Every phpbb rep module I ever saw already takes most of these concerns into consideration. Start with 0. The amount of rep you can give someone else is a tiny fraction of your own. Ie you need 100 rep points before you can add 1 to someone else's. You can make it 50:1, 400:1, whatever you want. You must rep x number of different users before you can rep someone you previously rep'ed.

The question is how to account for the users that have been here helping for years, have thousands of posts, and are well known contributors. It's unfair to start em off at 0 along with everyone else. 5 years and no rep sounds like you suck.. Besides, if everyone starts at 0, nobody will ever be able to give anyone else any rep points. To me it sounds fairest to use a combination of age, post count, helpful posts, and thanks. I'm looking forward to see how this turns out..

I'm going to start rolling the system out tonight. Starting tomorrow, mods will have the ability to give rep enabled so that the system can be tested further. From there we'll roll things out to additional usergroups. I'd appreciate any and all feedback you have during and after the rollout.

--jeremy

So...I take it the little green square things under people's usernames/info are part of this new "roll-out"? What are they supposed to indicate?

If I mouse over yours, I get a tooltip that says "jeremy is on a distinguished road"...huh?

They are an easily visible indication of what a member's current reputation is.

--jeremy

A quick note for those members interested in opting out of the reputation system. The setting will be found at:

Edit Options -> Show Your Reputation Level

--jeremy

As silly as it sounds, I think the complicated nature of the reputation system will require a very clear explanation that can be linked to in anticipation of all the "WTF?" posts/threads that I imagine are soon to follow. I definitely think it's a good idea, although I won't pretend to understand it 100% just yet. Who's on first always gets me too.

Apparently I'm 'on a distinguished road.' Where that road leads I have no idea. Reminds of that Talking Heads song: "Road To Nowhere."

Interesting new addition though.

I have an "add to prdeltoid's reputation" button but no "add to whoever else's reputation" button. I don't understand, is this some sort of problem? I can't add to anyone's reputation as far as I can tell, but it tells me I have the option to add to mine.

Few Points:

1. It would be much nicer if those reputations points would be shown as

Posts : 1876
Reputation : 450,

instead of that meaningless "green symbol" and "distinguished road" !

2. Remember the "blue thumb" for thanks. Most people could not figure out what it was ! The "silver symbol" for "Adding Reputation" is kinda same.
Can it be converted to a proper button which says "Add Reputation" ??

This button can be placed where "Thanks" used to be !!

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi,

I'm officialy lost now I found the option to 'opt out' of the reputation system but cannot find anything else like a button as indicated by prdeltoid.

I seem to be on a distinguished road too but can someone put me back on track please?

EDIT: Never mind. I got the 'silver symbol' Anisha referred to when posting. Let's see what comes next.

Kind regards,

Eric

So here I have just finished posting on the 'other thread' about thanks .. damn should have looked in the queue first

Anyhoo, M2C over here after reading all the posts and based on the details presented at the start:

* Any member (except for mods and admins) will be able to opt out of the reputation system.

Excellent!! ... No one should ever be forced to take part.

* Members in the "New Member" group will not be able to use the reputation system. Once a member makes a single post and is in the "Member" group, they will be able to leave positive reputation. A member in the "Senior Member" group or higher will be able to leave positive or negative reputation. All negative reputation will require a comment.

As has been stated by others I would agree with a zero (0) starting point. I also believe that you should have several posts under your belt before being able to vote,
ie not just one to put you in members group. I am not sure I agree with the not able to present a negative vote as soon as you can vote as first timers will be the most
impressionable and will not be jaded against 'oh that's just so and so he is always like that' and will say that the person is being a tosser.
Also, I would like to see even the positive sided vote have some kind of relevance against it as I said here so you can see maybe what fields this person is a particular level in.

* A member will need to have a certain amount of reputation before they can give reputation and the amount of reputation you'll be able to give will depend on how much you get.

Agreed

* There will be some kind of "spread" system, where $x amount of members will need to give a member reputation before the same member can use the system on the same member.

I presume this will be per thread? ie I vote for person_x under this thread to improve their rep but then on another completely different thread I should be able to vote
for them again.

* How many days a member has been registered and number of posts will likely play a small role.

As someone else has pointed out, this would need to be on some sort of rolling scenario as 200 posts in a week and then 10 for the next year could mean the individual is not very up to date anymore.

* There will likely be a tie-in with "Did you find this post helpful".

Agree with others that if Thanks is quantitative then so would this one be .. all fairly subjective.

* Reputation will be displayed in your UserCP and in some way in individual posts.

Good.

* Phase 2 of the system will probably include some forum specific component, where you have an LQ-wide reputation which can be broken down by on a per forum basis.

Definitely think there needs to be a break down by forums. eg I have never posted in Linux - Mobile forum so hard for me to have much rep there. Though this leads
me back to the idea of making the rep clickable to show that I do have good rep in other areas??

@jeremy - good luck .. this does seem like quite an undertaking to have it fit everyone's ideas

Good idea. I like the proposal because it aims to strengthen the interaction of all members on LQ. You ask -- get answers -- act on them -- report the results -- show what helped an where the solution came from.

But probably an additional project .

How about giving some rep to those members who get the daily zero-replies mail / hit the zero-replies button in the menu (and click on links contained therein)?

Hi Jeremy,

Nice to have this options, but I do have a request which could go inside anishakaul's wish.

Currently a black square is shown when you opt out. Black as in "Avoid like the Black Death / Plaque"?

I would like to see something anishakaul suggested:

Posts : 1000
Reputation : 10

Or when opted out:

Posts : 1000
Reputation : disabled

If you are not (yet) willing to show the reputation numbers you could use good, neutral, bad, not determined and (in plain black) disabled.

The colours and words used are just an example but they need to explain themselves without having to hover them. I do think everybody knows that green is "good" and red is "bad".

I'm curious to read what others have to say about this.

2 members found this post helpful.

There must be a terrible traffic-jam on this distinguished road. A tailback for 200 miles?
Could we have a little burst of music when mouse-overing the rep squares?
Green = Good = Stairway To Heaven
Black = Neutral = Road To Nowhere
Red = Bad = Road To Hell