Activate Karma?

[slb]

I'm with Per and Roger on this! As an amateur this forum has been a great help to me but now is less and less so. Seriously considering moving on.

To me, this is the saddest aspect - independent of the peer rating question.  An unfortunately large fraction of the traffic on FOG lately has been bickering over stuff like this or otherwise way off topic.  From some of Matthew's and others cryptic remarks, I get a sense that there is a lot more hostility taking place off line or deleted before many of us see it.  We are driving people like Tom away :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[.  How can we get back to enthusiastic discussion of Festools and the great things you can do with them?

Steve

 

[Ron Pegram]

This is just my $0.02 but...

The reason anyone comes here is to read the postings of those who contribute a lot. Without that content, the board wouldn't have much value.

The rating system, however, allows anonymous people to have a vote. In other words, you don't have to post anything before you can rank someone else.

Because your intent here is to generate useful content, shouldn't there be a system by which people have a vote only if they participate. After all, we don't want taxation without representation, right?

If we decide to modify this, I'd vote that the karma is used only when a member passes a certain threshold of activity per period. I'm not sure how to manage it but my fear would be that those who never post could chase off some who do.

And then what would you have?

 

[John Langevin]

This rating idea would be far more instructive if individual posts were rated rather than a global rating of an individual's popularity, if, in fact, that's what this rating shows.

Like Michael, I think the ability to rate an individual post for the quality of the: question, suggestion, answer or just general intelligence would be helpful in toning down some of the more wayward discussions we have been having of late. If a poster turns a reply into a flame we should have a way of letting them know without ruining what may have been a worthwhile discussion. In the last few months this problem has been become more frequent.

If we want people to act like adults here we need to treat them as such and have the community let them know when they are not. You don't train a dog by rewarding bad behaviour and you don't punish a dog when he doesn't know what is expected of him. Lastly, no intelligent man argues with an idiot; which is what ensues when one poster pisses off another and the other person's only recourse is to flame back. We have way too many poeple walking around with wedgies of late; lighten up! I betcha I finally get a "peer rating" now! A "Per" rating would be much more useful.

 

[sainttjames]

This rating idea would be far more instructive if individual posts were rated rather than a global rating of an individual's popularity, if, in fact, that's what this rating shows.

IF the Peer Rating stands...( I personally would like it to just go away)...I think it should be changed to rating posts. Other forums allow posts to be rated and over time you can set your filter to exclude posts below a certain level. I personally read everything anyway...

I am a rank amateur who has come here to learn something. I have little to contribute as of yet so I deeply appreciate those who do (contractors, dealers, reviewers, etc., etc., etc.). IMHO, the reviews and tutorials STAND ON THEIR OWN...regardless of whether someone is getting compensated for it. People...no one is forcing you to buy anything!!!!

I'm with Per and Roger on this! As an amateur this forum has been a great help to me but now is less and less so. Seriously considering moving on.

I am beginning to echo Tom's sentiments on this as well...

my 2c
-james

 

[daveg]

Count me in with what appears to be a majority against a Karma system. This is the first time that I have seriously considered avoiding the FOG. It seems to me that someone needs to read the classic Lord of the Flies for a good presentation of the extreme case of implementing this general kind of idea. Not a perfect analogy, but still meaningful and instructive. Even though I find comments by some members not useful, I have no intention of rating those comments for all the world to see. That is the respect I would hope they would give to me.

Matt has said that there is no way for abuse. How do you prevent a group of individuals working together behind the scenes in order to trash/promote an individual they dislike/like? I'm not sure what prompted this other than because it's a previously unused feature.

I have an idealistic suggestion.. as a group, we can refuse to use this feature. This could only work if everyone chooses to ignore the Karma option. Since some apparently do favor the Karma system, then this suggestion probably won't work.

 

[Matthew Schenker]

... Matt has said that there is no way for abuse. How do you prevent a group of individuals working together behind the scenes in order to trash/promote an individual they dislike/like? I'm not sure what prompted this other than because it's a previously unused feature.

Theoretically, this sort of thing sounds easy.  But here's how they would have to do it...

First, the group would need to communicate offline and consipre somehow on which individuals they were going to give negative ratings to.  Next, they would all have to fan out and locate posts by the individuals on their list, then vote negative.  Remember, to cast a vote, you have to be reading a discussion in which the person you vote for has posted.  This group would have to repeat their actions every day.

Unless this group was large enough in numbers, even if they could pull this off, their effect would be minimal.  If the group was large enough in number to consipre against particular individuals and actually change their overall positive/negative level, then there are much bigger issues going on here!

This system has been in place in forums for ages.  The details have been hammered out long before we began using it, and there really is no way for the system to be manipulated in any measurable way after some time has passed.

Now, as to whether or not it will work for the FOG, let's see.

I have an idealistic suggestion.. as a group, we can refuse to use this feature. This could only work if everyone chooses to ignore the Karma option. Since some apparently do favor the Karma system, then this suggestion probably won't work.

That's a good point.  It's voluntary.  But just like the massive number of private messages I receive from members about various forum issues, there are a lot of people who will use this system who don't necessarily make their views known publicly.

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[Chris Billman]

I'm with Per and Roger on this! As an amateur this forum has been a great help to me but now is less and less so. Seriously considering moving on.

I am beginning to echo Tom's sentiments on this as well...

Me three.  There's some really valuable stuff here, and the vast majority of the members seem to be great.  But in my short time monitoring this place it really seems to be trying to stir up controversy.

Oh yeah - and someone dinged me with a -1.  Doesn't exactly make a newbie feel welcomed. 

I really wish the whole karma thing would go away.  Let the forum stabilize and get back to focusing on the tools for a while.  Pretty please with sugar on top.  (

 

[Chris Billman]

Dang!  -2 already.  Sheesh.  ???

 

[Brent]

Me three.  There's some really valuable stuff here, and the vast majority of the members seem to be great.  But in my short time monitoring this place it really seems to be trying to stir up controversy.

Oh yeah - and someone dinged me with a -1.  Doesn't exactly make a newbie feel welcomed. 

I really wish the whole karma thing would go away.  Let the forum stabilize and get back to focusing on the tools for a while.  Pretty please with sugar on top.  (

 

[vteknical]

Listen FNG's(Chris and Brent)

You better mind your P's and Q's around here or else!

Kidding of course,

Welcome guys

Victor

 

[John Langevin]

I tried to help Chris, I gave you a +. Is this not getting ridiculous?

 

[Woodenfish]

Poof! It's gone, done, over!

 

[graphex]

Children can't handle voting.

 

[Bill Wyko]

I gotta say, I'd have a hard time giving any of the members here a negative score. It doesn't bother me that it gets a little feisty around here once in a while. That's going to happen when you're in intelligent company with an artistic twist. Score away my friends. ;D

 

[Woodenfish]

Children can't handle voting.

It's been my experience that in children's sports, it's the parents who can not handle game scores, wins and loss's record keeping or individual player statistics so these parent organizers do away with them to protect their kids from the evils of world realities. But, the kids know better and keep the records for themselves and use them as self-motivation regardless. Good for them.

I know many young children who are much more emotionally mature than their parents. That's probably why when these kids turn into a teenagers according to their parents they act like they have all of the answers. Well in their family they probably do because their parents pretty much acted like a dufus's all of their life.

 

[Eli]

I love it when issues blossom and go away again before I have a chance to log on. It's one place where I really don't mind the march of progress.  ;D

Makes me feel like the sleepy Doormouse at the Mad Hatter's tea party.........

 

[robtonya]

I love it when issues blossom and go away again before I have a chance to log on. It's one place where I really don't mind the march of progress.  ;D

Makes me feel like the sleepy Doormouse at the Mad Hatter's tea party.........

Did you even get to see your score? I was happy that I didn't get ant neg. Bob Swenson said he didn't like the negative people. ;D