Introducing the Rep System

[Bambi]

Too bad we get it after a bunch of people left the forums/only view blogs.

[CroMagnonMan]

 

I'm hopeful for this update, but I can't help being a tad skeptical. It could definitely be helpful for pointing out beneficial posts, but with just as much potential for turning into a get-the-most-likes contest. Like facebook. Ew.

 

In any case, its worth will be determined by the integrity of its user, and I'm trusting that BZP users will handle it well.

Yes, it sure would be terrible if this turned into a competition for people to produce content that others will like. Truly a shame.

 

You say that sarcastically, but how would that be in any way desirable? People will always exist who desire to create content that others can enjoy or appreciate, with or without a "rep" system, and that's where the really good stuff comes from; but a competition to create like-able content is a competition to create content that appeals to the widest assortment of people while expending the least amount of creative ingenuity or expressing only broadly accepted opinions.

 

Now I'm not saying that's the sort of situation that a rep system will create, but if it is I personally won't be glad to see it happen. Incentivizing people to create "good" content will not necessarily cause more "good" content to appear.

[Meiko]

Too bad we get it after a bunch of people left the forums/only view blogs.

I never look at blogs. I basically only come here when linked to a forum or when something interesting appears in my RSS reader that has a ton of LEGO sites (including BZPower) in it. :3

[JrMasterModelBuilder]

Too bad IPB doesn't give a way to see what posts are being liked/thanked/up-voted appart from crawling through your old posts. It would be a nice way to determine what people appreciate.

 

I know some concerns have been raised in the past that this will discourage people from posting, but I feel there's only been anecdotal evidence to support that. More likely, people who just view topics and don't reply will use this feature to indicate they think something is cool, even if they don't have something constructive and in-depth to say about it.

I swear I said the same thing a year or so ago. Surprised there's nobody claiming the opposite as insistently as before. Anywho, I can't say I'll be using this feature much, but then, I haven't seen much on here to entertain my interests in a couple of years now. Maybe I'll be able to help encourage people to post the things I like.

Edited February 10, 2014 by JrMasterModelBuilder

[Torran]

I spend most of my time in the creative forums, and sometimes I see an MoC I like but have nothing really to say about it. This is a good way to show the creator that I like their work nonetheless!

[Meiko]

We currently have both of these features disabled. We feel that the anonymity could add to more sincere and honest appraisals. As to the profile count, we feel that the amount of things that you post that get liked is unimportant. It's arbitrary. What's important is the actual content that is getting liked. I think having the count show up in your profile would greatly increase the potential of the system being abused, as people try to convince others to like their stuff so their level goes up.

I've never seen it abused at the forums I've seen it enabled at or closely similar features, but your concern is not unreasonable.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Meiko

[fishers64]

Too bad IPB doesn't give a way to see what posts are being liked/thanked/up-voted appart from crawling through your old posts. It would be a nice way to determine what people appreciate.

Actually, if you consult your profile, there's now a tab that notifies you of somebody "liking" your post. This should work for other members as well, so you can see what other people "liked" about them as well.

Edited February 10, 2014 by fishers64

[InnerRayg]

 

 

I'm hopeful for this update, but I can't help being a tad skeptical. It could definitely be helpful for pointing out beneficial posts, but with just as much potential for turning into a get-the-most-likes contest. Like facebook. Ew.

 

In any case, its worth will be determined by the integrity of its user, and I'm trusting that BZP users will handle it well.

Yes, it sure would be terrible if this turned into a competition for people to produce content that others will like. Truly a shame.

 

You say that sarcastically, but how would that be in any way desirable? People will always exist who desire to create content that others can enjoy or appreciate, with or without a "rep" system, and that's where the really good stuff comes from; but a competition to create like-able content is a competition to create content that appeals to the widest assortment of people while expending the least amount of creative ingenuity or expressing only broadly accepted opinions.

 

Now I'm not saying that's the sort of situation that a rep system will create, but if it is I personally won't be glad to see it happen. Incentivizing people to create "good" content will not necessarily cause more "good" content to appear.

 

I don't really have much to say here, you literally are arguing with yourself. If people will always exist who desire to create content for others to appreciate, how is giving people a method to show their appreciation not going to encourage those people. How is content that appeals to the widest assortment of people going to expend the least amount of creative ingenuity? Have you ever tried making things that people will like? It's REALLY hard! And it takes a ton of creativity! And that last sentence...if an incentive doesn't encourage an activity, by definition it's not an incentive? I don't know for sure the rep system will do anything, but my gut says it will because people love internet points, and will do whatever they can to get it. Which is a good thing, since creating activity on this site is exactly what we need right now?

[Kakaru]

I am ready to start abusing the system by liking all my own posts and this is the most fun I've had in nearly two hours

[- JL -]

On one hand, this'll be good in both content creation feedback as well as providing an incentive for me to write some better stuff in my posts.

 

On the other hand I don't want this to turn into a social network and become a competition for likes.

 

We'll see how this turns out, but I'm sure it'll work out fine in the end.

[Reznas]

I like the idea. I'll wait and see the byproducts of adding it.

 

-Rez

[TNTOS]

This seems pretty cool. I hope it stays because it seems like a good idea to me.

 

-TNTOS-

[Katuko]

I don't know for sure the rep system will do anything, but my gut says it will because people love internet points, and will do whatever they can to get it. Which is a good thing, since creating activity on this site is exactly what we need right now?

Well, I believe "do anything" is the point where some people get skeptical, mostly because it could mean a sudden influx of forced puns, hasty MS Paint-comics and other things which I've seen on forums with a rep-hungry userbase. At least there is now a way for people to "+1" without commenting, so that you can still get positive feedback of sorts despite most users never actually commenting. I must be honest, I tend to look-and-leave in a lot of topics because coming up with a proper comment/critique post is kinda hard.

 

I don't know what to think of a rep system. We've done fine without before, but since the Proto bar only gets changed on rare occasions and there's no downvote here, I guess it'll just have an overall positive effect. It will be kinda sad to have been here for years and possibly losing out to a new user in terms of points because nobody will be +1'ing my posts from three years back, though.

 

EDIT: Or will there not be a "total" score? If so, that works too. Keeping it to per-post scores would be more accurate, anyways.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Katuko

[Indigogeek]

I can see this as a great commercial:

 

"Introducing the Popularity Contest System! Also known as the Comics Forum 2.0."

 

Yeeaaah... I would have taken Hot Topics over this, sorry.

 

Gosh.. hot topics were the best. I honestly have no clue why we removed them.

[LQ1998]

I was wondering when when BZpower would add this. Most sites with the invasion power software have it, I'm glad it's here now.

 

I don't get why so many people are upset about this. A site a moderate (for primarily 9-15 year olds) has had this in place for four years now and never once had a problem with popularity contest. Considering most people here are generally older than our main audience there, it shouldn't be problem for you.

Edited February 10, 2014 by LQ1998

[mk7.13]

As someone who frequents Reddit, when I came back to the forums it was kind of tricky to get used to not being able to upvote posts that I didn't necessarily have a detailed response to. At least with an anonymous upvote system like this, now I have some way of saying "Hey, I saw your comment, but I don't really have much else to say in turn."

 

All the debating about whether or not this system will turn things into a competition is in vain, in my opinion; one of the subreddits I actively participate in (it's the only other online community I've ever actively participated in/generated content for, after BZP) has an "upvotes only" system in place. We also have a lot of strict rules to guide our content creation. BZP, by its very nature, has a lot of restrictions on what kind of content can be produced: we're a website dedicated to children's toys* and most of our content has to center around or be derivative from those toys and the storyline surrounding them.

 

I also tend to agree with Rayg on the issue of "fake internet points ---> good content". It's encouraging to see that people like your content, but without a system that allows people to do nothing more than express their simple appreciation, a lot of times the content author has very little tangible audience enthusiasm supporting their work. Your topic might be garnering lots of views, and some of those are from regular viewers who may or may not have posted in it, but unless they leave a post saying "I like this!" then you have no way of knowing for sure that they actually liked your stuff. With "upvotes," at least you have some fake internet points to fuel your creativity; you're not just creating content for the three or four people who always reply to your topic, you're creating content for a much larger audience - an audience you can at least catch a glimpse of with an upvote system.

 

Speaking as a content creator, it's easy to feel like people are just viewing your topic and moving on to other things. With a system like this in place, you may not know who liked your stuff, but it's nice to know that they did, and sometimes that's enough to keep going.

[Black Six]

Gosh.. hot topics were the best. I honestly have no clue why we removed them.

The forum software changed and removed the hooks we used to generate the hot topic list. It's a very nontrivial effort to fix it, and not overly high on our priority list. It is certainly something we'd like to see back at some point though.

[Ghosthands]

I must say, I've already warmed to this feature, but I'm finding the anonymity annoying. I personally would like people to know that I'm agreeing with/liking what they've posted, and I would like to know who does the same for me.

 

I understand that it's not always desirable to have your name tied to something; how about optional anonymity?

[JrMasterModelBuilder]

 

Too bad IPB doesn't give a way to see what posts are being liked/thanked/up-voted appart from crawling through your old posts. It would be a nice way to determine what people appreciate.

Actually, if you consult your profile, there's now a tab that notifies you of somebody "liking" your post. This should work for other members as well, so you can see what other people "liked" about them as well.

 

Nice! That should have been there all along.

Edited February 10, 2014 by JrMasterModelBuilder

[Kopekemaster]

I don't particularly care either way about it. I third (or fourth or fifth or whatever) the notion to disable liking your own posts.

I remember when SM did that. I think it was the day that I joined, actually.

[fishers64]

Yeah, I'm starting to feel tempted to go back in time and spread "likes" over a bunch of old posts, but that's probably very unproductive.

[Black Six]

We have updated the system so members cannot like their own posts. Thanks for the feedback!

[CyclonatorZ]

I'm skeptical about whether this will actually help the forum at all, but for those of you who are firmly opposed, let me just mention that it could be much, much worse. There is one forum I have lurked on (which I would never ever actually join) that has a whole set of ratings you can apply to posts, including not just positive ones like "agree," "winner," and "funny," but also "disagree" and "dumb." Needless to say, this combined with the forum's huge member base (much of it which is like-minded) results in the entire site looking less like a discussion board and more like a hive mind, where any dissenting voice is rated down into a pit and people can be rated sky high by simply agreeing with the masses and flaming those who don't. BZP at its worst can't even compare.

[Kakaru]

We have updated the system so members cannot like their own posts. Thanks for the feedback!

SHOULD I HAVE KEPT QUIET: A TRAGEDY IN THREE ACTS

[Cambion]

 

We have updated the system so members cannot like their own posts. Thanks for the feedback!

SHOULD I HAVE KEPT QUIET: A TRAGEDY IN THREE ACTS

 

you're just about the only person who could go around liking all their own posts and make it funny

 

so yes maybe no i don't know

[Protodite Karzahni]

Oh boy! Now I can find out who's popular and who isn't!

[Aanchir]

Oh boy! Now I can find out who's popular and who isn't!

It bothers me a bit how superficial people assume the BZPower userbase to be. So far, every post I've upvoted has been because I agreed with or liked the post, not because of who posted it.

 

If you really think people will flock to upvote posts by popular people... wouldn't the same thing have been true of posts/replies? I don't see how this really changes anything.

[Meiko]

It'd be nice if you could remove your upvote after you add it.

[~Shockwave~]

 

Oh boy! Now I can find out who's popular and who isn't!

It bothers me a bit how superficial people assume the BZPower userbase to be. So far, every post I've upvoted has been because I agreed with or liked the post, not because of who posted it.

 

If you really think people will flock to upvote posts by popular people... wouldn't the same thing have been true of posts/replies? I don't see how this really changes anything.

 

 

But with a reply you had no anonymity. Now you do. If this where around during some of the recent firestorms in the blogs I could only imagine what this could do.

But I could be wrong as well, as that happens quite a lot. I just don't think this does a whole lot, as the point of a forum is discussion and this makes an alternative to that.

[CeeCee]

Personally I'm fine with this. Only time will tell if it's used constructively or not so there's nothing much we can say yet.

[CyclonatorZ]

(Also I guess without a big announcement no one has noticed, but the word filter has been changing and getting smaller, dramatically so, for years now.)

 

Not to derail the thread subject, but this made me curious, so I decided to commandeer one of my old blog posts and conduct a quick experiment. And.... as far as individual words go (not site names), it's still pretty bad IMO. Seriously, the synonym for yank is still blocked.

Edited February 10, 2014 by ~~Zarkan~~

[Lyichir]

 

(Also I guess without a big announcement no one has noticed, but the word filter has been changing and getting smaller, dramatically so, for years now.)

 

Not to derail the thread subject, but this made me curious, so I decided to commandeer one of my old blog posts and conduct a quick experiment. And.... as far as individual words go (not site names), it's still pretty bad IMO. Seriously, the synonym for yank is still blocked.

 

 

I have no idea what word you're referring to. Tug? Pull? American?

[Black Six]

Hey guys, let's stay on topic please.

[Meiko]

But with a reply you had no anonymity. Now you do.

But why do you need anonymity when showing your appreciation for someone's work? It's more meaningful to be told directly that someone appreciates your work.

[fishers64]

Has anyone else noticed a considerable slowdown in page loading ever since the system has been implemented?

 

I checked my end; all other sites load up at about the same speed as before, but loading BZPage takes forever and I often have to refresh due to connection time-outs.

Edited February 11, 2014 by fishers64

[Meiko]

Has anyone else noticed a considerable slowdown in page loading ever since the system has been implemented?

 

I checked my end; all other sites load up at about the same speed as before, but loading BZPage takes forever and I often have to refresh due to connection time-outs.

How much slower is it for you?

[~Shockwave~]

 

But with a reply you had no anonymity. Now you do.

But why do you need anonymity when showing your appreciation for someone's work? It's more meaningful to be told directly that someone appreciates your work.

Keep reading... I'm saying that this could add more fuel during heated arguments

[fishers64]

 

Has anyone else noticed a considerable slowdown in page loading ever since the system has been implemented?

 

I checked my end; all other sites load up at about the same speed as before, but loading BZPage takes forever and I often have to refresh due to connection time-outs.

How much slower is it for you?

 

It's pretty bad. My browser gets stuck loading about midway through, and then it slowly plods along, loading up one element of the page at a time. What used to take a few seconds to load now takes several minutes. That is, if the connection doesn't time out in the middle completely and I have to reload it. :exasperation:

[Meiko]

 

 

Has anyone else noticed a considerable slowdown in page loading ever since the system has been implemented?

 

I checked my end; all other sites load up at about the same speed as before, but loading BZPage takes forever and I often have to refresh due to connection time-outs.

How much slower is it for you?

 

It's pretty bad. My browser gets stuck loading about midway through, and then it slowly plods along, loading up one element of the page at a time. What used to take a few seconds to load now takes several minutes. That is, if the connection doesn't time out in the middle completely and I have to reload it. :exasperation:

 

Weird. I haven't noticed any drastic changes in page load times here. It's not fast by any means, but it's certainly not unbearably slow.

[Voltex]

I'm skeptical about this. I'll wait a little while before passing judgement on it, though. Hard to tell how something like this will turn out

 

The green is pretty grating, though. Any way we could change it out for something that fits the blue?

 

This reply is a tad off-topic to the current discussion; however, the dark red used for multiple buttons on the forums would fit better than the green or a blue.