Rep power gone wild?

[xantonin]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

I think the feature is handy if the number or rep points given area a constant number, and not a percentage.

Although they both make sense (ie: getting rep points from someone with a lot of rep points should mean more than getting rep points from a newbie), I think a threshold needs to be set.

[RaskyR1]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

I like seeing how many green dots I can get! It's sort of like a video game!

[Mikejl]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

From a newb:

I have given rep. points to newbs who ask good questions and bring out great informative posts. I give rep. points out of gratitude. They write well and create great threads drawing in a lot of experience.

Jossy - Your purposes could be better served with a "Thank you" button more than a "Rep" button.

I vote turn off the Rep. The numbers look artificially way to high and IMO not really earned in many cases.

Mike

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

OK, looking into the settings you do gain "giving power", as it were, the higher your rep level gets. That would turn into an exponentially growing number very quickly, and it would appear we are now at that threshold.

Further, we currently are not limiting how frequently one person can give rep points to another. ie - if Member A gives rep points to Member B, he only needs to give points to Member C before giving again to Member B. The settings can dictate that Member A must give points to 5, 10, 20, or any other number of members before giving additional points to Member B. Make sense?

Altering both of those settings would obviously slow down the accumulation of rep points and prevent a couple of buddies from running each others numbers up to the stratosphere.

Those changes will be made later today.

[Jossy92]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

From a newb:

I think you are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

When I read a thread, I look for the content first, if there are contradictory posts, I look at the "green", then the join date. After my first month here, the green just helped me find the name of someone I had learned by research to know has a lot of experience.

It's not perfect, it's abused, but it's part of a system that helps the learning process. You need to learn the system, that's the only problem.

I found some really wise detailers here that answer questions without elaborating. I assume that's the reason for the relatively low points. Not professisonal ability. A video forum might put them at the very top.
Walking the walk.

I have given rep. points to newbs who ask good questions and bring out great informative posts. I give rep. points out of gratitude. They write well and create great threads drawing in a lot of experience.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

For what it's worth, vBulletin software comes with the Rep Points feature and it can be tweaked from the Admin panel for different settings. When I worked here on the MOL forum I enabled it and in hindsight that was probably a mistake for the reasons Tim outlined above. At the time I thought it would add value to the forum community.

I personally never base anyone's answer to a question on the Rep Points but by the quality of the answer itself.

(Now if someone will just give me some Rep Point for my post!)

[Tim Lingor]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

Morning,

While the Rep system does have its merits, it can also be very misleading. For some of the new members, they may erroneously assume that a higher rep count automatically means more experience, which is in some cases, is not accurate. So while some may feel it is harmless, I fear that it could harm others especially if one takes advice on wet sanding for example from someone with a high rep only to discover that they themselves have only wet sanded one or two panels and have extremely minimal actual experience. In other words, some are keyboard commandos or armchair bandits whose posts read like they have experience when they themselves have never even tried a product or method etc.

There is nothing wrong with members thanking other members for their contributions as we all know how long some of these write-ups can take to create and post. But to some, the rep system is like posting meaningless posts just to run up their post count as some again falsely equate higher post counts with knowledge which again is incorrect. Do not get me wrong, some of the people with high counts, like Frank (Shyneman) are very talented detailers who deserve the kudos they receive. However, there are others who do not.

I would rather see it turned off as to me, if you like something someone has posted, SAY SO, in a post in that thread. That way everyone gets to see it....

Just IMHO.

Tim

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

I also think the rep system has merit. I also believe the number of points should be turned down.

Maybe regardless of the reason for giving someone rep, the number of points should be limited to 5.

I also believe that if someone posts a informative post, explains the steps involved, and helps enlighten someone, the original poster should be recognized for their contributions to the forum.

That is all for now.

[Nappers]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

Rep Power.....

I think it's a good idea to a point.

I don't think it's something that is "abused" like spam unless one is just giving rep points for "washing one's car".

I give rep points for reviews, show off's, extreme make overs etc. my sole purpose of giving rep points is that I think that the writer did something over and beyond a lay person to help educate them in using Meguiar's products and techniques used.

I think people like Kevin Brown, Joe, Nick, Shyneman123, KC, Tuck et al give great writeups and educate people on using products. I give kudo's to the pro's who actually help us with our products, because ultimately, if they show us how they use their products, techniques etc, then they could take business away from themselves as the person learns how to polish their cars and not need their services. Like getting free advise from a plumber to plumb their house.

I think there should be criteria for giving rep points.

Was this article useful for you? / why?
Did this article help you in using Meguiar's products? / how?
Did this article answer any questions you have for Meguiar's products? / how?

I appreciate any and all rep points I get as my level of expertise is far below 99.9% of everyone here as I'm just a novice, I've polished 3 cars for cash in my pocket and thought I did a good job. I enjoy doing my cars and think I have the shiniest 5 and 10 year old cars in my area and I always look back and admire my work and others seem to think our cars are pretty shiny. My arsenal of Meguiar's products far exceed most of anyone I know and I am proud to use them. I don't wander out of my expertise with using products unless I refer to many articles written and understand them prior to putting them to use. I guess I hold my own and our cars are pretty swirl free to a point then I break out the stuff and go to work.

"That's all I got to say about that" - Forrest Gump.

L8R

[TerryAdams]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

Rut-Row! Indeed... The Rep point system is misaligned. Just needs to be toned down to a lower percentage or just turned off?

FYI, looks like only 1 of the people that gave me rep on my before/after had 17714 rep points, the other only had 2. So all of my points came from him, likely.

Essentially, I gained 1771 points from someone with 17714 points. Apparently the system has been modified to give rep points in the amount of 10% of your own. You do the math.

[CieraSL]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

[xantonin]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

I know these images are popular here:

BEFORE:




AFTER!!!!




FYI, looks like only 1 of the people that gave me rep on my before/after had 17714 rep points, the other only had 2. So all of my points came from him, likely.

Essentially, I gained 1771 points from someone with 17714 points. Apparently the system has been modified to give rep points in the amount of 10% of your own. You do the math.


( Furthermore... while editing this post my "submit" button says "Vote now"... which I actually couldn't edit anyway so I had to make a new reply)

[xantonin]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

So, I just jumped from 19 rep points, to 1,790 because two people gave me a thumbs up.

That's pretty funny. But I think it's broken. Two people adding to someones rep should not equal 885.5 points each.

[xantonin]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

It appears that reputation given from someone with high reputation gives more reputation to that someone than from someone else with less reputation.

And yes, I did try to phrase that as less confusing as possible. I think I failed.

[ColonelCash]

Re: Rep power gone wild?

Frank (SHYNEMAN123) has "repped" me twice in recent weeks and I'm up around the 900 mark. Only 100 short of my total number of posts. While I appreciate somoene taking the time to "approve / rep" my posts, I agree the numbers are out of hand.

I'm pretty sure if one of the Mike's repped me, I'd jump into the 1500 range. It appears to be based on the number of reps the "repper" has tied to their account.