Poll: Dropping the Rep System: good or bad?

[Foxfyre]

If reps are no good...why not get rid of all the trappings of a prom competition ...we know a moron when we see one and our responses make our judgement clear. No need for trophies.

Speaking of which, why do you have 125 trophy points while all the rest of us have a uniform 73 or 40 something? LOL. I have no idea what the trophy points are or how they are calculated.

 

[R.D.]

Well actually they can still send nasty messages to people via PM (or in the new vernacular 'conversation'.) But they'll have to consciously make the effort to do that instead of the easier means of a neg rep and nasty one-liner.

I never negged anyone but I don't get the whining over it

I did like the reps though, because there are many times I would rep someone for a comment, but I didn't want to "gang" up on who the comment was about, so agreeing in private was nice. No more

 

[Ernie S.]

Did you get a Splat? I saw that some members were copying the Username with Splats and putting them on their siggies as a means to demean the member. I didn't think that was cool.

I did that with 2 specific people who were such trolls that they needed to be pointed at and made fun of. I spent a great deal of time modifying my signature to remove one or both images when one or both were banned. One of them was permabanned over a year ago and from what I hear has since passed away. The other one, with the penchant for sending pornographic images in private messages, hasn't posted here in 3 or 4 months.

 

[Pogo]

The rep system didn't work all too well, though people can usually figure out what people they like or dislike on their own anyway.

It was funny at times to be called names, and negged for silly reasons, and it was satisfying sometimes to neg or thumbs up others just to see how they react.

Was tempted to try and get more negs, but the times when I would go out of my way to piss someone off I find too nationalistic or ideologically driven are rare these days.

Since the rep thing is gone though, it might mean moderators have to be more vigilant about the really bad eggs as the rep thing once in a while did act as a community watch of sorts.

Yes, exactly. It served as the same kind of social pressure that we have in the RW where dropping "n****r" or "c**t" would meet with mass disapproval. With the Rep system if some neo-Nazi Stromfronter came in railing about the fundamental inferiority of Negroes or Jews (or whatever), their rep would quickly reflect that those senitments were universally condemned. It was in effect a social rating system. Now the same Stromfronter can come in with the same crap and looks "legitimate" in contrast. Or maybe we should say, does not look disapproved of because we no longer have the ability to do that.

And that in itself would seem to open up a whole Pandora's Box for moderators, who will now be forced to make a lot of grey-area judgements, and therefore be forced to establish their own position on where the envelope of social "acceptability" is, since the "vote" is out of our hands. I don't envy them that task. And it really puts the establishment of that social envelope in the hands of the few rather than the many. I can't see that as a good thing, no matter how noble the intentions of those few.

 

[Mertex]

I also miss being able to send a message along with the rep. I mean, wasn't that the whole point of the rep system ... to let someone know what you thought of their post? Sure, you can still send them a message separately but no one is going to do that. And yeah you can do that in public in the thread but that's not what the threads are for. If they attached the ability to comment when 'liking' or 'agreeing' with a post that'd be great.

A lot of the people that repped me didn't even include a message. Others, would actually carry on a conversation 3 or 4 pms deep or even more. There were only a few that used it to hurt your feelings because they weren't able to continue debating and that was their way of getting even, by taking away from your rep. Once I got more rep than they had, they stopped doing that. Coincidence, I don't think so. I will like/agree with someone's post and I don't care if they don't agree with me on other issues. It's about the post, not the person, although some are nice and I like almost everything they say.

 

[Mertex]

If reps are no good...why not get rid of all the trappings of a prom competition ...we know a moron when we see one and our responses make our judgement clear. No need for trophies.

Speaking of which, why do you have 125 trophy points while all the rest of us have a uniform 73 or 40 something? LOL. I have no idea what the trophy points are or how they are calculated.

He actually has 170 trophies, and he's only been here 2 years....hmmmm. He must be using the secret smilie that gives you extra points toward trophies.....

 

[Noomi]

I liked rep but I like the likes as well, soo...