The current rep system is broken. Guys like coachbadlee trotting around with 5 green bars is a walking mockery of the system. The idiot is currently debating with people in the Eurobasket thread about Eurobasket, even after acknowledging the fact that he hasn't actually watched a single game in Eurobasket. Then you have the constant back and forth trolling from Lin fans and those who hate Lin fans. There is simply too much garbage in the Garm for any human moderator to realistically deal with. The truth is, if you post enough, no matter how terrible the poster, you are going to ended up with some green bars through sheer volume. The current rep system is no way indicative of poster quality- the system's original intent. I think the solution to all this is to introduce a free market system to self regulate/moderate the garm. 1. Allow poster to neg rep eachother. You would receive a larger neg rep from posters with higher rep, the same way we receive a larger positive rep from them now. 2. Red bars work the same way as green bars. 100 per bar, increasing to 200 after a certain amount of bars. So on so forth. 3. Once you receive 5 red bars, you are no longer allowed to post, only read, for a set amount of time. Say, 1 month. Each additional red bar you accumulate from this point forward triggers the same 1 month penalty, or progressively harsher penalty. After a certain number of red bars, say 10, you are permanently banned. 4. You are only allowed certain privileges, such as thread starting, after a certain number of green bars, say 3. Once you go below this threshold, your thread starting rights are revoked again. 5. Once you reach a certain number of green bars, the max allowed, you become a moderator. These will be the board's self elected mods based on merit. While a moderator's task is much simpler in a self regulated system, the position is still necessary: someone breaks the rules and needs to be temp/perm banned etc. 6. Posters will be allowed to filter the board to only view posts from posters of X green bars and above. Some issues that may arise from this system: 1. Mass, mindless, group negging. This is fine, because it will be counteracted by the mass mindless circle jerk of repping we already see today. In the end, the mass negging and mass repping will cancel eachother out, leaving the truly good and bad poster to stand out. 2. Negging someone because you don't agree with him. Repping someone because you agree with him. This isn't some new issue. In the end, the popular opinion will be rewarded in both this new system and the current one. This is indeed a flaw, since the popular opinion is no way indicative of poster quality. However, what you gain from this new system is instantly ridding all of the obvious bad posters. The so called "LOFs" would be summarily annihilated. Yes, the so called "LOFs" will have the ability to neg rep as well, a frightening thought to some. The truth is, I see just as much baiting and goading from the other side, and these will be the people getting negged by the LOFs. Which leaves the rest of us, peaceful bystanders, the beneficiaries. In the end, the provokers on both sides will be the ones silenced, leaving the garm a much more tranquil place. No system is perfect, and especially in a free market system, there will be some innocent casualties. Hopefully the board can rise above and distinguish the difference between unpopular opinions and simply bad posts. There will be bumps along the way where that line is blurred. And unfortunately, in those instances there will be posters who will be unfairly punished, through no fault of their own. This is the sacrifice those few must make for the general betterment of the entire board. A system like this requires a tremendous amount of trust and belief in the human race from our Philosopher King, Clutch. Trust and belief that may or may not be deserved or warranted. Even as I propose this, I myself cannot foresee the consequences of the undertaking of such a social experiment. Do the masses and minions rise up in revolt, drowning the rulers and plunging this place into brimstone and hellfire? As the great Plato once said, Democracy is the seed to chaos. But another great philosopher once said, with great power comes great responsibility. Is humanity ready for such power and responsibility? What say you, Clutch?
Speaking of the GARM - this doesn't belong in it. The part I quoted is the bologna in a giant supposition sandwich.
A lot of posters, like me, don't care about rep at all. My Ignore List is indicative of poster quality.
It is not a matter of whether an individual cares or not about rep. The reputation system should not be for decoration. It should be a system that self regulates and improves the quality of the board. Yes, your ignore list improves the board for you. But it doesn't improve the board.
If someone makes a comment that's unpopular amongst certain "player only" fans, they could be penalized severely for it. How do you prevent such abuse?
The reputation system improves the board for you. But it doesn't necessarily improve the board for other posters, like me
That same comment will be rewarded severely by the haters of "player only fans". In the end it will even out. And if said comment is truly of quality, hopefully there will be enough of those who are neither "player only" nor those who only hate on "player only" fans to properly reward it. That is the function of the invisible hand that is the free market.
Cannot create new thread until 2 green bars. Can negative rep after 6 green bars. And I am nowhere near that. One negative rep a day.
Maybe we should just let Clutch run his BBS as he sees fit, with all due respect. He seems to be doing a rather outstanding job now. Suggestions are welcome, I would assume, but I'm content to let Clutch have things operate in whatever fashion that pleases him. I suspect that he will always continue to tinker with ClutchFans. None of us could have ever expected that we would have upwards of 48,000 members, not to mention the hordes that simply "visit." The current system, flawed or not, does reflect how members feel about each other. You mention coachbadlee. Well, clearly some folks agreed with him, or he wouldn't have those green bars. Honestly, why should you care? He's ranks with the least of the problems around here.
I'm not saying you shouldn't post your ideas about "improving" the BBS here, just that I don't feel the same way. Have at it! -
I feel like the big guy doesn't really listen to these ideas We seriously need a major upgrade in all of these problems and i am 100% on board with it. The rep system as it is now is awful and doesn't' differ the good from the bad posters because you could be 99er with 10000 posts, 8k are bad 2k are good. the 2k will amount to a ton of rep; making that poster seem like he is a god Besides that point it will clean out the board and make you think twice before posting, that is unless clutches intentions are to just have a ton of people clobbering at one another for site popularity...
The thing about the poster with a ton of rep that you don't like, is he obviously is a good poster to quite a few people. It's hard to get a "ton of rep" by only getting repped by a handful of folks. YOU may not like the poster, but obviously others do. Take DD for example. I've never liked his posting style, but obviously a lot of people do. The rep system does work, but of course there will never be a way to make 100% of the people on the board happy 100% of the time. We all have posters that annoy us and there is no system that will get rid of all the posters that annoy SOMEONE, because if you did get rid of all of them, we'd all be gone. Slight improvements to the rep system would be ideal though. Not being able to start a thread until you have more than 1 green bar perhaps. Nerfing rep for posters with less than 3 green bars. I mean MAJORlY cut them down. Giving posters with the last 3 statuses the ability to dish out 1 neg rep a day. Things like that.
