Reputation System Discontinued for now

[The Barrow-Wight]

The Reputation system has been reset and discontinued for now. It may be reinstituted after I've had chance to read the documentation for the newest version of vBulletin. You can still see the reputations by going to Reputation Levels at fourm.barrowdowns.com as of 30 June, 2007 (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/bdreps.html)

[The Barrow-Wight]

Reputations Back on
I've reset everyone's rep to 10 pts and recalculated the number of points needed to reach each level. Additionally, the levels themselves have been rewritten in a new theme.

Reputation Giving Power
Bonuses for high reputation and tenure have been eliminated, and the bonus for having a high reputation has been greatly reduced.

[HerenIstarion]

Is it the reason I've got all those mail notifications about replies to threads that really happened some years back? :rolleyes:

[the guy who be short]

Bonuses for high reputation and tenure have been eliminated, and the bonus for having a high reputation has been greatly reduced.

Sounds much fairer - good idea!

[The Barrow-Wight]

Is it the reason I've got all those mail notifications about replies to threads that really happened some years back? :rolleyes:

There were 1400 posts sitting in a 'moderation' queue that I never knew about until last night's upgrade. I cleared them all out, and apparently that generated a lot of e-mails. Sorry!

[The Barrow-Wight]

I had some setting wrong, so if you repped anyone since my post above stating reps were working again, you'll need to rep them again to make them count. Sorry. Hopefully I've got it right now!

[Morthoron]

Alas! To have been kicked off Taniquetil is bad enough, now I don't even appear on your list! Ah, it's because I am a Dark Elf, isn't it? There have always been conspiracies against the Moriquendi! Haughty Noldor!

[Oddwen]

So does this mean we'll never get to read our old reps again? I never did care about the points, but there are some comments I'll miss seeing. :(

[Durelin]

Alas and egad, indeed!

Is it just me, or is there a problem with repping people in the Shire or Rohan?

Sorry for pestering -- user error is often the most likely cause, but it seems to be working everywhere else I try it. And I also understand it is brand new and so likely to have a few kinks...

(I really love some parts to the new version of VBulletin overall, btw, like the edit function...and how the rep windows are more streamlined...

Edit: Wait, wait...what's this?! Upload an image signature?! *runs about flailing* Nooooo...

I know, it's new and not necessarily going to stay, I kid.)

[Beleg Cuthalion]

Nice to see the newer version of vBulletin, as well as the other changes made, nice. :D I didn't know I had made 229 posts though. Bugs I guess.

[HerenIstarion]

There were 1400 posts sitting in a 'moderation' queue that I never knew about until last night's upgrade. I cleared them all out, and apparently that generated a lot of e-mails. Sorry!

No, it's rather 'thank you' you're due from me - that made me reread some old threads I would not (probably) otherwise turned to :)

[Child of the 7th Age]

Is it just me, or is there a problem with repping people in the Shire or Rohan?

Durelin,

This suggestion is not from me but I am passing it along from BW. It worked for me.

If you're having trouble with any of the links such as rep, just right click and pull it up in a new window. I was able to rep people this way in the Shire and Rohan and also to search some threads when the original links didn't work.

[Lalaith]

I found the reputation stats very interesting, thanks for posting them, Mr Wight, sir.
Interesting to see how nice and generous some people have been with their reps...

[Mithalwen]

or profligate...I am just glad you all can't see my credit card statement.....:eek:

I don't miss the points but it is a bit sad to have lost the comments .... CP looks so bare...

[Elmo]

That's for clearing that up for me, I was afraid my name change had not only wiped mine but everybody's elses rep. {phew}

[The Sixth Wizard]

Curses! Now I shall need to get some hard-earned rep points instead of getting those big bonuses off the senior members! ;)

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Someone stole all our lovely Silmarils! ;)

Nice thing is that I believe I will be able to rep people I've already rep'd recently!

[Mithalwen]

Whereas I feel like a candidate for "Beat the Bailiffs" or "Your money or your life" and that Alvin Hall is going to arrive on my doorstep and tell me off for excessive repping and limit me to one rep a week for the next 3 years .....:o

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I do not seem to be able to rep anyone....I've tried to rep (really, I have) but when I click on the scales icon my computer looks at me with a distinct, "Yeah, what?" expression and does nothing about it. Is anyone else experiencing this problem or am I alone?

EDIT

OK, this is weird...I seem to be able to rep people on other threads but not on this one:

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=14029

:confused:

[Hookbill the Goomba]

I do not seem to be able to rep anyone....I've tried to rep (really, I have) but when I click on the scales icon my computer looks at me with a distinct, "Yeah, what?" expression and does nothing about it. Is anyone else experiencing this problem or am I alone?


I've had the same problem. It seems to work if you right click and press 'Open Link'.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Those statistics are fascinating and dangerously time-consuming.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

I do not seem to be able to rep anyone....I've tried to rep (really, I have) but when I click on the scales icon my computer looks at me with a distinct, "Yeah, what?" expression and does nothing about it. Is anyone else experiencing this problem or am I alone?

EDIT

OK, this is weird...I seem to be able to rep people on other threads but not on this one:

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=14029

:confused:

Don't worry Fordim

Just knowing that you ment to rep me is enough for me, I can live with out the points. . . . :p

[The Only Real Estel]

Hmm. I really like the spread sheet we have there. The added/received ratio is a random and interesting number. Very nice.

[ninja91]

AAAAAHHHH! My reps are gone. Oh well, there is only so much a rogue elf can ask for. A good reputation is not one of them... -sniff-

Also, may I request from your high deadliness that a list of new possible reps (like "just left Hobbiton" or "sits on high Taniquetil") be posted? Thanks!






400 posts...wow....

[Mithalwen]

Oh ninja you don't know for what you ask!!! I joined just as the rep system got going and you can't imagine the delight of discovering the front runners had reached a new and unimagined level. Lets jsut wait and see.... find things that are worthy of rep and try to make repworthy posts.

Having had trouble with giving rep for a while I have just tried again and been given a somewhat karmic message ..... now I wonder if it is always the same or if it is like fortune cookies and I might get something different next time.

[Thinlómien]

I actually like this new situation: now that my reps weigh just a little, I keep repping people for quite (positively) insignificant things and I must say I enjoy it greatly! :D

[Oddwen]

One good thing - we can go rep certain posts again.

*skips off*

[the guy who be short]

So, what's an infraction point?

[The Might]

Ummm...I have a question.
I've noticed those infraction points some time ago and I was wondering where can a member see if he has got any infractions?
I mean, I doubt I have any for now, but I can't seem to find anything in my User CP that links to that.

[alatar]

Back in the day, as noted here (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpost.php?p=446593&postcount=1424), I posited that some wag with the time and...well, time could sit down and analyze the Downs to see just how one could maximize his/her rep. Think of the glory of using algorithms to determine the best thread in which to post to have the highest possibility of getting repped. No more spending hours writing and rewriting a post to see it ignored. Like Doppler storm tracking, one could see on some probability map where and when to post and WHAM! Post and ye shall be repped.

I have started down this path.

Using the list provided in the first post in this thread, I determined the gender of each member. That took some time, and I won't be providing my data as I'm sure that I got more than a few wrong (that, typos and some of you are most likely posers, so...). Using pictures and posts, I tried to determine the sex of each poster, but in some cases there was just no way to know, and so I took the scientific approach and assigned the gender that most supported my results. ;)

Anyway, with 167 males and 133 females (I think), the data indicate that:
females rep more, and
females rep more than they receive rep

Conclusions? Many, but you form your own.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Generosity, thy name is woman. (my interpretive conclusion)

[alatar]

Generosity, thy name is woman. (my interpretive conclusion)
Truly. :)

Or at least that was my initial hypothesis, based on perceptions in RL and at the Downs. It may be true that, being male, that I'm selfish (the data indicate that I'm a typical male repper), 'taking' more than I give, but I don't think that we have enough data to extrapolate that far from the curve. Could it be that male posters rep females on a even basis (1:1) but, due to biology, rep other male posters less? Or do males rep less due to some other factor?

Is rep emotionally driven, and if the average male had less 'emotion' than the average female, could this explain what we are seeing?

Note that I did not apply statistics to the data as I'd burned enough time on it (the Perseid meteor shower was a fizzle, and so...) and, more likely, how even more boring would the results be if there were no statistical difference?

[the phantom]

1.019692716

I was pretty even. Go me.

So, why the difference between males and females?

Maybe we have, by pure chance, a handful of rep-hoarders who just happen to be primarily male and a handful of rep-gushers who just happen to be primarily female.

But no one likes to hear that kind of explanation for data. It takes the fun out of it.

Okay, so a different explanation... Maybe the women just click on more threads than we guys do, and read more of the posts than us. I don't know about the rest of you gentlemen, but I generally skim new thread titles, and only click it if it grabs my attention. Then I read the first post, and I continue reading the thread only if the first post gets me interested. If the discussion stops entertaining me, then I'll stop reading right there.

If I make it to the end of the thread, then chances are I'm interested enough in the topic to have an opinion of my own, and so I post. (this isn't always the case, but generally)

And once you post in a thread, you keep up with it. Every time you hop onto the Downs, you make a point of checking the threads you're actively posting on. So, that essentially means that the only threads that exist are the ones you post on. And if that is the case, you will only give rep to people posting on those few threads. But they will be repping you as well, so the rep balances. But a rep surplus can be achieved by receiving rep from outsiders- members who aren't really involved in the back-and-forth on the thread, but who read it just the same.

Now, I have no scientific evidence for this, but it seems to me that a lady is more likely than a gentleman to read through every thread at least once. It's sort of like my group of friends and our relationship with restaurants. The girls are always suggesting places we haven't been before, or places that have recently opened. The guys, on the other hand, are more than happy to go the same familiar and comfortable place every week.

I've said all that to say this....

The male-female difference might just be a coincidence.:D

[alatar]

1.019692716

I was pretty even. Go me.
Go you, as you are better than the typical male (but we knew that :D). But note that I based my analysis on the number of reps given/reps received, and not the points, so your number is 0.940366972. The male average is 0.89730108; female 1.048323817.


So, why the difference between males and females?
I still think that it's biological. My mother fills my childrens' pocketses with candy as I try to hustle them out her door while my stepfather complains that she shouldn't be giving the kids so many sweets.

My wife would paper our walls with every sheet of paper with any scribble of our children where I would keep just those things that are very special.

Dunno. As always, just asking questions.

[Finduilas]

I still think that it's biological. My mother fills my childrens' pocketses with candy as I try to hustle them out her door while my stepfather complains that she shouldn't be giving the kids so many sweets.

My wife would paper our walls with every sheet of paper with any scribble of our children where I would keep just those things that are very special.

Dunno. As always, just asking questions.


Sounds like you are accusing us of being irrational.

[alatar]

Sounds like you are accusing us of being irrational.
Not sure what you mean, and regardless would not use the word 'accuse' as that assumes that (1) I have definitive proof (and even the Phantom hasn't clearly spoken on this one) and (2) there's some insult intended, which clearly (as least to me) I would never intend.

Assuming that we're not discussing values such as pi (infinite and nonrecurring), persons presumably act in a predictable fashion; is that irrational?

Maybe there's something to it; maybe not.

[Finduilas]

Oh dear. I believe you took it entirely different than I meant it. I will explain later though, because I must go work on dinner now. Just be sure I didn't take anything you said as an insult.

Be back later,
Finduilas

[Rikae]

It makes sense to me. I seem to recall seeing some reasearch about the way women and men differ in social behavior which claimed women were more likely to give (and look for) positive feedback. Apparently it's important in female friendships, but not so much in male - so I assume this is a similar phenomenon. The women are trying to bond and make others feel good, while the men - to put it bluntly - don't particularly care.

[Finduilas]

Alright. Let's see if I can do this.

With the examples you gave of your wife, and the fact that females have been giving out the most reps, it sounded as though, permit me to use the word again for want of an immediate better word, you accused women of exuberance. I meant irrational in a way as though we didn't know when enough was enough.

I don't know if I properly explained myself, but if I insulted or angered anyone, I most certainly didn't mean to, and if my explaination didn't make sense, than I probably just proved myself irrational. :)

[Lalaith]

But note that I based my analysis on the number of reps given/reps received, and not the points,

Ah, yes, that was worrying me, I´m glad you did it that way.
For example, I have a pretty good give and take record (229/222) but because those who repped me had more points to give than I did, I came out on the original list looking a very mingy, masculine 0.83...while using number of reps rather than points gives me an only-slightly-more-stingy-than-average female score of 1.03.
So, alatar, given that you had to do all these divisions for all of us..(gulp)...how long did this take you?

[alatar]

Ah, yes, that was worrying me, I´m glad you did it that way.
I originally goofed and used the ratio provided in the original table, but then realized that that statistic is measuring something completely different.

For example, I have a pretty good give and take record (229/222) but because those who repped me had more points to give than I did, I came out on the original list looking a very mingy, masculine 0.83...while using number of reps rather than points gives me an only-slightly-more-stingy-than-average female score of 1.03.
Don't be so hard on yourself. We don't know (and me head hurts too much to work on this at this time) what the variance is. What if 'average' is 1.05 ± 0.5? And remember, the original exercise was to figure how I could maximize my rep with minimal thought in my posts, and so don't overwork the numbers (some might note that I've mastered at least half of that equation). ;)

alatar reminds himself to post near those members with very high 'give' values...

So, alatar, given that you had to do all these divisions for all of us..(gulp)...how long did this take you?
A couple hours. Have a thing about efficiency, and so, using a spreadsheet, I cherry-picked those members whose gender I could easily assign. That was about half. Methodically reviewed the others. Most were easy; some I still am not too sure about. You may be surprised that people do leave somewhat obscure clues lying around, like "I'm just an ordinary average guy."

Learned a lot along the way. There are patterns (at least I see them like so many shapes in clouds) that emerge when you look at so many disparate members in such a short time. Some I never crossed paths with as seemingly all they do is RPG. Males tend to make over-the-top claims about how many orcs that they've slain and nick themselves like "Lord Melkor's Bigger and Meaner Brother." Females talk about their friends and have cute bunny pictures (not beheaded) somewhere.

Generally speaking, of course.

[Firefoot]

Is anyone else having a problem with the reputation button? I just tried to give some out but the button wouldn't produce the window - on any thread.

[alatar]

Is anyone else having a problem with the reputation button? I just tried to give some out but the button wouldn't produce the window - on any thread.
Could be your browser and/or settings. Try right-clicking on the rep icon and 'opening link in new tab (or window)'.

[Firefoot]

Thanks - that worked. I wonder why I've never had a problem with it before now...

[alatar]

With the amount of code - OS, browser, vBulletin, pop-ups, anti-pop-ups, blockers, spam, etc - that changes minute to minute on computers that are somewhat individualized and maintained by novices (myself included in that set), to me it's a miracle that anything ever works.

[Meneltarmacil]

Alatar's technique works. I just tested it by repping Shasta for the Werewolf thread.

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

That table was, ahem, interesting . . . didn't know the old reputations system leader got over 50 000 pts. :D

I managed to save the comments from my WW game (just because I can), but . . . I miss the others. :(

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Wow, Thenamir, someone's popular. :D

[the phantom]

I'd always wondered what would happen if I repped someone. Now we know.

Would anyone else like to shoot up there with Thenamir? I take bribes.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Why did you neg-rep him, tp?

[the phantom]

He didn't say "thank you".

[Groin Redbeard]

My family recently bought an Apple Computer and much to my chagrin I found out that the mouse doesn't have a right click button. Now I can't open a rep. box at all!:( Does anyone else have this problem or own an Apple Computer so that you can tell me how to fix this problem?

[Oddwen]

I command thee to hold down yon cloverlike command key!

Ahem. For Mac users, holding down the command key will simulate a right button.

[Groin Redbeard]

I command thee to hold down yon cloverlike command key!

Ahem. For Mac users, holding down the command key will simulate a right button.

I've been trying it, but nothing has worked. Do you just put your arrow over the reputation button and press command, or is there something else that you have to do? I'm really bad with computers. :o

[McCaber]

Hold it down and click. It's the Apple equivalent of the right click, which is very annoying to me. Man up and get a second mouse button, Steve Jobs!

(sorry, a personal rant there)

[alatar]

I've been trying it, but nothing has worked. Do you just put your arrow over the reputation button and press command, or is there something else that you have to do? I'm really bad with computers. :o
What Mac are you using? The newer Mac mice support right-click, though you have to enable it in System Preferences (yes, there's only one button, but if you push more on the right side, it knows what to do). Also, you can Control-Click on the rep icon and choose to open in a new tab. This link (http://www.macinstruct.com/node/66) may be of some use.

If you continue to have issues, PM me with the specifics and we can walk it through. And note that as I work on both Macs and PCs, I've learned to 'love' both. :rolleyes:

[Groin Redbeard]

Huzzah! Control-click works, Alatar! :D This is proof positive on what a wonderful community the Downs has. Just for taking the time you all will get reputation points!

I'm off to give some long overdue rep. points! ;)

[alatar]

Twas nothing. Thanks for the rep, but know that you needn't have. Next time post on some thread where I've driven the discussion into the dirt and I'll be thrice as happy. :)

And, having been frustrated with computers and all things therein once or twice ;), I felt your pain.