What happened to the reputation...?

[RatherBeAtDLand]

Hi, I am wondering what happened to the reputation. It seems to be completely missing.

[ScottG]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

Yes if this is the big change then I'm all for it.

[MrsMonroe]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

people abusing it probably

[RegionsBeyond]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

An announcement and further tweaks to the system are still coming: this is the first day of implementation after all Reputation still exists but the manner of giving it has changed, as well as the displays for public areas, to make it both simpler and more accurate for both staff and our members as well as making it more 'user-friendly' in viewing the forums.

[RatherBeAtDLand]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

Ah, okay. Looks good! I just wish we had more of a thumbs up/thumbs down system like YouTube and comments that got too many thumbs down or were reported as abuse would be hidden. But then again, I guess there's downsides to every system. Thanks for the quick response!

Just to clarify, we still get to know our reputation, right?

[RegionsBeyond]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

Ah, okay. Looks good! I just wish we had more of a thumbs up/thumbs down system like YouTube and comments that got too many thumbs down or were reported as abuse would be hidden. But then again, I guess there's downsides to every system. Thanks for the quick response!

Just to clarify, we still get to know our reputation, right?

We are working on that aspect, given previously, the 'like/dislike' aspect to it didn't work out so well as far as accurately representing the posting habits of many members for a variety of reasons.

And yes, when you receive a positive or negative point, you privately will see such, just like before. The specifics of the negative is being worked out as that now features a drop-down list of reasons which should be visible to the receiving member (but not who gave them such, to prevent attempts of retaliation just in case) which will allow moderator and member oversight to be easier in case of improperly given rep.

[Mr Wiggins]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

Might want to consider adding a few more categories to both the Helpful and Unhelpful choices (especially the latter). A "comment" space would help members explain the reason for giving a rep point, positive or negative, when it isn't covered by the category list.

[ScottG]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

I got a pos rep today and was able to see who gave it to me. That is a plus imo but we should also be able to see who gives us negative rep. After all, some people are more brave when they're anonymous. It also gives me the ability to straighten things out with someone who may have misconstrued my point or to identify someone with an agenda. The one time I got neg rep I was able to figure out who it was and because it wasn't deemed warranted by a mod, it was removed. This left a bad taste in my mouth and I have never forgotten who that person was so I can avoid them and more hassle. (His posts are often negative and of little interest to me anyway).
Sorry, guess I got off on a tangent!:blush:

[Mr Wiggins]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

That is a plus imo but we should also be able to see who gives us negative rep.

I disagree. It would guarantee retribution and cliques.

After all, some people are more brave when they're anonymous.

Seeing as how all 52,000+ members of this site are anonymous unless they choose to give their names, anonymity is irrelevant to the argument that neg rep givers should be ID'd. The administration knows who they are, which is sufficient.

Having received a lot of neg rep votes, and having reported nearly all of them to the administration for review, I can verify that the admins deal with removing them fairly. The ones they don't remove, they explain why.

Posts that don't snark, mock, label, disparage, diminish or dismiss the opinions of other members or groups of members, and which don't violate MiceChat's rules about political, religious and racial comments, don't deserve neg rep. If they don't fall in those categories, and they get a neg vote, a PM to a mod takes care of it. Simple. (And if the person who gave the neg rep for no good reason continues doing so, they can lose their ability to give rep at all.) Pretty fair, IMO.

[ScottG]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

I rather thought you may disagree with me Mr. Wiggins and that's ok.
In America we have the right to face our accusers. That's a system that has proven effective.

[penguinsoda]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

I disagree. It would guarantee retribution and cliques.

And this is exactly why we don't allow members to see "who" gave them the neg rep. Back in the day when it was visible who did it we had a lot of issues with people retaliating against the other person by both neg repping back, and getting their "friends" to do the same thing.

Unfortunately human nature being what it is, that type of behavior happens more often that someone "trying to work things out" with the other person. While my personal belief has always been that the member should be able to see the comment attached to the neg point as a learning tool, I have never thought they should know who it was that gave it.

The moderating team does spend a lot of time reviewing rep comments and numbers, even when members don't ask us to. We are constantly, as part of our jobs looking at rep given, both positive and negative to see if its being given fairly and for specific rules... not just for FaceBook "like" responses. Its part of our job, we are happy to do it and will continue to do so through the changes to a new system.

MiceChat is always growing and changing. We've gone through a lot of different systems over the last 7 or so years, and as time goes on we will continue to try out new and different things. Nothing will ever be 100% perfect or will ever make 100% of the community happy. Thats just not reality. We just, as a team working with the owners of the site try to work out the best system for US... not what works for someone else but what works for the uniqueness of this site and this membership.

[jcruise86]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

If I die today,
please remember that near the very end of my life I had become officially "very helpful."

[Barbaraann]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

I recall many comments from MiceChatters about not liking the labeling of helpful and unhelpful. I took pride in being a helpful MiceChatter, and I did notice those who had the very helpful title. It definitely did sometimes put a slant on how I viewed a MiceChatter's post when I saw the unhelpful label. So will I miss it? Not sure. I am wondering however, how the system will function now to keep the site a friendly one. I guess much more will be done behind the scenes. Moderators do a great job, and hopefully the new way will be successful.

[RegionsBeyond]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

Individual users can see their exact points received and current value, all that has been done in that regard is making the level each member is at not publicly visible to others. This was done for a variety of reasons, but primarily to make the system more fair and to promote unity rather than the unintended consequence of 'labeling' users with what was intended originally to be a system for solely flagging people who sought to openly break rules or engage in trolling, or spam the forum with advertisements.

It did not work out as desired, frankly, with the visible user labels and was actually harmful in terms of with the rep points coming in for all manner of reasons which could easily be not valid and site staff having difficulty handling every single case of improperly given points (which this overhaul also addresses), and the massive influx of not-valid reputation points could make it so individual users were wrongly labeled publicly (both on the helpful or unhelpful side of the equation) before the problem could be remedied. The titles were not functioning as intended and were resulting only in creating a divisive atmosphere in many cases, so the removal of the public titles and a pre-approved list of statements for reputation points was agreed upon by site staff as the most fair option while still keeping a reputation system intact to allow site members to award good posts and quality discussion, and flag ones that broke rules/mocked other members or were meant to troll the site.

[Barbaraann]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

I have always applauded MiceChat for letting it's members have a say. First about the posts themselves, and secondly about the self moderation system that has been in place (in one form or another) for the majority of time that MiceChat has been around.

[StevenW]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

I feel the reputations are used poorly. I gotten bad rating from people who didn't "like" my posts rather than anything about "abusive" posts. Sometimes I received comments, but mostly I don't and the reputation ratings are usually anonymous so I cannot tell who gave them to me. Therefore, comments should be categorized and traceable so I can understand why and/or bring this to a moderator for correction. Perhaps have a reference # number.

Also, you should time out the reputations. I received reputation ratings 3 days and beyond from the original posting date. This is ridiculous. Usually, the thread has died, yet I am still getting a hit on my post.

[Barbaraann]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

Members need to be educated about the proper way to use Reputation. That is why I applaud threads like these where, as members, we are allowed to state our concerns and discuss the process. Moderators are always available to help a member who feels that they have not been treated fairly with the reputation process. A member can contact a moderator, or report a post, and the matter will be looked into.

[Sambo]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

It was nice to be seen for a while as "Helpful." I am on occasion helpful to others. I am also liberal in my use of acerbic humor and often misunderstood because of it. I have also gotten negative rep and probably deserved every one.

Operating my own forums, I too have struggled with a rep system. Where I have found them to work not at all well is when they try to be too many things in one package - A place to acknowledge someone's help or a place to give a thumbs up for an informative post, a place to report an unpopular viewpoint, a place to report abuse of the rules, and even as a voting or popularity poll. The more things a rep system tries to do, the less effective it becomes at each. Anything can be misunderstood although it seems intuitively obvious to many. I had someone ask me what the stars were for. I responded it is an indication of number of posts. They said that couldn't be it since the number of posts is clearly marked, it must be how important their posts are - a trust level. I had to show them where the explanation for the stars could be found, and they were disappointed. Everything can be misunderstood as we are individuals with our own way of seeing the world.

When it comes to rep systems, it is not an easy task to find what works best and has the most value to members as well as staff. Sometimes simplicity gives the best answer, sometimes it will not provide the answer to a more complex set of goals. What I do know is that it is not an easy task. I hope you all are able to sort it out and get one step closer to the holy grail.

[ghosty4]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

For a day everything was green and BRIGHT GREEN with a few traces of red. I'm glad that went away rather quickly! :thumbup:

[mratigan]

Re: What happened to the reputation...?

only have positive