Re: Reputation system..
 

I completely agree with Jane.

I give green rep points if someone makes a really good point in the hopes that they will continue to make really good points (and therefore continue to teach me and others)

Re: Reputation system..
 

I use the system to give credit where credit is due but I personally don't like the system.

I am a super moderator over at badcaps.net forums and there they disabled the reputation system. At least at that forum it was somewhat useless; usually one could see how good someone is based on how they post and what they post. I along with a few members sometimes have very unpopular opinions; I know that we'd get spammed with negative rep over it.

Over here that doesn't seem to be as big of an issue although in the past I have gotten some negative rep for IMHO stupid things. One was for questioning the opinion of some who the person giving the rep was "above being questioned". Another was for making a point that the person giving the rep thought was "unhelpful". There are other thigns I've been given that were kinda dumb but that's beside the point.

The other thing I'd like to point out is that humans typically have a stronger reaction to negative feedback as oppossed to positive feedback. As my dad once told me, "it takes 100 'Atta-Boy!'s' to counteract one 'you [stink]!' " This why I rarely if ever give negative (or for that matter neutral) feedback.

Re: Reputation system..
 

This is exactly why I rarely give negative rep unless the person is just generally being harassing or offensive and won't listen to anything else. I prefer neutral rep if they are being jerks and occasionally even use pos rep to ask them to chill out.

I'ma paraphrase my friend Santosh, the moment I start caring about dots on the internet I hope someone hits me.

Re: Reputation system..
 

Just mirroring everything said above already. Low rep doesn't mean anything unless you're in the red zone, which isn't good at all. Likewise, having the max rep doesn't mean you're Andy Baker (Unless you are Andy Baker, in which the previous statement becomes invalid).

All in all, a well thought-out and intelligent post benefits the community regardless of reputation (And it may even earn you some ;))

Re: Reputation system..
 

I haven't been giving (or receiving) much reputation, but I think that I'm going to start.

When reading a post, I don't pay much attention to reputation. Even someone with few posts and therefore a low reputation can contribute to a thread.

Re: Reputation system..
 

We don't agitate the dots.

Re: Reputation system..
 

It's like the old E.F. Hutton commercial ("... people listen"), when Andy Baker hits the green button, people notice.*

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*I only know of one instance when Andy hit the red button, and that was in a thread that went on far too long and became extremely unproductive.
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Re: Reputation system..
 

I give negative reputation for repeat inaccurate or misleading posts.

Re: Reputation system..
 

I personally subscribe to the idea that they are just dots in most cases. I tease certain friends because I have them and they don't, but it's only in jest and I don't actually think having a lot of dots makes me better than them. It's just a fun little tid-bit to look at when someone posts.

I will consider them if the person in question has one or more red dot, but even then, I don't base how much I listen to that person on what their reputation bar says. Every single person on Chief Delphi is entitled to their own opinion, so if the person in question said something and a group of people didn't like it and destroyed their reps, I won't disregard the person for having their own opinion, or just for having an opinion that differs from others (example: the mentor vs student built debate is a common CD topic. If someone speaks out against teams with "mentor built" robots and gets massacred in rep points, I won't disregard the person because their opinion differed from others and some people were offended by it).

I don't really make frequent use of giving reps, and I've never given negative reps. For the most part, I use it to thank people for saying something I found useful.

One thing I do note, is that CD users with full reputation bars are generally very reliable and noteworthy people (Karthik, JVN, Jim Zondag, Ether, etc, etc.). So if someone has a full bar of reps, I'll generally take that as a sign that they are a reliable and helpful person.

Re: Reputation system..
 

Reading this, I tried to think back... I can't remember really seeing anyone with a negative reputation posting. I may have just not noticed, or ignored those threads, or whatever.

So, I looked at the (sorted) member list. We have 402 members here with a negative reputation. Approx. 3500 members have actually accumulated some amount of reputation (more than 1 dot). We have 28,000+ total members on the members list (oddly, the CD stats puts that number at 44,000+...). Some interesting numbers.

Unfortunately, there's no option to "search posts by reputation" so we can see which posts received the most positive reputation, and which ones the most negative. Personally, I think it would be pretty interesting to see what the highest rated post of all time was on here!

Re: Reputation system..
 

To take Jon's point one step further, let's look at the top two members in terms of rep. #1 is Karthik Kanagasabapathy, who shows as a rookie in 1998. #2 is Andy Baker, who shows the same rookie year. Both men have one world championship to their credit; Andy has a CMP Finalist as well. Karthik outranks in CMP Chairman's, 1 to 0. In their time on CD, Andy has roughly twice as many posts as Karthik - does that mean KK is twice as clever / insightful / humo(u)rous / reputable as AB?

(rhetorical question; I wouldn't want anybody to try to answer that.)

By the way, the fella who comes in third to these guys? Just landed another car on Mars. He's gotta use two hands to count them all.

The first page (50 members) is a who's who of important figures; it's encouraging that almost all of them are still active on Chief Delphi - those that aren't are still mainstays at competitions.

It bears noting that DSK is well represented on that list.

Re: Reputation system..
 

What? I only see one Kamen and she isn't a brother ;)

For what its worth, I'd estimate that 1/2 to 3/4 of my karma are from jokes and sarcasm rather than useful information :p

Re: Reputation system..
 

That's one of those headaches of a rating posts and posters. It's hard to say whether a post was of a useful social or technical merit and to whom with what viewpoint. It's even harder to quantify the reasons of the person rating the post on a technical level. Worse one has no idea of the exposure of the reader to the topics in general so one doesn't know from how much experience of the forum quality they judge a post or poster.

It's a fun and fast way to let other people know you like something. On the negative side I'm not sure it's specific enough to deter anything. On the other side, as others have pointed out, leaving negative feedback knowing it is nebulous seems like the sort of thing that's just looking to polarize a situation.

Re: Reputation system..
 

It is an interesting phenomenon:
Post something which you think is really cool, and helpful = almost no rep.
Post something where you call out an idiot for being an idiot = tons of rep.

The internet is a strange place. They're just dots.

-John

Re: Reputation system..
 

Looking through rep I've received, this trend is 99% accurate.