Reputations

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

While it may be extreme that 60% of the comments currently displayed relate to crazy captions, I feel rather a fraud because I am getting repped for entertainment value rather than erudition - especially in the light of some of the comments above.

Well it seems clear to me from the comments above (as well as from my own User CP) that people value being given the opportunity to laugh as much as they value being given the opportunity to think. Which is as it should be. It would be a very dry and crusty old board indeed were it not for the sparkling wit that permeates the forum.

And Tolkien himself was most certainly not averse to a sprinkling of humour amongst his many weighty words ...

I could ramble on here at length about the importance of humour but I won't because these people put it much better than I could:

Humour is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit. ~Aristotle~

Total absence of humour renders life impossible. ~Colette~

A sense of humour is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done. ~Dwight D Eisenhower~

Humour is by far the most significant activity of the human brain. ~Edward de Bono~

Humour is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place. ~Mark Twain~

So I think you have good reason to hold your head high, Mithalwen, and regard your rep points as rightfully earned.

[Bêthberry]

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

---Feste, Twelfth Night

[Rimbaud]

Better a fitting woof, than a woofing fit.

~Rimbunctious

[Nurumaiel]

Imladris posted
I want to squee everytime someone gives me good rep, instead of saying "Pfft, what does it matter? Who cares if I have four squares? Everybody else has over three anyway."

The reaction to receiving positive rep would highly depend on what you thought its value is. If I looked at positive rep as simply accumulating points, I'd say, "Pfft," too, because I'm not even close to 'gaining the lead.' But I look upon positive rep as a positive reaction to something I wrote, so my own reaction is not: "Ah! more points!" but rather, "Ah! someone appreciated my writing," or, "Ah! I wrote something worthy of appreciation," when someone gives me a good rep. The points don't really matter very much to me. Even if I was given a rep that was worth over ten points, I'd still feel some disappointment if the comment field was blank.

I'll confess I'm very liberal giving out reputation. I don't overdo it, and I only give someone a positive rep where the one seems deserving, but I do give out a lot of rep. I don't know if I've ever repped anything besides a post in an RPG, and if I have it was only once or twice, for I hardly go anywhere besides the RPing forums (what am I doing here?). Like others have mentioned, RPing depends very much on the commitment of the players, their ability to plough on even when things get a little dry, and make a wholesome contribution to the game as a player, so I try to remember to hand out a 'Thank you and good work' rep at the end of each game. But I feel that just because commitment is an important factor, it doesn't mean that one can't write an excellent individual post. When I read a post in an RPG I ask myself questions, such as: "Is it overall grammatically correct? Is the spelling correct aside from typos? Does it move the plot along? Is it interesting to read, and not a bog of weighty description? Does it present a scene and a mood, and not just give worthless, space-consuming dialogue between characters?" and other such questions. If most of the questions can be answered with a 'Yes,' then I'll give it a good rep.

I, too, give the 'confidence booster' rep out to newbies, when I'm prowling about the Green Dragon. If some character comes striding in and the writer has only a few posts, I'll be much more likely to rep them good, even if they're not all the way 'there' yet. If the writing is really rotten (grammatical and spelling errors; the character everyone turns to look at, so great is the beauty of her red hair and silver eyes), then I won't give any sort of rep, for I've made it a policy of mine to never give a newbie a bad rep (and most oldsters don't deserve one). But, aside from really horrible writing, most newbies trying out the Dragon get a good rep from me, with an encouraging comment.

My 'negative rep rule' is very much like Fea's. I, too, have yet to give out a bad rep, but I would if the family friendly atmosphere of the forum was threatened. I'd really hate to give a negative rep for bad spelling and grammar, because, for one thing, I don't know if English is the first or second language of the one at hand, and I don't know how old he is, and bad spelling and grammar does not, in my mind, deserve a bad rep. Ah, I remember back in the days when I couldn't spell worth tuppence, and my grammar was awful. My 'writing mentors' never said anything unkind to me because of these faults, because I wasn't doing anything wicked, even if it was bad writing. I got straightened out to good spelling and grammar because of kindly encouragement and advice, and, being the shy little creature I was, if someone had given to me in words the equivalent of a negative rep here, I would have been intimidated, sure they I couldn't write and sure that I never could, and I would have given up. Keeping in mind my near escapes of early childhood, I try not to even consider repping negatively for bad spelling and grammar. I don't, and never would, rep positively, but I certainly shouldn't give a negative rep. I prefer to give out bad rep for someone who is being bad and wicked, and not to discourage one who might be struggling very hard to improve their spelling and grammar.

Chat speak, on the other hand, I wouldn't be against negative repping, but only if it was one who should know better, like Imladris said. Newbies I excuse, for who knows where they've come from and what kind of rules about writing they had there.