You should really add a reputation system to this forum. Similar to the one used in bodybuilding.com forums and thestudentroom.co.uk. I’m sure it’s used in other forums as well.
Here’s how it works. Users can “rep” (green) or “neg” (red) other users. Let’s say that when you register your reputation is 0. If you make good posts or interesting posts, people might add to your reputation. If you troll or can’t argue coherently, people may add some negative reputation. How much “reps” or “negs” you are given is up to the other person.
This has been suggested many times before, but it was thought that it would detract from the nature of the board, and also that it would be used for bad, but that’s not to say that it’s a bad system
Even though it works for other sites it was voted that it wouldn’t benefit here due to the nature of the site - I’m sure others will have something to add on the matter in due course…
There are some easily forseen problems with a system like this.
Namely, posters like yourself who make snap judgements about others and then proceed to attack everything they have to say. You’d downvote people before you even read them.
Members develop a rep whether they want to or not. The bullies, trolls, general purpose shitheads, make themselves known rather quickly and are treated by the community as deserved. The same for the members who show honesty and maturity. We don’t need to create a rep system, it’s already in place.
I suggested it a couple of times back in the discussion that led to the Academy. It is a way of encouraging better writing, at least potentially, and one that does not require more mod work. It is also cumulative and more indirect. It is an ongoing generalized pressure. I have no idea if I would like the results, but it could be tried and then discarded. There could be a trial period with a community vote and then an autocratic decision by Carleas using whatever criteria he sees fit to use.
Every member has the ability, and forms opinions about other posters - just as you have about Blurry and myself. The utility of a rep system? And just what would that be? This isn’t Facebook, or a Facebook wannabe. There is no instant feedback loop in ILP and none is needed. Reputations are earned over time - good and bad. Supposedly, ILP is a place to learn. It isn’t a site devoted to superficial kissyface or kick ass instant reviews of equally superficial posts.
Philosophy is almost necessarily correlated with disagreement. People neg people they disagree with, and unpopular opinions begin to look like they’re coming from stupid people (with red bars by their name). That’s no fun.
It’s a terrible system wherever it exists, and it may show who is a good poster, but it equally may show who is a dumb ass, who likes to brown nose, be popular and suck as much of the proverbial cock as possible. It’s self defeating because you end up getting old time users with high rep just for being alive, and new users basically judged for having an opinion that the conservatives don’t like. It encourages hence even more than already exists a sort of let’s not say anything we really mean for fear of not being popular mentality.
In short it sucks and I don’t have the time to explain just how deeply any such system perverts the whole ethos of any forum. Even thumbs up thumbs down is like selling your soul to Satan for a chocolate bar.
But I’ve been on a board with a rep system where they took away -rep abilities from users, and only let mods do it. Users could still +rep each other. So it’s kinda like doing what everyone says they want, without letting them have the ability to be assholes to one another with it.
