[skyhawk133]

The "Reputation" system at Dream.In.Code replaced the old "Thanks" system. We have outlined the following rules and best practices to ensure the Reputation system is used correctly and appropriately.

Users who are found to be abusing the Reputation system or violating any of the Reputation rules will lose their member badge and be placed in a group which can not utilize the reputation system. Subsequent violations may result in a permanent ban.

Best Reputation Practices

• DO give POSITIVE (+) reputation to posts that answer a question correctly, are intelligent, well written, or helpful.
  
• DO give NEGATIVE (-) reputation to posts that are incorrect, insulting or mean, unhelpful, or trolling.
  
• Spread the love! Help new members get their first positive reputation for a nice introduction, or a helpful reply.

Reputation Rules

• DO NOT ask or beg for reputation in your posts (you CAN put a single line in your signature to encourage positive reputation)
  
• DO NOT give NEGATIVE (-) reputation just because you don't like the answer. If you broke the rules, it's your fault, not the person that told you.
  
• DO NOT give NEGATIVE reputation to another member because of a grudge, retaliation, or disagreement.
  
• DO NOT give NEGATIVE reputation just because you disagree with someones opinion in "Heated Topics" or the "Caffeine Lounge"
  
• DO NOT in any way, shape, or form attempt to manipulate your or another members reputation. This includes "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" type agreements or voting UP another members posts just to inflate their reputation. Any unnatural repping will be spotted and punished.
  
• DO NOT vote for your own posts using another account.

Reporting Reputation Abuse
ABUSE is repeated and ongoing abuse of the reputation system by a member. ABUSE IS NOT someone down voting a couple of your posts you thought were helpful. If you see someone continually down voting the same person over and over, or down voting every post in a thread, or any sort of voting pattern that seems to violate any of the rules, you can go to that members profile and click "Report" to alert the moderation staff.

Do not abuse the report system. Only report legitimate abuses to the system.

[dorknexus]

Sounds good to me. Good to hear it will be closely monitored.

[Martyn.Rae]

All bases seem well covered there. All my concerns have been quashed.

Well done skyhawk133 and all who have formulated this superb system.

Excellent.

[capty99]

i'm fine with it.

i won't hate you for today.

[SwiftStriker00]

Looks like some good rules to me.

I would like to urge you all that points are for measuring quality of a post, you should up vote only if you think that many people would benefit from reading the post, and down vote only if its a shear waste of time or so unintelligible that it does no benefit to the community.

Were all aware if you in your in an argument with someone your not going to up vote their good points, but that is the basis on intelligent decisions and discussions. When two parties seriously consider the other person regardless if they believe it to be right.

Also if you see a new member using the cliche "gimme code kthnxbye." Go ahead and down vote them, but don't do it if they are already -2 or -3, its good to get the point across, but some of the posters are innocently asking either by not reading or not grasping the rules, lets not discourage them from the community because after their first post they are -15.

By no means what I said are rules nor do you have to follow them, just guidelines that I will follow, and I think others should for the benefit of the community

[Bort]

Quote

DO NOT give NEGATIVE reputation just because you disagree with someones opinion in "Heated Topics" or the "Caffeine Lounge"

Does this mean that everyone in the lounge who has been marked down already will have their posts marked back up to 0?

[BenignDesign]

Does this mean I can report people for repeatedly downvoting me to keep me at "69"?

Cuz it was amusing the first 12 times... getting a little old now....

[EdwinNameless]

Good stuff!

Good luck in enforcing these rules, though:

skyhawk133, on 25 February 2010 - 05:29 AM, said:

[*]DO NOT give NEGATIVE reputation to another member because of a grudge, retaliation, or disagreement.
[*]DO NOT give NEGATIVE reputation just because you disagree with someones opinion in "Heated Topics" or the "Caffeine Lounge"
[*]DO NOT in any way, shape, or form attempt to manipulate your or another members reputation. This includes "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" type agreements or voting UP another members posts just to inflate their reputation. Any unnatural repping will be spotted and punished.

You're basically asking users to be *objective* when up/down voting a post, and judge the content of the post and ignore who the poster is. Somehow I have the feeling this is a near impossible task for most of the regular users.

I wouldn't like to be in the Moderators' shoes when it comes to decide whether a post has been up/down voted according to these rules. Not sure what their current workload is, but it'll be interesting how much time will be spent dealing with the extra "Reports".

SwiftStriker00's point about new members getting downvoted straightaway is an excellent one, and I think this should be enforced at the code level, rather than hoping that the users will regulate themselves.

[dorknexus]

Quote

I think this should be enforced at the code level, rather than hoping that the users will regulate themselves.

You probably also support big government. You bastard...

This post has been edited by Dark_Nexus: 25 February 2010 - 04:59 AM

[carltech]

What if I find a post funny and think others should read it?
Is that a waste of a +?

I hope not

How critical should I be when voting on reps?
THE STRESS

This post has been edited by carltech: 25 February 2010 - 05:55 AM

[EdwinNameless]

Dark_Nexus, on 25 February 2010 - 10:58 AM, said:

Quote

I think this should be enforced at the code level, rather than hoping that the users will regulate themselves.

You probably also support big government. You bastard...

I'm more on the realistic side: a forum with no safeguard is a forum littered with spam, flaming, trolling and all the Usenet niceties. Users don't self-moderate, hence the need for a moderation team. Users don't read the rules, hence the constant need for moderators to state them again and again.

[SwiftStriker00]

Yes if you think its funny, i don't see why you shouldn't up vote it. You should be critical enough not to abuse the system, if you can find in your conscience yourself innocent of that, by all means vote as much as you can.

I think were all trying to really cautious about the whole thing, because we are not sure how this going to go. Maybe if we stress proper behavior with the tool now, we can avoid the majority misusing it?

between skyhawk133's emense effort, and the fact that there are many who care about their reputation (i.e. Pwn's Post and myself), we really dont want it to be messed up

Quote

I'm more on the realistic side: a forum with no safeguard is a forum littered with spam, flaming, trolling and all the Usenet niceties. Users don't self-moderate, hence the need for a moderation team. Users don't read the rules, hence the constant need for moderators to state them again and again.

function downvote( user ){
 if( user.postcount > 5 || user.reputation > -2)
     user.reputation--;
 else
     alert( be nice to newbies! );
}

This post has been edited by SwiftStriker00: 25 February 2010 - 07:05 AM

[BenignDesign]

EdwinNameless, on 25 February 2010 - 08:47 AM, said:

... a forum with no safeguard is a forum littered with ...flaming, trolling...

You're trying to get rid of me, aren't you?

Edit: Double post, button lag.

This post has been edited by BenignDesign: 25 February 2010 - 07:39 AM

[skyhawk133]

Bort, on 25 February 2010 - 01:38 AM, said:

Does this mean that everyone in the lounge who has been marked down already will have their posts marked back up to 0?

Nope. We're adjusting things and will deal with abuse on a case by case basis. So far, we haven't seen any real major abuse of the system. There have been a few cases where things have gotten carried away. And there have been a few cases where someone down voted some things they probably shouldn't have, but really for the most part, it's going smoothly.

EdwinNameless, on 25 February 2010 - 02:59 AM, said:

Good stuff!

Good luck in enforcing these rules, though:

You're basically asking users to be *objective* when up/down voting a post, and judge the content of the post and ignore who the poster is. Somehow I have the feeling this is a near impossible task for most of the regular users.

Rules usually require people to exercise some sort of discretion. I don't expect everyone to remain 100% objective, and I don't expect everyone to follow the rules to a 'T'. You don't get thrown in jail, or even a ticket for breaking the speed limit every time. The rules are there to discourage abuse, and give the team a basis for which to punish egregious abuse and obvious misuse of the system. We're not going to stare at every post and every up/down vote deciding if it's breaking the rules.

As the system evolves we will probably implement some basic code to look for strange patterns within the system. Like any new feature, it's not always clear how it will be used and abused, so we just have to play it by ear, deal with the functionality we have currently, and try to stay a little bit ahead of the game.

[Bort]

skyhawk133, on 25 February 2010 - 06:54 AM, said:

Bort, on 25 February 2010 - 01:38 AM, said:

Does this mean that everyone in the lounge who has been marked down already will have their posts marked back up to 0?

Nope. We're adjusting things and will deal with abuse on a case by case basis. So far, we haven't seen any real major abuse of the system. There have been a few cases where things have gotten carried away. And there have been a few cases where someone down voted some things they probably shouldn't have, but really for the most part, it's going smoothly.

So what about people such as Theaegd who are already on over 100 negative rep because things 'got carried away'? Granted, his posts weren't exactly the best in the world, but most of the regulars (experts, mods, alumni I'm talking about here) have seriously stacked negative points on some of his posts in the caffeine lounge, apparently because they don't like him, or at least that is the impression I got. I did notice in one of his OPs though, he actually took some advice on board and offered his own opinion on something, as had been mentioned to him previously, yet this time round, he just got flamed anyways.