Since there's been a significant amount of discussion and confusion regarding reputation, I thought it'd be best to have one official thread for it. As of tonight, I disabled the credits system. I'll likely keep it disabled until a custom solution can be devised. I n the mean time, it looks like rep earned from the previous system is still there, and from now until a new solution is implemented, future reps earned will be solely from post likes. I'm sorry for the confusion regarding this so far, and for the changes I've made in the past and just now regarding the rep system. Once I can afford a rep solution, I'll implement it, along with an official announcement and FAQs on rep. The new system will be a long-term solution.
So have the green bars gone back to normal now, or are you still working on that/not bothering with that?
yup!... all there now, including the dark green ones, though i'm still not clear on what they mean... thanks, daniel! hugs, m
The change I made last night removes the "credits" system and makes it so the only way to earn rep (again, for now) is through post likes. Right now I'm considering raising the criterial for each green rep bar too reduce the number everyone has - seems like they're earned too easily. Thoughts? @mammamaia how would you test if they've gone back to normal?
Yeah, the green blocks need to be harder to get to mean anything. We've been on the new platform just about 3 months now and I'm close to completing my third stack of blocks. It took over 3 years on the old platform to earn half of that.
didn't need to 'test' it, daniel... i just see it is now what i remember it looked like before the change cut down on the amount of green thingies... restored the darker ones, too... if you reduce them again, please be sure to give us an 'idiot's guide' to what the heck they'll mean and how they're acquired...
Well, I've gone from zero to three in as many days... I still have no idea how this works, or even if it does. I was building up respectable rep points on the other system, considering I've only been a member since March of this year. Then suddenly none—while people who had just joined within the past month had several. And now I've got three. Whoopee. Because of what has happened to me and mine, I pay no attention to anybody else's any more. They seem arbitrary to me.
Just to be clear, and sorry to be pedantic, but they weren't restored. You earned them anew under the new system, separate and sundry from what you had before.
It still makes no sense, Wrey. I couldn't have earned that many and @jannert should have many more than she does.
It actually does make sense, but it's a complicated one. The way this platform treats rep is utterly different from the old platform. Utterly. This platform treats rep as an economy. You can earn it and you can spend it. It's not a static thing once earned. Daniel has recently removed the portions that equate to expense which leaves only the "earn" portion, which because there is no more expense side, is now over-inflated and is out of balance.
That's how it was. Daniel removed the debt part. That's why, all of a sudden, you saw little green blocks start to pop up on your account. Your "debt" for all the likes you gave (you're a generous gal ) got erased and now you're experiencing the same inflated rate of rep earning as the rest of us because you're out of the "hole", so to speak. Now you earn rep by other people liking your posts and it costs you nothing to give rep, which is like the old system, but the power of each "like" is far too high right now without the balance of the debt portion. That bit still needs a revisit.
I have to run so no time to list examples but there are people with half a dozen likes and as many bars as @jannert and people with half a dozen that have more bars than Jan. @Thomas Kitchen above has 4 bars and 81 likes compared to Jan's 237 and 3 bars.
Which fits perfectly with what I have said. Thomas Kitchen does not give out anywhere near as many likes as Jan does. Jan was one of the most "in debt" members as regards likes given/like received because she, bless her heart, is very generous with the likes. This platform treats likes and other actions that earn you rep as MONEY. You can earn it, you can spend it. Jan may have earned 237 "dollars" with of likes, but spend $10,000 dollars worth, of course her rep is going to be less - the way this platform calculates rep. - than Thomas Kitchen if he's earned $81 dollars worth of like and only spent $5. I don't know how else to explain it. The platform treats rep as money. You earn it, you spend it. This is one of the main reasons that Daniel said, from the beginning, that the old rep system might have to be scrapped, because the old platform did things in a completely different language under a different paradigm. This platform actually makes a lot more sense if people are just willing to let go of the old way the old platform did things. The old platform treated rep as something to which you earned tenure. Once you earned, you had it forever, never mind if your actions in the forum change. We have had uncounted members, to include mods, come in as paragons of forum behavior and go out as felons. People do ascribe a great deal of importance to those little green cubes, no matter what they say, else why so many threads on this subject, and this platform takes that into account as regards regulating forum behavior. It doesn't allow for the earning of grand forum status and then acting like a git once you're there.
I see. I assumed some of mine were for running the short story contest, but I would wager there are still serious inconsistencies in the bars not explained by the mysterious other things. Anyway, gotta run. @jannert, your reputation in my opinion, is very highly regarded.
If you made any stickies out of threads where you are the OP, then yes, that was part of it. There were other actions that would earn rep other than just the likes.
Personally, I think the whole system is inappropriate. It sets up a hierarchy and encourages cliqueism and an unhealthy kind of competition among users. But I'm only a very casual visitor, so my opinion doesn't count for much.
Neither. It simply means you're account is in your favor. You've spent less than you've earned. Some might say that equals frugal, others might say it equals greedy, but in the end it's silly to pass judgements over something that is simple economics. Does having money in your real life bank account carry a judgement call if you are good at saving money?
Hey, it's a forum. I don't care if I'm broke, a simple like can totally brighten a person's day. Keep on liking!!!
It can do. However, only if you give a monkeys! I personally 'like' things I find amusing or well-said, and I don't care if this means I'm spending my fortune like a drunken sailor. As @Duchess-Yukine-Suoh said, getting 'likes' in your alert box brightens your day. I was against the 'likes' system from the get-go—although I understand that Daniel was unable to keep the previous rep system due to software changes—but now we've got it, I intend to use it. If my reputation goes down the Swanee as a result, so be it. As it stood until a few days ago, no green dots meant either 1-the person is not popular, or 2-the person is not greedy! (Or 3 - its all a tad screwed up and meaningless...)
