suggestion to reduce existing reputation for upcoming season

[Joe Ross]

At this point, it seems that there are about 75 people who have maxed out their reputation dots. When one compares the list of those 75 people with their join dates, only about 10 of them have joined since the reputation system started. This brings up the question as to what the purpose of the reputation system is.

If the reputation system is designed to reward older members, it is doing exactly what it was designed for. There is an inherent bias against new members that will only get worse as the years go on and people build up more reputation and more reputation altering power. I wouldn't doubt in 2 or 3 more years that JVN (assuming he keeps posting) will have a reputation exceeding 100,000 and would be able to give 1000 reputation points to other people.

I think that it's time to reduce the existing reputation (and probably do it once a year).

One way to do that would be to divide everyone's reputation by a constant, say 5 or 10. I kind of like the idea of indexing this constant to the amount of reputation of the highest member (for example divide everyone this year by a constant that would leave JVN with 1000 reputation points). This would preserve the existing reputation strata, while allowing new members to move up more easily. If this were done each year, someone who amassed a lot of reputation but stopped posting would within a few years see themself with the same reputation as a new poster.

Another idea would be to set an amount of reputation, and set everyone above that level to that level once a year. Somewhere between 500 and 1000 seems good to me. This would allow the highly regarded poster who stops posting to maintain a certain amount of reputation while still allowing newer members the ability to get recognized.

What do people think?

[Koko Ed]

I take the reputation system about as seriously as I do a "What team will win the championship?" thread on the first week of the build season. It's all a popularity contest and I can't see it intended for anything else.

[Guest]

I take the reputation system about as seriously as I do a "What team will win the championship?" thread on the first week of the build season. It's all a popularity contest and I can't see it intended for anything else.
Many FIRSTers who have been on ChiefDelphi would probably agree with you here, but the people with the most reputation are often highly respected within both the CD and FIRST community as a whole. The only problem is that new CDers may be intimidated by the reputation of the most reputable users and hold false notions like "User X must be 10 times better than User Y because X has 10 green dots while Y has one."

[Kevin Sevcik]

I'll agree that that's pretty much all it is in its current form. It seems to me that for it to be truly useful, it needs to be some sort of reputation/posts system, or possibly only reputation gained in the last 2-3-4 months counts. Or if you're really fancy, rep points decay exponentially with time. I too have noticed the large swings that high rep members can create. I was admonished for a post by dave lavery once, but just given neutral reps. When he later gave me positive reps for another post, I can understand why he wouldn't throw around negative reps lightly. So yeah, some sort of weighting system would probably help keep the rep system somewhat relevant.

[Jay H 237]

This seems to be more trouble than it's worth.


For instance, if everyones rep was divided by a constant those that currently have low points (one or two green dots) would wind up with negative points and a gray or red dot that they didn't deserve. To customize this, so that the formula changes depending on rep points (which would be almost like going from user to user) would be impractical if not impossible.

[Aignam]

Jay H 237: Dividing a person with low reputation's reputation points would give them a smaller number or a positive fraction, but never a negative number. Even users with negative reputation would have this divided and thus become closer to 0.

In general, I think that this isn't necessary---users like JVN and Dave Lavery and such are comparable, on a smaller scale, of course, to presidents of the United States. While they will someday not be active in FIRST and on ChiefDelphi, what they've contributed will always be remembered, and thus should always be recognized. Lincoln doesn't do a whole lot for the USA right now, but that doesn't mean we're about to take him off of our currency and forget that he abolished slavery. Furthermore, users of that magnitude know how to properly and intelligently distribute their reputation points. Perhaps a cap on the amount of reputation-altering power a user can have would be in order? Certainly the reputation should still be shown---the user earned it!

[Koko Ed]

Many FIRSTers who have been on ChiefDelphi would probably agree with you here, but the people with the most reputation are often highly respected within both the CD and FIRST community as a whole. The only problem is that new CDers may be intimidated by the reputation of the most reputable users and hold false notions like "User X must be 10 times better than User Y because X has 10 green dots while Y has one."
You know how I got my big rep score?
When I was running the Fantasy FIRST draft before the championships and everybody was drunk with excitment over the whole idea and kept showiering me with oodles of reputation just because I put two and two together and came up with a game anyone else could have easily came up with.
There is little to take seriously about the whole thing nor should there be.

[Alexander McGee]

I sure do miss the old days when you knew who knew their stuff on CD just by reading posts. I speak my mind, and don't worry about reputation. I think it is more important to stand up for your beliefs and say what you think than to be intimitated by someone who has more "green dots" than you do. They are, after all, just dots.

[Kims Robot]

I have to kind of agree with Ed here, and at the same time, I also think the rep system could just be left alone. While it does seem a bit of a popularity contest, looking at the people with the highest rep, they also have the most experience relevant to helping people on CD FIRST and presenting useful postings. You know that people with high reps can generally give you the advice you need, while people newer to CD are more in the "unknown" category. If new people are in fact intimidated by the rep system, then perhaps we need to explain it better off of the main section. I dont know that I even know many of the details of it (for instance, is there a max limit?). So maybe its time we explain it better before we try changing it.

I will be honest, I found it fairly useful, coming into CD just this year myself, and not knowing who to be able to ask for help. I've been heavily involved in FIRST since 96, but I had never really been on CD before, so it was fairly useful to figure out who had "good reps" in the community, while at the same time noting that it can at times be similar to winning prom king/queen.

Just my thoughts :)

[Aignam]

I dont know that I even know many of the details of it (for instance, is there a max limit?). So maybe its time we explain it better before we try changing it.For the record, this thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22871) explains how the reputation system works, along with the reputation-altering power system.

[Bharat Nain]

I feel it is somewhat a good idea to do something with the reputation system. A member of a rookie team contacted me for some help regarding their robot design because saw I had a high reputation and thought I'd be a good resource. I was to a certain extent, but then I directed him to a better suited person for his question. So all in all, I think the reputation system does count. Some people do look at the reputation system and judge a person. And if Brandon feels that there are people with high reputation who do not deserve to be, then maybe we can do something about it. And I agree to Koko Ed too, some of my reputation points are just useless. They've come from the most stupid things ever. And I personally feel that some members with high reputation just do not deserve to be there, they're there just because of friends or just talking sweet and not meaning anything.

[Billfred]

(Full disclosure: I have eleven dots.)

I see the rep system as a non-issue. If folks want to rep someone for something silly, that is their call under the system.

If there is one thing I would love to see change about the rep system, it would be to create some sort of half-strength option, for when I don't feel like giving someone a full-on red dot. There are several times that I've wanted to give someone a negative rep, but decided against it because I'd be screwing them up far beyond what it was worth. And sometimes neutral just doesn't say it.

...but like I said, I'm fine with it right now.

<edit>Somewhere in the FAQs (too tired to look it up right now) there's a mention that if you feel a rep is unwarranted, PM Brandon. He can take those things out.</edit>

[Rich Wong]

How about normalizing the reputation points by dividing the number by the quantity of postings made by the person.
This normalized number may reflect more of a quality rep # instead of a quantity rep #.

Some of the sub-forums should not be part of the reputation system; like chit-chat and games.

[Koko Ed]

I feel it is somewhat a good idea to do something with the reputation system. A member of a rookie team contacted me for some help regarding their robot design because saw I had a high reputation and thought I'd be a good resource. I was to a certain extent, but then I directed him to a better suited person for his question. So all in all, I think the reputation system does count. Some people do look at the reputation system and judge a person. And if Brandon feels that there are people with high reputation who do not deserve to be, then maybe we can do something about it. And I agree to Koko Ed too, some of my reputation points are just useless. They've come from the most stupid things ever. And I personally feel that some members with high reputation just do not deserve to be there, they're there just because of friends or just talking sweet and not meaning anything.
Nothing wrong with being liked neither.
I just think people read too much into the rep. It's like looking good. What you see is what you get.
You want more? Search thier previous posts and see what makes them tick. The proof is in the pudding and you'll find out if they're the real deal or full of it pretty quick.

[Hieb]

I sure do miss the old days when you knew who knew their stuff on CD just by reading posts. I speak my mind, and don't worry about reputation. I think it is more important to stand up for your beliefs and say what you think than to be intimitated by someone who has more "green dots" than you do. They are, after all, just dots.

Although I've used CD for the last year, I know I haven't explored all of its features. I'd seen reputation mentioned once or twice, but until this thread I didn't really know anything about it. I've simply made my decisions by reading the posts. It doesn't take long to figure out who the CD community respects, who uses sound reasoning and logical arguments, and who posts regularly while saying nothing.

[Ken Leung]

I've spoken many times about how we shouldn't be too serious about the reputation system, but since the decision was to keep it in this forum, I think there are ways to improve it. Otherwise we might as well take it off if it does this forum nothing. There is no reason we shouldn't make it better just because we don't take it seriously.

As mentioned above, the problem with the current reputation points system is that new members will never get enough points to be any where closed to the current reputation leaders. In other words, the current system isn't very good at demonstrating the reputation ranking of the current season (whatever that ranking might mean to people). The only benefit right now is showing the top ranked people since the beginning of time, and that has its ups and downs.

The suggestion is to reduce the current ranking so new members have a chance to catch up, and there are ups and downs for that, the biggest concern being that older members who used to contribute a lot (and received big reputation points because of that) will drop away from the ranking because they might be temporary unavailable to participate in the forum in the current season. In other words new members will not know to look for these members' posts because they never heard of them before and they are no longer on the top of the list.

Here is my suggestion:

We restart the reputation count, but we don't erase the old rep points. Have archive pages of reputation points for each individual season and the overall count. This way we have an accurate rep point of recent participation, as well as the overall ranking since the beginning of this forum.

We might not like the system very much, but it was likable enough to stay around, so we might as well make it better.

[Stephen Kowski]

this has already been discussed before....nothing has come of it before.....they are just dots we aren't electing anyone with them don't worry about it....

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27564&page=1&pp=15

[Steve W]

this has already been discussed before....nothing has come of it before.....they are just dots we aren't electing anyone with them don't worry about it....

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27564&page=1&pp=15


I agree. I used to worry about my points when I first started. I found that as I made posts that people thought were good I would get points. If they didn't like them then they took them away. I still speak my mind but I try to be careful on how I say things. That is not bad. As time goes on every one will slowly get up to 11 dots if they contribute.

If there was a wish list I would say no rep for Chit Chat and allow anyone to see who gave rep to you and why. I am NOT trying to give Brandon more work. He does a great job and he really doesn't need more hassles (nice kiss up eh).

[Arefin Bari]

I personally think its a good idea (if we dont put much pressure on Brandon). Brandon has an outside life too other than taking care of us on this forum. and as far as the high reputation goes, we all know pretty well who really helps us on the forum and who doesnt. i think reputation was a good idea. but if it takes a lot of work just to change it, then i wouldnt bother asking brandon to add this on his "To do list".

[Bharat Nain]

Just wanted to chip in a little bit, by any chance if you do abandon the reputation system, keep something where you can comment on peoples posts. Sometimes you just want to give them a little message, and maybe writing a PM is too much work(Yes, I am lazy like that and a button next to posts is convenience).

[Wetzel]

Just wanted to chip in a little bit, by any chance if you do abandon the reputation system, keep something where you can comment on peoples posts. Sometimes you just want to give them a little message, and maybe writing a PM is too much work(Yes, I am lazy like that and a button next to posts is convenience).

You can hover over their name and 'Send ___ a PM' is one of the options from the drop down.

As for people moving up, I was posting a lot when it started, was in the top 15 or so then stopped posting for a few months. When I came back from my sabbatical, I was a few pages down in the sort by reputation list and there were people that I didn't know above me. Now I'm back on the first page.

Is there a ceiling for amount of points that a person can hand out? A straight cap on that might be easiest for now, not that I have any idea how the system is coded.


Wetzel

[BoyWithCape195]

I seem to find that the reputation was a very good idea when it first started out. If you made a VERY good post, you would get reputation points. Now a days, it seems that if you made one post that was "ok" you would end up with reputation. One more thing is, if you sort the member list by reputation, you notice that some people have made minimal posts as in not very active, but still have high rep. points. Now a days it is a "give your friends rep and enginners that are from big teams and companies" CD Something needs to be done to the reputation system, but i dont know what...

[Greg Needel]

I would say no rep for Chit Chat .


end of argument. I have said this before in previous posts about the rep system that reputation should only be given in technical threads because when a new member comes on and is looking for help they will know who gives good information and not who does well in the caption contest.

the other idea i think would be good is to make reputation public. if people knew that everyone could see what they were saying people probably wouldn't post comments like "funny"

not to pick on joe but unless the system changes dividing people's points will not do a darn thing because people by the end of the build season will be back higher then they currently are.

basically i think that the rep system could be a useful tool especially for new members if it is changed but right now the rep system is like hugging your family (IE. you keep doing it and in the end all you get is a good feeling)

[Joe Ross]

not to pick on joe but unless the system changes dividing people's points will not do a darn thing because people by the end of the build season will be back higher then they currently are.

That's the point. Those people who continue to post well will rise to he top. But so will those people who just started and posted just as well.

Look at it this way, in the upcoming year it will be twice as hard for a new member to break into the ranks of the top posters. In 5 years it will be 5 times as hard.

I suggested these two methods because I think it would be fairly simple for Brandon (or even another CD programmer that knows mysql) to implement it before kickoff. I like Ken's suggestion of archiving reputation, and I really like Kevin and Steve's suggestions about tying it to the number of posts or rolling it off as time progresses.

However it is to be done, I think something should be done before January 8th.

[Aignam]

Sure, most of these arguments sound good in theory, but if you look at the first two pages of the memberlist when sorted by reputation, almost every member is a valued, helpful, respected member of FIRST/ChiefDelphi. Sure, some of your posts might get a "Haha, this deserves a few points.", but this is well made up for when you make one of those amazing posts that earns you reputation from many, many people, and you know it is a truly useful post. Things balance themselves out. I've yet to see someone entirely useless get a quasi-high reputation. It just doesn't happen. Let's put a little more faith in ChiefDelphi-ers to be able to do this for themselves---so far it's working.

As for the idea to show a Reputation / Posts ratio, that might be okay, so long as all posts in Chit-Chat are not included in post count, as that could really hurt a person's reputation. Also, the older members who already have large post counts because they have been posting long before the reputation system was incorporated would be hurt---but, then again, things would balance themselves out.

All in all, I think things are fine.

[Koko Ed]

That's the point. Those people who continue to post well will rise to he top. But so will those people who just started and posted just as well.

Look at it this way, in the upcoming year it will be twice as hard for a new member to break into the ranks of the top posters. In 5 years it will be 5 times as hard.

I suggested these two methods because I think it would be fairly simple for Brandon (or even another CD programmer that knows mysql) to implement it before kickoff. I like Ken's suggestion of archiving reputation, and I really like Kevin and Steve's suggestions about tying it to the number of posts or rolling it off as time progresses.

However it is to be done, I think something should be done before January 8th.
It is possible for new posters to gain noteriety around here. Look at Kim. She is rapidly gaining sturure around here just by showing not only her curiosity of running a new team and asking alot of questions but also her experince as a mentor from years of participating in FIRST.
Plus you shouldn't come here looking to be "top poster" but to get information about what makes FIRST tick and get information from other memebers in FIRST on what works for them.
None of us joined FIRST because we want to be noted for being a top poster on some messageboard. This is just a tool to use. let's not lose perspective here.

[Joshua May]

I'm not so sure on the idea of dividing rep by people's number of posts, because I think there is an inherint skew. Looking at the reputation charts, I see that many of those with high rep have made many posts (JVN, Baker, Brandon, DJ, etc), so perhaps they have posted good information alot of times. However, there are also members at the top of the list who have not made a miraculous number of posts (Karthik, Paul Copioli, Kris Fultz, Ken Patton), so perhaps these members have made very good, information posts not-so-many times. But by taking post number into consideration, people like JVN would have much higher reps than people like Paul, who is definitely just as contributive to the FIRST community.

Besides that, looking at all 66 of the people with 11 reputation bars, I'd say that I would go over 50 of them if I ever needed help with a robot question. And just about all the others are currently students on teams who have great potential to help FIRST even more if they start mentoring. And I would turn to an extremely vast majority of these people because of what they show outside of the technical aspects of FIRST, such as friendship, Gracious Professionalism, wit, courtesy, and all such things that make people great, and these are other things that they may bestow upon the FIRST as well.

So really, I think the reputation system is fine as it is, perhaps some changes and tinkering are needed here and there, but I don't see a single person who has high rep that doesn't deserve it in at least some form. And as far as rookies making their way to the top of the reputation ladder, I don't see much of a problem. It may be hard for them to make it to the #1 spot, but myself and a few others, namely Dori, Bharat, and Billfred (sorry to point you guys out) on these forums have only been around for about a year, and have already maxed out their rep bars, and I can already see the three of these (excluding myself) contributing to FIRST in their own ways that will better the community down on.

[Max Lobovsky]

I'm not so sure on the idea of dividing rep by people's number of posts, because I think there is an inherint skew. Looking at the reputation charts, I see that many of those with high rep have made many posts (JVN, Baker, Brandon, DJ, etc), so perhaps they have posted good information alot of times. However, there are also members at the top of the list who have not made a miraculous number of posts (Karthik, Paul Copioli, Kris Fultz, Ken Patton), so perhaps these members have made very good, information posts not-so-many times. But by taking post number into consideration, people like JVN would have much higher reps than people like Paul, who is definitely just as contributive to the FIRST community.
I think you need to check your math:

High reputation / high posts < high reputation / low posts

Those you listed with high reputation and few posts would increase their ranking. I think if reputation were to be useful at all, this would be the way to go. (Disclosure: by this system, I'd have lower ranking. I seem to have annoyed some people...)

[Ryan M.]

basically i think that the rep system could be a useful tool especially for new members if it is changed but right now the rep system is like hugging your family (IE. you keep doing it and in the end all you get is a good feeling)Exactly! And I love warm fuzzy feelings. :)

But, I do think that the rep system helps new users. Let's take me for an example:
This thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=222792#post222792) - For this post/thread someone (And I'm thankful to this person) I got "watch how often you reply to a post...you'll be much more productive if you wait for answers then shooting into thin air."
This one word post (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=221890#post221890) - I got: "Useful comments, please."
Like I said, I'm grateful for those regative reps. (Obviously, those aren't the only ones I've ever gotten, but examples...)

Those types of things showed me what people look for on here and how not to just be a bump on a log. Sure, the same thing could have been achieved through a PM, but rep carries the extra weight (especially to newer users who don't get have the "CD family" feel ;)) of more green/grey/*gasp*red dots.

So, I like the rep system. It has it's "flaws" in that some people feel they need to have more boxes, but it encourages people to be helpful and keeps CD clean from "post count races."

[Kims Robot]

One more thing is, if you sort the member list by reputation, you notice that some people have made minimal posts as in not very active, but still have high rep. points.

I don't exactly agree with BoyWithCape, as Ed pointed out...

It is possible for new posters to gain noteriety around here. Look at Kim. She is rapidly gaining sturure around here just by showing not only her curiosity of running a new team and asking alot of questions but also her experince as a mentor from years of participating in FIRST.

A small number of posts doesnt necessarily mean that you arent "active." I am on the forums every day, often several times a day absorbing a lot of information. I do have what I feel is a very high ranking for a rookie to CD, but I believe this is because I choose to post only when I feel it is relavent. I of course post a few times on whim, but in general, I only post when I think I have something of value to say.

Anyways, I guess even after all the ideas in this post, I think I still remain that the reputation seems to work 99% of the time, lets focus more on making robots and less on whos who :)

[Rickertsen2]

I think that the single simplest and most effective thing that could be done would be to simply make feedback from all people count equally regardless of the ranking of the person giving the feedback. Why should feedback from someone like Dave Lavery Count any more than feedback from someone like Billy Nobody. If you help Billy Nobody , why is that any less noble than doing something that Catches Dave's eye. This sort of thing turns reputation into an elitist club of sorts. The vast majority of point are being doled out by a select few. I am not familiar with the structure of the reputation system but i would guess that this would be a very mild hack. At the very least, the influence of the reputation giver's reputation should be reduced or perhaps make the influence logarithmic, arctan or something else like that.

It would also be a good idea to to display user's post/rep ratio in addition to their rep and post count. This would be at most a 10 minute hack but would be quite valuable

In addition, it would be helpful to see an additional reputation category added for technical helpfulness/accuracy.

[Camerzn]

Ultimately, the best way to restore faith in the rep system would seem to be by taking an arbitrary log() of every person's current rep. Thusly, people with low reputations (yo) would maintain their pitiful status, while people with tyrannical reputations would have achievable reputations.

[Koko Ed]

Ultimately, the best way to restore faith in the rep system would seem to be by taking an arbitrary log() of every person's current rep. Thusly, people with low reputations (yo) would maintain their pitiful status, while people with tyrannical reputations would have achievable reputations.
I wouldn't go as far to say that people who have high reps are "tyrants" per say. We get that way by posting here alot and most of them are highly respected memeber of not only this messageboard but the FIRST community as well.

[Cory]

I'm not entirely sure why everyone is so worked up about the rep system... It is very clearly a popularity contest. While the top people all deserve the amount of reputation they have, that's all it is. Even if it gets changed, it's still going to be a popularity contest.

I don't look at someone who doesnt have 11 (is it 11?) little green dots and say oh man I'm never going to read THEIR posts. They dont have 11 dots like ME!!!

Seriously, if people can't figure out who makes good, informative posts by actually READING them, and they just look at how many dots they have, there's something wrong. That's like me telling you that the eart is flat, and you just taking it at face value.

Who cares if you never crack the first page of rep... It's not like you suddenly gain access to the elite "11 dot members of CD" club.

Rep should be eliminated from chit chat I think. There is some intelligent discussion in there, but for the most part it's entirely random and pointless things.

$0.02
Cory

[Koko Ed]

JVN
Andy Baker
Amanda Morrison
dlavery
Karthik
David Kelly
Ken Leung
Brandon Martus
Joe Ross
Paul Copioli

If you notice I don't think anyone would dispute that any of these people are not deserving of the credit that they have recived. They are team leaders, board moderators, a game designer and a Woodie Flowers award winner. These guys are the most influential posters here and deserve the credit they have recieved and they should be seen as an inspiration to low rep posters not as a threat.

[Billfred]

Alright, after reading through the topic thus far, I've got to throw out a few different things...

1) 99% of the time, I'm against chit-chat rep. But there is that 1% of the time that it's useful. At the risk of complicating the system more than it needs to be, perhaps set a bar (100, 200 points) that folks have to reach before being able to rep in there? Newbies would have to work a bit at being established as a thoughtful poster before getting crazy-go-nuts in there.

But looking at that first page of members by rep, I think the system is working as Ed pointed out. These folks are among the best and brightest in FIRST. Is it the definitive list? I'm inclined to doubt it...after all, there must be some great minds out there in FIRST that don't post on CD/don't post on CD much.

[Koko Ed]

Alright, after reading through the topic thus far, I've got to throw out a few different things...

1) 99% of the time, I'm against chit-chat rep. But there is that 1% of the time that it's useful. At the risk of complicating the system more than it needs to be, perhaps set a bar (100, 200 points) that folks have to reach before being able to rep in there? Newbies would have to work a bit at being established as a thoughtful poster before getting crazy-go-nuts in there.

But looking at that first page of members by rep, I think the system is working as Ed pointed out. These folks are among the best and brightest in FIRST. Is it the definitive list? I'm inclined to doubt it...after all, there must be some great minds out there in FIRST that don't post on CD/don't post on CD much.
Oh no doubt.
I think 1% of the FIRST community actually post here.
2 of 45 current X-Cats actually post here and I can tell you me and Ellery aren't the only memebers on the team who could bring something to the table but messageboards aren't for everybody.
I'm sure this is the case on every team in FIRST.

[Yan Wang]

There were some interesting methods suggested for doing reducing reputation for the sake of the greater good or something, but I propose, if anything, a progressive reputation tax that will be taken by April 15th of each year. For those with low reputation income, measured by points per year, taxation will be unnecessary. Tax breaks will also be given based on hours donated to FIRST, number of whitepapers posted, and number of helpful comments. Each WhoIAm picture after the 100th will incur a cost of 500 reputation points while chit-chat reputation does not count. All reputation from 1,000 to 9,999 will incur a 30% tax. Reputation from 10,000 to 24,999 will incur a 45% tax, and anything higher will result in further revisions to the reputation tax law until it becomes grossly incomprehensible.

Or whatever Brandon finds managable.

[Camerzn]

Tax breaks will also be given based on hours donated to FIRST, number of whitepapers posted, and number of helpful comments. Each WhoIAm picture after the 100th will incur a cost of 500 reputation points while chit-chat reputation does not count. All reputation from 1,000 to 9,999 will incur a 30% tax. Reputation from 10,000 to 24,999 will incur a 45% tax, and anything higher will result in further revisions to the reputation tax law until it becomes grossly incomprehensible.

Hah. This is fantastic. However, why should WhoAmI pictures cost rep? If I really want to know WhoYouAre, is it not for the common good that I get to see your picture?

Taking your system to an extreme, maybe there should be a curve of reputation (x) versus taxation amount (y) that hits an horizontal asymtote at 50%

Something sort of like:
f(x) = 50+20*(-(x/1000)+2)/((x/1000)^2+1))

Some say I like to complicate things. I say I obfuscate better than others.

[Koko Ed]

The funniest thing is almost all of the bad rep I got has been carlessly given to me by mistake. I just got a bad rep point with a compliment.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. :rolleyes:

[Brandon Martus]

One more thing is, if you sort the member list by reputation, you notice that some people have made minimal posts as in not very active, but still have high rep. points. Some of that may be the fact that they are UFH or WFA winners. Those people have been given relatively large chunks of reputation points based on their other accomplishments.

[Andy Baker]

One more thing is, if you sort the member list by reputation, you notice that some people have made minimal posts as in not very active, but still have high rep. points. Now a days it is a "give your friends rep and enginners that are from big teams and companies" CD Something needs to be done to the reputation system, but i dont know what...


Aha! You have come across the exact reason for the reputation system. Let me give you 3 examples:

Ken Patton, Jason Morrella, and Aidan Browne all have very high reputation points while only posting a few times. The reason why they have large reputation points is two-fold: 1. They make darn good posts. 2. The rest of us crusty veterans give them reputation points when they post because we want the rest of the CD community to LISTEN CLOSELY to them.

If there was no rep point system, then these guys would only be seen by their post count. New folks to this Forum would only see a post be one of these guys and consider it "just another CD user", but in fact they are not. Each are leaders in their fields. What we CD users are doing by giving them rep points is saying that everyone better listen to these guys.

For myself, I think that the reputation system is a bit out of hand and the points could be scaled down. Heck, I've even asked people to negtive rep me in the past ((here) (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=279276&postcount=39) , so my care for the rep system is loose. I see it's purpose, but I don't know why people get hung up on it so much.

Andy B.

[Kevin Sevcik]

A random thought, but it just occured to me that the rep system is turning out like the levelling system in a final fantasy game. Dave and others have levelled up so much that the difference between them and the level 1 people is just silly.

So, I'll repeat one idea here and add another. First, I think it'd be useful to have rep points decay over time. This would still allow people to benefit from posts in the past, but would also encourage people to continue to post occasionally to keep their rep up. I think it's fair, because you kind of need to stay current with things to provide useful information anyways.

I suppose the other option is to change the math of the rep system so it's more like a logarithmic curve. Your rep grows linearly at the beginning, and then as you get more and more rep, additional rep adds less and less.
You'd still effectively have really large reps, but it'd be scaled down.

[Brandon Martus]

Lots of good discussion in this thread ...

I agree that having 3 pages of 11 dots (maxed out) is kind of weird. I looked into scaling that down, but it wasn't easy enough. I'm going to be looking into what problems it will cause to scale everybody's posts down. I just don't want to break anything. ;)

[Steve W]

I guess I would like to ask what the problem is with the rep system. Do you know how many points that I have as compared to John V Neun? I personally don't care and if you ask I would tell you my points. After you reach 11 dots everybody looks the same. Now over time, if you post meaningful posts, you will build up rep. Over the next 6 months I am sure that there will be more people added to the 11 dot club. I agree with so many people that have posted so far in that I judge by the post, not the dots of the poster. There are many times I have felt that some of the people with 11 dots were on Mars with their rover (OOPPPs, did I say that). Ask Dave, John, or Andy and we have been on opposite sides of a discussion. Just because they out dotted me didn't make them right. Try as I might they sometimes just didn't see the light but that also doesn't stop us from agreeing on other issues or changing each other mind.

Dots are dots and if they disappear I wouldn't be too upset. People are starting to know me because of my posts. If they met me then they might change their mind. I guess it might be good to look back to the old days. Should we judge someone by their hair, clothes or DOTS, OR should we judge by actions and words. If by hair, I'm in trouble and if by clothes Dave is in trouble. :D