This change is dumb.
The reputation system is, in theory, based on a feedback loop. Literally. People give you bonuses for posts they like, and penalties for posts they don't. That's the feedback - by seeing what produced the rep change, you learn what's good or bad. With comments, they also can tell you why they did or did not like the post, which reinforces the feedback.
Right now, not only can you not tell what they did or didn't like, you can't even tell what posts were favorable or not. That completely breaks the feedback loop. All you get is a vague sense of your rep going up or down. You don't know why or for what without annoying digging around.
If you must go this route, a far more sensible change would be to disable comments. At least let people know what posts were positive and which were negative.
If you're not going to do that, I think you should just disable the system.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Another in a long line of changes made to appease whiny babies who post more prolifically and probably break more forum rules than the "offenders." Ugh.
At least give us the option to see them. You've removed what little amusement I can get from these mostly terrible forums.
Well, at least I still got this:
"Your examples are ridiculous. You're unlikely to have a black friend to tell you that, but a black friend is likely to point out racism that you will miss. And a woman will point out sexism that you will miss. You don't get to be the final arbiter."
Whoever is leaving these comments really should engage me in an actual conversation. They're likely to learn a lot from it. I wasn't the one dealing in stupid absolutes, but I'm happy to play that game better than you are. Oh, anonymous internet moron. You give me so many smiles.
Oh, and 4 + to 1 -
Wow, this is even more awesome(ly stupid) than the warning about rep comments earlier. So now you've basically conceded to the whining minority who instead of posting logically just ranted and whined and were surprised when they discovered people didn't like their posts. Now, not only can I not see where I'm getting my rep from, I can't see what it is unless I hunt through all my posts trying to find out what kind of rep, if any, a post gave me. And that's not an easy task when you make a lot of posts. Seriously, just disable the ability to rep comment. Hell, disable rep entirely - I can't believe it was turned on in the first place, and it was then turned into a game!? Turning the rep system into a "forum game" completely defeats the purpose of the rep system as a method of feedback, not to mention we already have a "forum game" section called... *gasp* "Forum Games."
From the vBulletin Manual:
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| User Reputation in its simplest form is a ranking of your user's benefit to your forum. |
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| User reputation can be a divisive element of your forum so great care should be taken before a decision is made to enable it. |
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
Yup, its worse than useless now.
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
Searching for your comments is a pain in the tush...I'm going to go rep some posts on the last forum page so no one sees it to cheer myself up.
Yeah, I appreciate the positive comments I've gotten so far during some interesting game discussions, and I'll miss reading future positive comments. And given the nature of the few negative rep comments I got, they were best voluntarily ignored anyway, although I called one of them out.
I understand the mods' position in that it gives less cause for them to have to intervene due to rep comments made in violation of the forum guidelines.
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Indeed.|
Originally Posted by perwira
I understand the mods' position in that it gives less cause for them to have to intervene due to rep comments made in violation of the forum guidelines.
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It's so very onerous, having to do the job you're paid for.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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That's a bit over the top and unnecessarily insulting. Par for the course with you, we know.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Indeed.
It's so very onerous, having to do the job you're paid for. |
If someone handed me, as a sysadmin, the job to monitor what nastigrams were being sent between my employees using, oh say yahoo messenger, I would just block the messenger executable from functioning on my domain.
It makes sense to nuke the comments as a waste of moderator time. It makes more sense to nuke the ability to comment at all. Doing one without the other is silly unless they CAN'T remove the ability to comment at all and want to keep the pretty red and green dots.
Be well, people of CoH.
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That's why I understand Niviene's post. The mods really do have other and better things to do than to deal with the neg rep comments that cross the line.
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Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
It makes sense to nuke the comments as a waste of moderator time.
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So can we just have comments disabled but still have the system show us which posts got the rep? It's totally pointless otherwise. It's like telling you your overall grade on a test but not letting you know what you got wrong or right. You can't learn or improve if you don't know why you got what you got.
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Originally Posted by perwira
That's why I understand Niviene's post. The mods really do have other and better things to do than to deal with the neg rep comments that cross the line.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Dispari,
Do you REALLY think that the rep system has ever, in any way, actually caused someone to change their normal behavior on this forum?
I've only stopped posting my mind as I see fit because I don't feel like getting banned yet.
Be well, people of CoH.
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Dispari, I agree. I enjoy reading the comments I get, either way. Especially as a novice poster in these forums, the comments are both encouraging and informative. And some of it has been fun (scapperlock lore abound!).|
Originally Posted by Dispari
So can we just have comments disabled but still have the system show us which posts got the rep? It's totally pointless otherwise. It's like telling you your overall grade on a test but not letting you know what you got wrong or right. You can't learn or improve if you don't know why you got what you got.
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I don't know if this is a feasible technical solution or not, but perhaps doing away with neg rep entirely while keeping positive rep will reduce the number of comments that cross the forum guidelines. This would be nice to have, although it seems that the forum software likely does not provide for exclusively removing neg rep and comment while keeping and displaying positive rep.
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Nope, not really.
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Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Dispari,
Do you REALLY think that the rep system has ever, in any way, actually caused someone to change their normal behavior on this forum? I've only stopped posting my mind as I see fit because I don't feel like getting banned yet. |
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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It influenced the nature of the posts I made to a small degree, and the types of emotes I use! v|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Dispari,
Do you REALLY think that the rep system has ever, in any way, actually caused someone to change their normal behavior on this forum? I've only stopped posting my mind as I see fit because I don't feel like getting banned yet. |
v
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Hold up a sec. When I clicked to give rep to myself on a post in this thread to check my points, I was able to see comments left. Is this WAI, or did I miss details on exactly what the changes were?
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WARNING: This post contain rampant speculation.|
Originally Posted by Swamp_Goblin
Hold up a sec. When I clicked to give rep to myself on a post in this thread to check my points, I was able to see comments left. Is this WAI, or did I miss details on exactly what the changes were?
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I would guess that it is both WAI and not WAI. NCSoft did not write the forum software themselves so I assume that when the server admins (or whoever) made the changes to the rep system they simply changed it so that the comments are not displayed on your control panel rather than attempting to remove them entirely since that change is probably significantly easier. The fact that you can view comments on individual posts was presumably left in either because removing it was to complicated to do in the time available or because the person specifying the change was unaware that the feature existed (note that several people expressed surprise in this thread that you could still view comments that way.
As for why it is both WAI and not WAI. I expect that the mods ideally wanted to make it so that we could never see comment in which case the change is not WAI. However the primary goal of the mods with this change was to lower the number of complaints that they receive about abusive rep comments (since it distracts them from more important duties). From that point of view the change is pretty much WAI. As I noted earlier without an easily accessible summary very few people are going to spend time checking their posts on the off chance that someone left them negative feedback. So therefore even if people still go around leaving abusive feedback the original poster is very unlikely to see it and therefore complain about it to the mods.
That does make sense. At least it's a work around for those who want to see the comments.
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I have to agree with this in a big way. I enjoyed seeing the +rep comments I got when I made interesting posts or threads, which motivated me to try harder and post better content that would be more interesting for people. By the same token, I always dreaded posting things I KNEW would get me negative rep comments, and so I did that less often.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
The reputation system is, in theory, based on a feedback loop. Literally. People give you bonuses for posts they like, and penalties for posts they don't. That's the feedback - by seeing what produced the rep change, you learn what's good or bad. With comments, they also can tell you why they did or did not like the post, which reinforces the feedback.
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Now... Who cares? I'm anonymous again.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
However as others have said without comments the whole rep system is pretty much pointless.
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As opposed to being pointless when there were comments........
We're arguing over what color to paint our imaginary friends.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
At least let people know what posts were positive and which were negative.
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And here I was thinking we were only letting those smart enough to already have realized this distinction on these boards, without the need for an exceedingly poorly structured feedback system.
The feedback system here is kinda like letting a blind man analyze your drawing ability. Sure, he can give you comments, but that doesn't mean they're worth anything.
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False. I've gotten plenty of meaningful comments, both positive and negative, which have helped me understand what I'm doing wrong and what I'm doing right. It's only pointless if you believe that everyone but you is a worthless idiot incapable of leaving you a meaningful comment.
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Originally Posted by brophog02
As opposed to being pointless when there were comments........
We're arguing over what color to paint our imaginary friends. |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Hmmm. So now rep is completely useless rather than being useless but entertaining.|
Originally Posted by Niviene
That's the part that got tweaked.
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So how does that gel with the original comment about it being "Just a fun little forum game"?
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It stopped being fun for the mods? Just a guess.
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Originally Posted by Carnifax
Hmmm. So now rep is completely useless rather than being useless but entertaining.
So how does that gel with the original comment about it being "Just a fun little forum game"? |
In other words, if we can't see the comments, then the ability to comment should be nuked to save hard drive space.
Absent context it is completely pointless.
Bolding is mine.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.