Reputation system change

SafeDad · Apr 10, 2009

Reputation points are now limited to 4 clicks per day, meaning you will only be able to click the same member once per day.

If you cannot find enough worthy people to give a rep click in order to give it to the same person again, please consider visiting the upstairs forums. There are a large number of newer members giving great advice on child passenger safety and many could use a click or two to obtain access to the Community and Senior Community Member usergroups.

Reputation had been disabled on threads older than 3 months, but this has been increased to 6 months.

Additional changes to the reputation system may be made in the near future.

Guest · Apr 10, 2009

Man, how much time do you spend thinking about these things? Sounds like quite a lot of thought and discussion went into this. Appreciate all the hard work!

SafeDad · Apr 10, 2009

It's pretty simple. Every once in a while I check the reputation system, how many points are being given, who has the most points, etc. Once it hit critical mass, it's been increasing at a very high rate, but only by a relatively small subset of members. Outside of cutting the number of points earned per click, this is the only other way to drop it. Takes about a minute to change. If it affects things too much, it takes about a minute to switch it the other way. It's been changed at least a couple times since inception. It was originally 10 at the start, then it dropped to 4 or 5, up to 6, now down to 4. Or something like that.

Guest · Apr 10, 2009

Wow, the software's pretty powerful!

If it only affects a small subset of members, does it matter much? I mean, a lot of people don't even realize there is a reputation thing. Is it bad for that small group to have all those rep points? I appreciate when someone reps me, but the value I find is in seeing them make a statement expressing their thanks for my post. The actual numbers and green dots don't seem mean anything beyond bragging rights? But there's a huge gap btw people who have 1-4 dots and those that have a whole string of them.

I never noticed for the longest time. Jules mentioned how I needed to get some so I could view this post she was trying to show me, but even then, I didn't know what she was talking about until much later.

Heck, my first reputation point was negative.

Does that mean I started in the negatives?

SafeDad · Apr 10, 2009

No it doesn't matter much, but in the same fashion, generally only those people using reputation for a purpose that wasn't intended will be affected. In fact, we've debated turning the whole thing off from time to time.

Guest · Apr 10, 2009

Hmm, true. Well, I vote to keep it. I don't care if the points get taken away. I just appreciate a way to express my appreciation for someone's post, and it's nice to get that in return. Like eBay's feedback system. If the public green thingy gets taken away, I wouldn't mind. So long as we can keep repping and get reps.

SafeDad · Apr 10, 2009

No one should lose have lost any points with this change, nor should they lose points in the future due to periodic purges of posts in the community forums. I don't like to subtract points as a remedy; reducing how fast they can be earned is always preferable.

Judi · Apr 11, 2009

I like the public green thingies.

Mommy0608 · Apr 11, 2009

I don't mind the system. I have noticed some people have oodles of green thingies, and that's fine. I know many have earned them fair and square. However, I feel like I'll never catch up because I also know that many of those were earned through the chat forums that no longer allow rep (which I whole-heartedly agree with... rep should be for on-topic stuff, IMO). Hopefully people (newbies and regulars alike) don't judge the advice given based on the number of little green things a poster has.

Maedze · Apr 11, 2009

I think the little green things would be more fun if we could make them multi-colored. I like rainbows. Is there an app for that?

Pixels · Apr 11, 2009

Mommy0608 said:
I don't mind the system. I have noticed some people have oodles of green thingies, and that's fine. I know many have earned them fair and square. However, I feel like I'll never catch up because I also know that many of those were earned through the chat forums that no longer allow rep (which I whole-heartedly agree with... rep should be for on-topic stuff, IMO). Hopefully people (newbies and regulars alike) don't judge the advice given based on the number of little green things a poster has.

:yeahthat:

There are some people who, IMO, must have earned nearly all of their oodles of green boxes through the CM/SCM forums, simply from the observation that they rarely post upstairs. On a carseat forum, reputation should reflect the community's opinion of that member with regards to carseats.

SafeDad · Apr 11, 2009

pixels99 said:
:yeahthat:

There are some people who, IMO, must have earned nearly all of their oodles of green boxes through the CM/SCM forums, simply from the observation that they rarely post upstairs. On a carseat forum, reputation should reflect the community's opinion of that member with regards to carseats.

That was the original intent, however, there is no system within the software that could enforce this. So, while the original concept is an ideal, it has pretty much evolved into a just-for-fun thing. As long as it isn't causing moderation hassles, it will probably remain that way, with periodic adjustments like this one.

Simplysomething · Apr 11, 2009

Those of us who don't post must upstairs---for what it's worth, rep hasn't always been around. And when we did post often upstairs--there were no downstairs forums. Off topic chit chat was the coffee break forum (which is now the carseats forum--not the CMC). The only private forum (that I'm aware of) at the time was the CPST forum.

There were far fewer regular posters than there are now, so it sometimes felt necessary to post more in the advice forums. Now, there are tons of advocates and CPST's, so we don't need to post in the advice forums as much. Someone has it covered.

Things have changed.

As for newbies putting stock into the line of squares, I doubt it. So many regular posters have posted "rep? what's that? How do I turn it on?" after someone has mentioned it in the past. Many times they don't even realize that the names of posters are color coded, or note that CPST's have the title under their user name.

Darren, I'll be sad if you take away my pretty green squares. I'll pout about it, and everything!

(For what it's worth, before D. reset the thingy to disable rep for old posts, I'd still get a click here and there for the radian thread I started forever ago. I'm just saying).

I do wish we could still give rep in the community forums.

SafeDad · Apr 11, 2009

Don't worry, as long as no one is complaining about it, there are no plans to get rid of your green squares;-)

Simplysomething · Apr 11, 2009

Well, so long as MY little green squares stay, I'll be fine and dandy.

ketchupqueen · Apr 11, 2009

Interesting. Apparently the "four a day" does not go by date, but by 24 hour period-- and I have no idea when the period started. :shrug-shoulders:

I was trying to follow the admonition to give more upstairs rep, especially to helpful newer members, but, um, apparently I have to wait a few hours. Will try to remember to go rep that post.

lovinwaves · Apr 11, 2009

Simplysomething said:
(For what it's worth, before D. reset the thingy to disable rep for old posts, I'd still get a click here and there for the radian thread I started forever ago. I'm just saying).

:thumbsup:

I still get rep for the "Finding a rear-facing tether in an Ody."

For those of you wanting some more rep, consider contributing an article to the "Articles, Reviews, and FAQs" thread.

Here is the link to how to submit an article, along with some examples: http://www.car-seat.org/announcement.php?f=11

SafeDad · Apr 11, 2009

Simplysomething said:
Well, so long as MY little green squares stay, I'll be fine and dandy.

Would it be better if I got rid of everyone else's except yours?

SafeDad · Apr 11, 2009

It could be 24 hours, that isn't adjustable unfortunately.

SafeDad · Apr 11, 2009

Simplysomething said:
(For what it's worth, before D. reset the thingy to disable rep for old posts, I'd still get a click here and there for the radian thread I started forever ago. I'm just saying).

I do wish we could still give rep in the community forums.

I'll increase it again the next time I do maintenance, if I don't forget.

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