Welcome the Newbies

[teamtestbot]

Quick question...

What is this "rep" business and does it affect your account/forum operation at all? Or is it some sort of social benchmark, like "popularity" at schools? I see alot of posts about "giving" positive and negative reputations which makes me suspicious about the actual nature of it.

[Ryan M.]

Originally Posted by teamtestbot

What is this "rep" business

The green, gray, or red dots on the right side of the bar along the top of each post give you an idea about how, um, insightful (for a lack of a better word) each person is.

You can give a person rep on a post you like by clicking the scale icon () which is on the right side of the post. (near the rep images) You can see the rep you've received by going to your user cp.

Originally Posted by teamtestbot

does it affect your account/forum operation at all?

No.

Originally Posted by teamtestbot

Or is it some sort of social benchmark, like "popularity" at schools? I see alot of posts about "giving" positive and negative reputations which makes me suspicious about the actual nature of it.

The fact that the rep(utation) system is fairly opinionated causes all the discussions about it. A lot of it is a popularity contest, but you also have to remember that the people who are popular here are almost always the ones who are helpful.

Good question.

[teamtestbot]

Sounds a bit subjective. But if it's a good measure of a person's ability to help others, then it's acceptable.

Regardless, I would like to take the opportunity to remind everyone that getting caught up in popularity contests is destructive and frivolous. My advice to newbies who are worried about people lowering their 'rep'....is to not worry about it, go on your way, and be a good forum member.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by teamtestbot

Quick question...

What is this "rep" business and does it affect your account/forum operation at all? Or is it some sort of social benchmark, like "popularity" at schools? I see alot of posts about "giving" positive and negative reputations which makes me suspicious about the actual nature of it.

Search before yo.... er ah..

It is in the FAQs, Reputation FAQ

Wetzel

[ClintDog]

I agree that this may be scaring people off but, sensitivity is OK to a certain degree. Just realize that reposting is not the end of the world and life will go on. Give the newbies a break.

[sanddrag]

I hardly ever give negative to anyone. For me, it takes something pretty bad to get a negative rep. And also, I don't just go handing out positives too often either.

[mechanicalbrain]

personally i have two bad reps and both are in my opinion ridiculous.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

I will be one of the first to say it right out loud: I know that I can be very harsh sometimes with newbies. Patience isn't my natural strong suit, but I do try and sometimes I fail to be the member I wish to be and sometimes I succeed.

As I often read back in my posts, I think to myself in shame and say "How would I feel?" After doing this numerous times back in the day, my manner of responding to inexperienced questions and actions changed bit by bit until I felt that I responded with the adequate amount of grace needed to maintain self-respect in an intelligent and developing community.

I feel that many that have posted above me are very correct, but I will say that when I am sitting there posting, I find it difficult to tell myself and make excuses for a person. I realized that many months ago, and consciously chose to change my style or giving reputation.

In fact, I have made amazing friendships just be giving a rep point to someone when it looked like they were shy to post much but wanted to put in their 2 cents, or if the rep prompted a dialogue on an issue and later developed into a strong friendship. The same thing happens with private messages. Two examples of two best friends with whom the entire thing began with rep or private message? Neha & Bridgette. I love you guys...

Some people would say my giving of reputation is arbitrary. I give lots of it. I don't always give it for posts that I see that are long, or that give insight. I give reputation for effort. When I see a new individual, with a bit of rep, post a short comment in a thread that has a good function, I compliment them. Yes, negative rep is discouraging, but not recieving any rep at all is just as discouraging. I'm sure there are many people out there who check their rep screen every 20 minutes in hope of positive reinforcement in a unique community, where they may not get positive reinforcement for sharing information in their home, school, or robotics program.

[KORN_lover_2007]

This is a good thread, hopefully all the old members will read this and take in some consideration before giving bad reps. I'm glad this thread is helping welcome the newbies into our FIRST/cd family.

[Alex Burman]

one of the things that I'm still finding scary about CD is its immense size and population. Its the largest forum Ive seen on the Internet, and i just am afraid to put my topics in the wrong section that either ill get in trouble for miss placing it or not enough people will see it.

[Andrew Blair]

The biggest problem with the rep. system deals with relatively new members that are just starting to recieve actual rep. One negative rep point and you're in the hole all of a sudden, and thats really scary. You didn't have much to begin with, then all of a sudden you look at your rep. and say "They think I'm a bad guy!" Its too easy to get yourself into holes and too hard to get yourself out.

[Shu Song]

Originally Posted by Andrew Blair

The biggest problem with the rep. system deals with relatively new members that are just starting to recieve actual rep. One negative rep point and you're in the hole all of a sudden, and thats really scary. You didn't have much to begin with, then all of a sudden you look at your rep. and say "They think I'm a bad guy!" Its too easy to get yourself into holes and too hard to get yourself out.

That's not always the case. If you see someone with one red rep and only like 2 posts, obviously that person is a newbie who didn't know something about the rules. I can't really speak for anyone else, but if I saw someone with a red rep, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and now think of thm any differently.

[jason_931]

I joined 02-02-2005 and only 6 posts . I was usualy just lurking around here tring to get the feel of the place. Now I visit every day

[Steph]

I have been a CD member for quite a while now, yet have very few posts, but I am reading threads several times a day. I have taken on more of the "observer" type of role. There's a little bit of apprehension I suppose about posting, but it's more of the fact that I just love to listen (well, read) about what others have to say. I've learned a lot here on CD, and there's a good number of the regulars and newbies alike that I have to thank for that.

[EricH]

Probably the best way to give rep to a newbie who makes a mistake is to give neutral rep. Neutral is kind of like a warning, so it's like "hey, I did something wrong. I need to follow this guy's advice," or something like that. If the advice/warning is not followed, then consider negative. I mean, the guy is new, probably does not have the rules memorized or just simply made an error, and then someone hits him with negative, he's not going to like it. If he gets neutral, well, "a word to the wise is enough." He's not likely to make the same mistake again for a while, if at all.