Let me clear the confusion regarding voting!

[cscgal]

OK I am going to try to clear up all of the confusion, so bare with me :)

The reputation system still exists in the same manner it always has. However, the algorithm to calculate rep power (how much influence you have on another member) has been altered so that those of you with a lot of reputation can still feel comfortable posting a negative reputation comment every so often without feeling like you're going to kill the new member. Additionally, previously new members had to have 10 posts before they gained their first point of rep power and now they only need 5 posts. What all this means is that new members will start spreading reputation around sooner and old timers won't be affecting reputation so drastically.

Reputation is used for when you agree or disagree with a post, when you find it helpful, when you have a comment to make about the post that's either good or bad.

Then there's the voting system ...

Every individual post can be up-voted or down-voted. You can only influence a post by +1 or -1 depending on your vote.

If you give reputation to a post, you will automatically up-vote or down-vote the post based on the reputation that you gave.

However, you can also very easily up-vote or down-vote a post by clicking the little button, without having to type anything in or refresh the page. When you do this, you are only affecting the post's vote count by +1 or -1. You aren't affecting reputation.

So let me make sure you guys get this ...
You give reputation. You can leave a comment about the post. You affect the user's reputation based on your own rep power. You automatically increase or decrease the post's vote count by 1.

You just up vote or down vote. You increase or decrease the post's vote count by 1. There is no effect on the user's reputation and the user doesn't know who it was who up voted or down voted them. The idea though is for lots of people to do this and for posts to accumulate lots of votes each.

Unlike reputation, where you would only give rep if you thought the post was helpful, or thought-provoking, or useful, or gave the wrong advice, or you disagreed with it, you would up-vote or down-vote if a post is well-written or uses 1337 speak or doesn't have code tags or does use code tags correct on the first try, etc etc.

The idea is for posts to accumulate lots of upvotes or downvotes (similar to Digg, for example) to the point where when you're browsing a forum listing, you can skim the OP vote counters to see whether a post is even worth clicking into.

[William Hemsworth]

Thanks :) I personally think the voting system's awesome.

[cscgal]

Thanks for the positive feedback. OK I have some more confusion tidbits to add :)

As I mentioned, if you give reputation you automatically vote.
Or you can vote without giving reputation.

It is possible to change your vote (Click the other arrow) in the future. But, as you know, it's not possible to delete reputation you give. And once you've given reputation, your vote is tied to it. So once you give reputation, you can't change your vote.

So:

Give reputation and vote is automatically counted. Can't change either.

OR

Vote. Change vote. Change vote again. Give reputation. Vote is changed to whatever the reputation you gave was. Can't change either anymore. You might do this because you stumble upon a post and they used code tags right or the question was phrased very detailed so you one-upped them instantly. Then you took the time to evaluate their code, or study it more in depth, and you decided they really deserve some reputation love with a nice kudos on their algorithm.

[William Hemsworth]

How come some threads have '0' by the side, yet some of them have nothing at all? It should by one or the other, shouldn't it?

[cscgal]

If no one has voted, it shows nothing. But if people have voted but it got both positive and negative votes that even each other out, it shows 0 to indicate that there has been interest in the thread.

[jbennet]

dditionally, previously new members had to have 10 posts before they gained their first point of rep power and now they only need 5 posts.

Is that retroactive? I assume not?If no one has voted, it shows nothing. But if people have voted but it got both positive and negative votes that even each other out, it shows 0 to indicate that there has been interest in the thread.

I gave 1 to thread with -1 earlier, and it went straight to 1 not 0. The potato head dude noticed that too.

[cscgal]

> Is that retroactive? I assume not?

Well, no. But everyone who has 5 posts now has rep power to use moving forward.

> I gave 1 to thread with -1 earlier, and it went straight to 1 not 0. The potato head dude noticed that too.

It was a bug that has since been fixed. The bug was related to the new vote number it dynamically showed when you voted. The database has the correct amount and you would have seen the correct amount after refreshing the page.

[Paul Thompson]

Well i do have one idea, that is we need to educate people as to what it is. I know that a lot of people dont come to the community feedback place. I didn't even know it existed for a while.

So is there any way of making an all around news post? Or making a readme page that explained the system and make it mandatory members to read it at least once?

I'm just trying to think of ways we could let the whole community know about the changes :)

[jbennet]

I agree with paulthom12345 - Some members of the mod team didnt even know about it until today.

[jasimp]

I just don't understand the point of it. People like AD complained because they couldn't leave neg rep without destroying someone's rep. So, instead of just having an option for no rep change when leaving a comment, an anonymous voting system was put in place, that doesn't allow for comments :-/

Secondly the numbers next to a thread are based off of the posts' votes, so if one post gets a bad vote, the whole thread gets a negative number next to it. It doesn't make sense.

BTW, another person against it :)

http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post1004252.html#post1004252

[William Hemsworth]

Another person against it :)

http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post1004252.html#post1004252

Boo Hoo. People need to give things a chance, they're just not used to the small differences.Please Dani, take them away, my eyes hurt.I don't get it, it's hardly changed. There's two small buttons and a number by each post, what's with all this overreacting? :icon_wink:

[jasimp]

I don't get it, it's hardly changed. There's two small buttons and a number by each post, what's with all this overreacting? :icon_wink:

If the bold numbers next to the threads were gone I would be satisfied.

[William Hemsworth]

Plus the bold numbers next to the threads, get rid of those and I would be happy.

I agree with that, it looks slightly untidy there at the left, this was briefly mentioned in Area 51 too. I think that part just needs a bit of redesigning, but I don't want to get rid of it altogether.

[jasimp]

There is no reason to have numbers next the threads that are based off what members think about individual posts in the thread, and are not based on what they think about the thread itself.

[jbennet]

It gives a good overview of activity though

[William Hemsworth]

As Dani said, it's another way to indicate if there has been some interest in the thread. I found myself using it, so it can't be that useless.

[jasimp]

The amount of replies/views was always enough to judge activity/interest.

[jasimp]

Since everything I have said is negative, I do want to say something positive :)

I really like that when a thread has had no replies, the 0 is bolded and in red.

[jbennet]

Yeah i like that, its helpful for Reported Posts, in particular.

[William Hemsworth]

I really like that when a thread has had no replies, the 0 is bolded and in red.

Heh... yeh :cool: Saving those precious seconds.