Negative feedback retaliation

[masrapido]

Even better would be to simply remove the points. What are they for anyway? For a few angry posters to throw them into the faces of others when fighting over something?

"look at MY points, and look at YOURS! I have MORE, therefore I am better..."

I had a few responses like that. When the measuring tape failed, the insults and the "points" will do.

They show no merit, no real value. Just a tool for egos to retaliate when they run out of the words.

I suggest get rid of the points and egoistic self-appreciation, usually displayed in verbal marathons, will drop significantly.

[Jeff]

It's true that both post counts and rep points are only very crude tools to measure with, and attempting to put any measure can be problematic since it can be abused or taken wrongly. You could take that even further and say that a post should not actually have a username at all - that every post should be considered on its own merits, and not on the merits of who posted it. But at least the current gives some indication of how much someone has participated, and some very basic indication of how the community feels about a given poster's advice in general. So if someone posts advising to use saran wrap for vacuum bagging and their rep is 0 and their post count 2, it at least gives the person reading it something to consider before jumping on the advice, before someone else has a chance to post a reply. One big question for 2010 is how do we encourage quality discussion on boat design and discourage more drivel-like discussion from dominating or overtaking. Quantity is good for building activity, but we also need a way to encourage and empower quality discussion.

[masrapido]

Maybe by making points invisible to public. If no one sees and knows how many points others, and ourselves, have, the need to compete senselessly will be removed. When a competiton is removed, there's nothing to aspire to, so to speak, because there's nothing to gain.

The field is not only leveled, but removed completely and people would focus less on trying to "outsmart" just to gain points. Thus reducing at least, if not removing completely, the edge off the violence with which some try to force their opinion on others.

Some see their points as a candy and we all know what happens when you throw candies to a group of kids...

[Zed]

You get this in your post header

Thanks: 271
Thanked 458 Times in 233 Posts

And below the post you get this...

The Following 22 Users Say Thank You to Zed For This Useful Post:
AGRO (5 Days Ago), anywoundedduck (4 Days Ago), aurumvilla (4 Days Ago), Aussie (5 Days Ago), Bullion only (4 Days Ago), Carver (4 Days Ago), Cracker (4 Days Ago), fat panther (3 Days Ago), FunnyMoney (3 Days Ago), GoldWampum (3 Days Ago), HardAssets (4 Days Ago), Hawkeye (4 Days Ago), jbilprophet123 (4 Days Ago), kiwi_envoy (4 Days Ago), mcmurph9 (4 Days Ago), MrTiKi (4 Days Ago), prota (5 Days Ago), shamrocks33 (4 Days Ago), ShangHaiGoldBug (4 Days Ago), Strawboss (4 Days Ago), Varmint Hunter (4 Days Ago), xinkid (4 Days Ago)

Kind of thing...

FWIW.

[Jeff]

Thanks Zed!

It's been a long day, but taking a quick look, this idea seems to me like it could be productive to encourage quality posts, and this would be easy to implement thanks to what looks like a very nice existing mod being available. The focus would seem to be more on the constructive switching to a system which emphasizes thanking members for the best and most helpful posts.

[Zed]

The other board is a vBulletin board and I'd be surprised if they hacked it so I guess its "off the shelf" somehow. (sounds like you found it!)

Glad to be of help.

Like I said before I like the system and it works on a contentious goldbug site that is chock full of cranks!

[capt vimes]

Originally Posted by gonzo

Some members use negative feedback to retaliate when they can't win an argument. Two examples are Baeckmo and Mark775.

do not forget to place your name on this list as well - my dear gonzo!
one should not start throwing stones when sitting in a green-house...