[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Your view of the forum's diversity depends heavily on which sections you frequent. In my experience, it has become much less so, especially in the General Chat section, which has been reduced mostly to the jokes thread, the news thread and a handful of die-hard threads that inevitably attract a lot of inflammatory comments.

I think that the issues that you're seeing in the General Chat section is related to something other than the rep system, but that's a lengthy and off-topic discussion. I might bring it up to you in PM though.

Now, I thank you for you sharing your reasons for why you think this change will make AS better. However, I see some of this differently.

1) Popularity and the pursuit of it will no longer be part of the equation. People no longer have an incentive to farm reputation and instead focus on being as constructive as they can with their posts.

This honestly reads very counter-intuitive to me. To the degree that people are concerned with popularity, wouldn't that serve as added motivation to be "as constructive as they can be with their posts"?

People tend to be appreciative of constructive posts, after all.

2) It will be less intimidating for new members to join in the discussion.

Well, I've seen plenty of new members over the past few months, and most don't seem to have much trouble joining in on the discussion.

In fairness to you, I guess this might be some factor at least.

3) People as a whole would dare to say exactly what they want to say, without fear of negrep reprisal.

It could be argued that's a double-edged sword. I wonder at times how many flamewars were headed off out of fear of possible neg-rep reprisal by one or more sides of a heated discussion?


Of course, we'll just have to wait and see. But I don't think it's as cut-and-dry as you're making it out to be.

By all means, keep the feedback channel. Just don't revive any vestiges of the reputation system in the form of "likes". Frankly, I don't see why a simple thank-you post via the feedback channel isn't sufficient "reward". Why the need to accumulate "likes", if not for bragging rights? If you really, really must have the "likes", keep it private, so as to avoid returning to the old problem of farming for popularity, and all the other problems that follow the mindset.

That's fine. I pretty much agree with you here. But with the rep system gone, there goes the quick feedback channel as well (unless a new one is created in its place, of course).