[The Saucepan Man]

Well perhaps I am the only one who rates too restrictively. Although I still suspect not, as I believe that the disparities in the rep table still bear my analysis out.

Nevertheless, thank you to mark12_30 and HerenIstarion for some very helpful 'repping guidelines', which are, I think, of general application.

Originally Posted by mark12_30

I also mark for perceptive observations, and demonstrated improvement.

Positively rating clear improvement in a member's posts seems to me to be a thoroughly worthy approach.

And HI's suggestions are eminently sensible. My only reservation would be rating 'Newbie' posts simply because they are 'Newbie' posts, although HI's qualification is well made. Certainly, I would advocate not negatively repping a Newbie's first few posts, simply because they are clumsily expressed (unless they are offensive or some such). Everyone deserves a bit of time to settle down and take on board the 'Barrow Downs approach', which I believe differs markedly from the approaches adopted on many other forums (and is one of the things that makes the Downs such a great place).

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Brief, witty, on-Tolkien-topic. It doesn't get any better than that.

I thoroughly agree, Bb, but then Estelyn Telcontar is one of the 'oldies' (and before Esty clobbers me, I should make clear that, by this, I mean that she is older than the average age here, rather than that she is old). My original comments were not so much concerned with the length of posts (and perhaps I wasn't sufficiently clear on that), but the content. I think that it is relatively common for people to rep 'one-liners' if they are particularly erudite or witty. I have been rated for humourous one-liners and rated them myself, in the 'Crazy Captions' thread for example. My central point on this is that we should not necessarily judge all posts by the same standard.

Thanks for the responses, and further thoughts on the approach to adopt when awarding reputation would, I think, be most hepful.