and the number of members?

Nah, it wasn't related to the number of members at all. It's based only on factors individual to the person (based on the rules of the system). But, "inflation" happens because members with more rep give more rep more quickly, and then those people's rep rises more quickly, allowing them to give more rep more quickly, and so on. But it's unbalanced because rep certainly isn't distributed equally amongst the members; a lot of the rep goes around in circles, despite some constraints about having to "spread it around".

Gooral · 2012-12-20, 03:03

If you really need a reputation system (personally I would prefer if nothing like that would exist but maybe I'm in minority) how about something like this:

1) Positive rep would be anonymous (and you wouldn't be able to write anything in the box and the time/date wouldn't be shown so that you couldn't prove to anyone that you were the one who gave it). That could minimize the problem of "allies" giving points each other just for being "allies".
2) Negative rep would always show your nick
3) If possible every negative rep you gave (and a comment it included) would be visible in your profile or at least the number of negative/positive reps given and to which people

I think that would greatly minimize the problems.

Triple_R · 2012-12-20, 06:23

I have my own idea for a revised rep system, if the AS Moderating staff ever decides to go back to that. I'm just throwing it out there to see what people think about it.

1) Everybody starts with 10 rep points, given automatically upon registering as a member and/or already being a member when the switchover to the new rep system happens.

2) Each posrep, no matter who it's from, counts for 2 rep points.

3) Each negrep, no matter who it's from, counts for -1 rep point.

4) A green block represents 50 rep points (once you hit 51 points or more, you get a 2nd block). 11 green blocks would hence indicate 550 rep points.

5) In every other way, the new system would be the same as the old.

What this system would mean:

A) Rep power does not change along with rep point status. This would probably cause people to not take rep points more seriously than they should. The system will just be visible enough for people to take it as a "fun game", but not important enough for people to take it overly seriously.

B) You greatly limit the degree to which "allies" repping "allies" influences rep status.

C) The system would reward having posts that appeal to a wide range of people more than posts that appeal to a limited range of people (which is not necessarily the case with the old system). I vaguely recall that part of the idea behind the old rep system was to encourage people to get out and explore the entirety of Anime Suki, and not just stick to a small corner of it. I think that this system I've thought of would encourage that even more than the old rep system did.

D) A quick and easy feedback system is maintained.

NoemiChan · 2012-12-20, 06:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I
A) Rep power does not change along with rep point status. This would probably cause people to not take rep points more seriously than they should. The system will just be visible enough for people to take it as a "fun game", but not important enough for people to take it overly seriously.

Uhmmm... so even if your rep points are around 550, your rep power is still +2 and -1?

Triple_R · 2012-12-20, 06:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

Uhmmm... so even if your rep points are around 550, your rep power is still +2 and -1?

Exactly.

I can definitely see how the old rep system could be intimidating to new posters. Tick off the wrong guy or two, and you could be in for a world of instant negrep hurt, and go deeply into the red (and/or lose several month's worth of rep gain).

I also think that rep power growing with rep point status caused "allies repping allies" to contribute to a power creep problem. Basically, as your allies gain more rep power so do you, so you end up amping each other up massively after a certain amount of time has passed.

In my view, a rep system should be a fun, little game that adds a touch of encouragement to make positive contributions to the board, and a touch of discouragement against being trollish, but that's it. And, of course, it's useful as a feedback system and a way of giving thanks to people for various things (such as making avatars and sigs).

The people with the highest rep shouldn't be feared, and I'm starting to get the impression that this might have been the case.

**Solace** · 2012-12-20, 07:20

I had enough rep power to make a fresh member go red.

Liddo-kun · 2012-12-20, 08:46

@Triple R

I'm quite surprised you're still going at this. The abolishing of the rep system was quite a shock for me at first, but life goes on. Today, I couldn't + rep someone who posted good images in the Girls und Panzer thread, so I just thanked the person instead.

Arturia Polaris · 2012-12-20, 13:19

I believe that this is a good change in hindsight. I can now go and say what I really feel about an anime and call someone out and make a different POV from the one that is normally seen without fear of retribution from a random anon.

It'll make people call each other out and argue publicly, which is a good thing IMO.

Arty

Midonin · 2012-12-20, 14:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arturia Polaris

It'll make people call each other out and argue publicly, which is a good thing IMO.

I've been taking advantage of it since last night. Though the debate itself had been under the surface for a few weeks in the thread where it's taking place, this is the first time I'm really pursuing it.

Dr. Casey · 2012-12-20, 18:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

All right, so spill it then.

Neat, I might be starting to unlock relentless' tsundere side.

Interesting fact about reputation: once upon a time, reputation didn't adhere to any kind of formula at all. Members were given a random Reputation Power Level at registration, and the number of points that one could give or take away never changed. One day, though, a newbie joined with so much power that he could take away 1,000 points with but a single neg rep. Though he registered with the best of intentions, wished to do nothing more than discuss his favorite anime with fellow fans, the power rush went to his head and drove him to madness. He journeyed through the lands of AnimeSuki, claiming 1,000 Reputation points from every poster he came across. AnimeSuki descended into chaos, a hellish landscape of terror and strife. Four Heroes of Light by the names of Solace, relentlessflame, Triple_R, and Mentar were brave enough to stand up to the villain, and barely defeated him in a harrowing battle to the death, but the once innocent world of AnimeSuki was changed forever. The amount of reputation power one could possess was restricted, and the system was changed so that one could only hand out so many reps per 24 hour period, thus ensuring that such a tragedy could never take place again. Peace was restored to AnimeSuki... but the scars etched upon the hearts of those who survived that great battle shall remain forevermore.

And thus concludes today's lesson of AnimeSuki's troubled history.

Ledgem · 2012-12-20, 19:03

Well, that was... creative.

Triple_R · 2012-12-20, 19:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr. Casey

Neat, I might be starting to unlock relentless' tsundere side.

Interesting fact about reputation: once upon a time, reputation didn't adhere to any kind of formula at all. Members were given a random Reputation Power Level at registration, and the number of points that one could give or take away never changed. One day, though, a newbie joined with so much power that he could take away 1,000 points with but a single neg rep. Though he registered with the best of intentions, wished to do nothing more than discuss his favorite anime with fellow fans, the power rush went to his head and drove him to madness. He journeyed through the lands of AnimeSuki, claiming 1,000 Reputation points from every poster he came across. AnimeSuki descended into chaos, a hellish landscape of terror and strife. Four Heroes of Light by the names of Solace, relentlessflame, Triple_R, and Mentar were brave enough to stand up to the villain, and barely defeated him in a harrowing battle to the death, but the once innocent world of AnimeSuki was changed forever. The amount of reputation power one could possess was restricted, and the system was changed so that one could only hand out so many reps per 24 hour period, thus ensuring that such a tragedy could never take place again. Peace was restored to AnimeSuki... but the scars etched upon the hearts of those who survived that great battle shall remain forevermore.

And thus concludes today's lesson of AnimeSuki's troubled history.

Our costumes, gentlemen...

Given who Solace has had for an avatar as far as I can remember, I think it's fitting that he gets to be the main pink-haired Peter Pan-esque hero here.

Given who I often have as an avatar, and given my love of capes, I'll take blue.

Mentar would fit well as the golden-haired musketeer with kickass theme music, I believe.

And Relentless, you can choose between the two remaining humans here.

Being the storyteller, Dr. Casey is clearly the magical catgirl.

This is the story of the defeat of Warlock Night, an awful and powerful villain that assailed Anime Suki, and required no fewer than five attempts for us to defeat him!

Sorry, but Dr. Casey's little write-up was just too good for me to not add on to it, lol.

2012-12-20, 06:23	Link #331
Triple_R Senior Member Author Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Newfoundland, Canada Age: 42	I have my own idea for a revised rep system, if the AS Moderating staff ever decides to go back to that. I'm just throwing it out there to see what people think about it. 1) Everybody starts with 10 rep points, given automatically upon registering as a member and/or already being a member when the switchover to the new rep system happens. 2) Each posrep, no matter who it's from, counts for 2 rep points. 3) Each negrep, no matter who it's from, counts for -1 rep point. 4) A green block represents 50 rep points (once you hit 51 points or more, you get a 2nd block). 11 green blocks would hence indicate 550 rep points. 5) In every other way, the new system would be the same as the old. What this system would mean: A) Rep power does not change along with rep point status. This would probably cause people to not take rep points more seriously than they should. The system will just be visible enough for people to take it as a "fun game", but not important enough for people to take it overly seriously. B) You greatly limit the degree to which "allies" repping "allies" influences rep status. C) The system would reward having posts that appeal to a wide range of people more than posts that appeal to a limited range of people (which is not necessarily the case with the old system). I vaguely recall that part of the idea behind the old rep system was to encourage people to get out and explore the entirety of Anime Suki, and not just stick to a small corner of it. I think that this system I've thought of would encourage that even more than the old rep system did. D) A quick and easy feedback system is maintained. __________________

2012-12-20, 07:20	Link #334
Solace (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ Moderator Join Date: Mar 2006	I had enough rep power to make a fresh member go red. __________________

2012-12-20, 08:46	Link #335
Liddo-kun is this so? Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Gradius Home World	@Triple R I'm quite surprised you're still going at this. The abolishing of the rep system was quite a shock for me at first, but life goes on. Today, I couldn't + rep someone who posted good images in the Girls und Panzer thread, so I just thanked the person instead. __________________ Clearing 4 domain with Qiqi / MTGNexus - Magic Art Gallery / AnimEVO 2020 - EFZ tournament / Cool Japan Festival 2015 Last edited by Liddo-kun; 2012-12-20 at 10:20.

2012-12-20, 13:19	Link #336
Arturia Polaris Good OP Hunter Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Argentina	I believe that this is a good change in hindsight. I can now go and say what I really feel about an anime and call someone out and make a different POV from the one that is normally seen without fear of retribution from a random anon. It'll make people call each other out and argue publicly, which is a good thing IMO. Arty __________________ Arturia's Writing Den My fanfiction works include: Tari Tari: Past and Present, As the Gentle Breeze Blows Little Busters: Bird's Song Sword Art Online: Vanquishing of the Laughing Coffin My own works include: Social Fact

2012-12-20, 19:03	Link #339
Ledgem Love Yourself Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Northeast USA Age: 38	Well, that was... creative. __________________

2012-12-19, 22:41	Link #325
yononaka nani ni tatoemu Join Date: Sep 2006	I usually only remember to check out the feedback forum once every few months or so, and whenever I've done so, I've almost always seen threads with complaints about the reputation system in general and the negative rep in particular. For the longest time, the answers given were always the same: read the rules about rep, don't pay too much attention to rep, report rep with rule-breaking messages, disable rep if it's really a problem for you. These threads appeared to get locked fairly quickly, which made sense given the asked-and-answered repetitiveness (it would appear that most of those threads have either been removed or moved to a mod-only subforum, because I could swear that there have been more of them than are still left in the index). The policy always appeared unwavering and not subject to reconsideration based on this periodic member input. Personally, I was pretty closely aligned with both the attitude the mods seemed to have towards rep and their suggestions to members, so that wasn't a problem for me. Now, quite abruptly (at least it feels this way to me), the rep system is presented to us as the source of fairly fundamental festering problems on the board and something that had to be eliminated for the greater good, with no additional input solicited from members before making this decision. The description of the abuses that have been taking place certainly seems to make for a compelling argument for such a decision. What strikes me as odd, however, is the abruptness of this change in direction. Most of the abuses enumerated in this thread were (I thought) fairly obvious for a long time even to non-mods, so if the board could live with them before, what changed? Please don't misunderstand, I don't have a problem with disabling the rep, I'd simply like to better understand what caused the sudden phase shift between the two opinions. Because the thing is, as much as the mod opinions presented here feel like deeply held convictions, so did the earlier opinions in rep complaint threads. To reiterate: I didn't have a problem with the previous policy and I don't have a problem with disabling the rep system now. It's just the abrupt about-turn that makes me quite curious. I hope I've managed to express myself without sounding like I'm making accusations, because what I'm interested in are the mechanics of the decision-making process, not passing judgement on anyone. As you can see from my post history, I haven't exactly been very active here for the past year, but I've still been reading the board quite regularly, so I think my use of the word "abrupt" above is justified. If I'm wrong about that, corrections are most welcome.

2012-12-20, 02:24	Link #328
Fahd * >/dev/null Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Surrey, UK Age: 39	I'll refrain from posting my own list of TheFluff's greatest hits posts, but I've always thought anyone getting worked up at one of his posts was taking themselves too seriously (i.e. forum posts are srs bznz and all that) . As for rep, when I found out what those green bars were all about I disabled my rep indicator, as I had no interest in trying to show off a virtual "poster-quality" indicator. I wanted people to judge me on the content of every post I made, and not give me a pass because of the green-bars. However, the side-effect of turning it off was to then discourage anyone from anonymously commenting on said posts, so it was kind of a double-edged sword. So in the end I switched it back on to see what sort of comments I'd get. I guess it'll be interesting to see if people are still willing to comment on each-others posts through private/visitor messages, or if was just the virtual gold people were chasing after .

2012-12-20, 03:03	Link #330
Gooral Banned Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: The town where Copernicus was born. Age: 38	If you really need a reputation system (personally I would prefer if nothing like that would exist but maybe I'm in minority) how about something like this: 1) Positive rep would be anonymous (and you wouldn't be able to write anything in the box and the time/date wouldn't be shown so that you couldn't prove to anyone that you were the one who gave it). That could minimize the problem of "allies" giving points each other just for being "allies". 2) Negative rep would always show your nick 3) If possible every negative rep you gave (and a comment it included) would be visible in your profile or at least the number of negative/positive reps given and to which people I think that would greatly minimize the problems.