Abuse of the Rep system

[Kaini]

I'm getting super tired of the reputation system on this board, honestly. It is so easily abused and leads to a lot of sour feelings and fighting between members.

Lets take me going past my user CP just now. Apparently someone thought it necessary to subtract from my rep because they personally didn't approve of the tone of my post.

'When they are clearly not?' I love how someone else gave me pos rep for the very same post - apparently they agreed with me. Goes to show it's really a matter of opinion and not relevant to my reputation at all. I don't care if you think I'm irritating or what have you - Rep is to show the community whether or not someone gives trustworthy advice on the care of their animals, not to show about their attitude. That's not what it's for, and I certainly don't go giving neg rep to people because I think they're 'whiny'.

The only reason I would ever give out neg rep is if someone gave purposefully poor advice that was a danger to someone's animal. And I've only felt it necessary to do that... once?

And actually the positive rep wasn't really warranted either - I wasn't really giving any specific advice in that post. Agreeing with me that someone else is rude isn't a great reason to give out rep, but thanks I suppose.

Seriously sometimes this community makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out. Do we really want to spend our energy going around accusing each other of being rude, whiny, irritating and irksome? (Thanks by the way, I'll love seeing that on my CP every day, makes me feel all fuzzy inside.)

Yes, I can be a little sarcastic. ^ Do you need to downgrade my actual advice for that? No.

Just ughhhh am I wrong here? Anyone else want to gouge their eyeballs out with a fork half the time? It seems like being completely and utterly robotic about your advice is the only way to avoid persecution in this place.

 

[michael]

People do abuse the system. Some even ask people to add to their reputation in every post.

 

[xxianxx]

N/A 31st December 2013 19:26 now getting rude and mean when not needed
N/A 31st December 2013 18:23 spiteful and aggressive
Help 29th November 2013 21:05 You don't have to be so rude. People like you are what discourage new pepple from joining and participating in a hobby. Rudeness unfortuantly is also contagious.



thats what i get for asking people to back up their lame ideas or telling people that following basic axolotl care advice is a good thing, to whinge about bad rep is pointless and does come across as "whiney"

 

[Elliriyanna]

I feel your pain .. Its ridiculous ... I dont know what people get out of it ... Its one reason many of us dont go on the forums anymore ...

 

[xxianxx]

Be interesting to see who has the most amusing/abusive comments on bad rep, we can start a competition to see who has the best. I will give good rep to the best one lol. You guys need to lighten up, I will transfer all my rep to anyone who PayPal's me £10, its pretty worthless, you get more good rep for posting funny stuff than being helpfull.

 

[Kaini]

...meow? rly now.

Yea okay clearly this system is worthless, whoops. Apparently I put a little too much faith in it.

 

[michael]

People do abuse the system. Some even ask people to add to their reputation in every post.

It's not funny anymore.

 

[xxianxx]

It's not funny anymore.

Have to agree Michael, going to hit you some bad rep for failing to amuse me...

 

[Kaini]

It's not funny anymore.

You were making fun of me

 

[michael]

Have to agree Michael, going to hit you some bad rep for failing to amuse me...

At least I know you are evil. It says it in your screen name.


I was amused that the original poster complained about the rep system while begging for rep in each post. I see that vanished. If you look at John's rep it is all red. People need to lighten up.

 

[Kaini]

I hope you all realize just how cruel you're being right now. But I'm glad you're getting your giggles making fun of me.

I was seriously concerned about the reputation of the community here: I thought this site was a serious place where people could find reliable advice on caudates. But clearly I was wrong, no one cares. Are glad you're making this place a laughingstock?

Where everyone can just be flippantly rude to each other? Because that's exactly what we're doing.

 

[Elliriyanna]

Calm down People will always find something to laugh about ...

I agree the system is being abused ... But its also nothing to take THAT seriously.

 

[xxianxx]

I hope you all realize just how cruel you're being right now. But I'm glad you're getting your giggles making fun of me.

I was seriously concerned about the reputation of the community here: I thought this site was a serious place where people could find reliable advice on caudates. But clearly I was wrong, no one cares. Are glad you're making this place a laughingstock?

Where everyone can just be flippantly rude to each other? Because that's exactly what we're doing.

Your being over sensative, nobody is trying to be cruel to you. This thread has nothing to do with caudates, its about little green box's. You will find that Michael and I take amphibian care very seriously, however ,this thread is getting the level of seriousness it deserves, I will apolagise for being flippant if Michael apologises for being unamusing.

 

[sde]

Ok here's my two cents worth.

In my opinion my rep has gotten abused too, but it's all OPINION. And honestly rep shouldn't be concerned about too much. It's a rep system, not showing how "cool" or "smart" you are. Yes, some of the reps you will get are for those things but like Ian said, you get a lot of rep for being funny and other things. So some of it's just pointless and worthless. I just try not to pay too much attention to rep, because it CAN falsely identify people as "super knowledgable". Or on the other hand it can make person who is knowledgeable look not so knowledgeable. I actually would like this site better if there was no rep system, because all it Is is a judging system basically, and I don't really like judging. Show character, not reputation.
There it is folks, my two cents.......

-Seth

 

[Petersgirl]

To be fair, and I don't know how this happened, someone gave me bad reputation because they felt my comment on a board was wrong in the sense of saying everyone was entitled to their opinion. I wrote an open letter on the board where the rep was given explaining what had happened and the next day the bad rep was gone. And so was my open letter.

So someone is doing something about it

I think the Reputation thing can sometimes be a bit of a pig but I did find the more advice I gave (that I knew was helpful and sensible) and the more I stuck around, the more good Rep I got. It is kinda true you get lots of Rep sometimes for funny posts, but perhaps that's because, if you are poking fun at caudate keeping's little niggles or talking about something daft your pet does, you are seeing the fun in keeping the wee beauts. Sometimes people need that.

It is also worth saying that all social media is a game. Whether you are competing for Tweets, Facebook Likes or whatever, all social media contains some small essence of competition. Some people choose not to take it all that seriously, and others get involved. I just do how I do and if I get Rep, great. If I get bad Rep, I'd like to know why, especially if it's because my advice was off, so I can rectify that.

 

[Mark]

You'd be suprised how many people contact us about reputation disagreements. We judge each case individually and adjust accordingly. If you feel you've been unfairly treated let us know. Whilst the reputation system is anonymous to members us admin folk can see all the comments received or given by a particular member - so think twice before you comment.

 

[Bellabelloo]

The rep system should work fine. It is a simple way to see whose advice should be taken more seriously or has a good reputation or knowledge.
I give good rep for good sound knowledgeable advice, to people who patiently help and advise someone over a problem and so on. I gave Kaini positive rep for pointing out why a post had had many viewings but no response. I personally rarely give negative rep,but when I have it is because someone has been rude or refused to take good solid advice which leads to an animal suffering. I am less inclined to give good rep when someone has a comment under their name asking for it. If you wish to give positive or negative rep the comments should explain why, so at least the person receiving it knows the reason. Some of the comments that I have seen have been worse than useless and does nothing to help.

 

[Azhael]

I´m sorry but i can´t overlook the fact that you are complaining that you got chastised with bad rep for your tone, which according to you is completely inapropriate but now you are chastasing others because you don´t like their tone and you feel they are annoyingly mocking you. Hmmmmm.....
The rep. system works just fine. Of course it´s not perfect and some people will abuse it, but generally speaking it´s used properly and provides a decent superficial indication of the effort that people have put into offering sound advice, helping others and building a community. The advice, of course stands on its own merits and not on the rep. of the author, that would be a big mistake and exactly the wrong thing to derive from someone´s rep (oh, 6 green dots, that means anything this user says is necessarily true).
We´ve all had bad rep that we thought we didn´t deserve...some of us a few times (and some of it deserved or justifiable, some of it absolutely ridiculous). The thing to do is to work towards gaining people´s apreciation so that their freely given good rep. (i really dislike it when people ask for it themselves...:S) counteracts the bad rep. By the way, it just so happens that when unfair bad rep. is given it is almost always by new members or members with very little rep. power which means that the effect of that bad rep. is tiny and easily shrugged off.
Like Julia i very, very rarely give bad rep....in all these years i´ve probably only given a handful of negative hits and only to people who were either providing really terrible advice or people who were repeteadly being extremely disruptive or insulting.

The rep. system is there as just another feature of the community. It can be useful as an indicator and it can also allow users to show apreciation for whatever. Personally that´s what i value it for, not for being a full proof sign of authority.

 

[bugdozer]

I'd be sad to see Kaini leave the forum, she has, along with many others, given good helpful tips to me. I don't really judge people by the colour of their boxes anyway.

 

[Skudo09]

It is very sad to see Kaini leave. Kaini is an asset to this forum and I have really appreciated her advice.

There will always be some who will abuse the rep system and I think we just need to accept it and not let it get to us. Mind you I think it is only a very small minority who do abuse the system. I generally take rep good or bad with a grain of salt. I take information by looking at the quality of the post and a consensus of opinions/advice etc instead of relying on one member's post who has lots of green boxes.

I am eager to learn and would always want to know if I am giving incorrect advice so I can learn from it. I like to know if I am giving good advice and that my posts have been helpful. One thing I don't like about the rep system is that some give good, bad or neutral rep but don't leave a comment so I have nothing to go by as to what was good or bad about my post. It would be good if it was compulsory for people to leave a reason visible to the receiver of the rep but I don't know how possible this is. I generally pay attention to rep good and bad if they have a reason to go by. If there is no comment left or it is a comment that has no relevance or doesn't explain at all why I generally ignore it.