Yes, most threads never get marked Solved in the Java forum either. Some never even get a "thanks, that worked" response to give any indication that the issue was resolved.

I agree with that you guys, its the same no matter which board you work on most (asp.net for me)

>thats broken to hell.
Ultimately, the only accurate measure is being a member for a few months and learning who has a good real[1] reputation.

[1] Real meaning not some vBulletin numbers game, but the honest respect of a significant majority.

Aah but that is not as tangible is it Narue?

>Aah but that is not as tangible is it Narue?
One could argue that the best things in life aren't tangible. But without getting into philosophy, there's no good way to measure how helpful a member is because such a measure relies on how active the member is as well as the quality of help the member provides.

For example, I could get the first reply on every thread with a completely wrong and unhelpful answer. Eventually someone would come around and give a correct answer, but if the thread is then marked as solved, my solved thread count would increase. This would boost my solved threads rank artificially because I didn't actually participate in solving the problem.

While these ranking measures are a nice curiosity, in the end they're completely worthless. Reputation can be abused, threads may not be marked solved or the measure can be abused, post count can be bumped drastically without helping... The only tangible measure I can think of (based on inside knowledge) is if the person is currently flagged as an admin or moderator, because they're virtually guaranteed to be helpful on the forums, if only by keeping them clean.

I understand your point entirely there Narue. But not everybody who IS helpful IS flagged as an admin/moderator, if you follow me...

exactly. For programming IMHO the most respected is narue, sos and salem
for spyware, maybe crunchie or gerbil

jasimp, zandingo/zandiago or whatever hes called, and serunson, are also really good at welcoming newbies in the welcome board

If I might, I'll weigh in on this, I know I'm new here but let me tell you how I came to apply for daniweb membership. I think that it is important because it is pretty directly linked to Narue and to Narue's comments.

I was looking for a quick solution (more of a confirmation actually) to a problem so I threw it into google and one of Narue's posts came up as the #2 or 3 hit. It gave me the confirmation that I was looking for and the code was nice and tight and well formatted (better than I am wont to do most times). It impressed me so I started lurking around the site and poking my nose into different forums and quickly found that there were certain people here who were giving good answers consistently. I could immediately tell in a broad sense who was a meaningful contributor (whether their answer was correct or in-correct) and who was just answering for the sake of answering.

my point is this: people who understand a subject know find quickly who else knows about that same subject and can formulate a meaningful opinion of that person's contributions. The opinions of peers is more important than statistics.


the other tangible measure here is who reputation points come from and why. I haven't looked too closely at the site here but I did notice the latest rep field (basically who gave you rep and why). it would be interesing to see if one could see all rep points given and why. Its hard to get a good rep that is bolstered by fake praise that doesn't look fake upon closer inspection. I think Dani alluded to this in an earlier post in this thread.

an example would be (sorry to pick on you Narue):

I give Narue good feedback for giving a good example, minimal effect on narue's rep because it's pretty big already and I don't have a huge reputation here.
I give Narue bad feedback because I'm a jerk. again minimal effect for the same reasons.

on the other hand if Narue gives me good feedback it's a big feather in my cap because an established member and a well-respected one at that thinks I've got something good to say.

if Narue gives me negative feedback because I'm being a jerk, it would be pretty devastating to my rep because I'm not an established member.

don't sweat the small stuff, if you're a reputation builder you'll be caught short sooner or later, if you intend to help and be helped that shows through and the members will figure out which category someone belongs to rather quickly.

Dani changed it so rep from non-tech stuff doesnt count which is a PITA as i cant give +reps to people who welcome newbies, or report spam

>But not everybody who IS helpful IS flagged as an admin/moderator, if you follow me...
Indeed. My point of course was that I can't think of a way to measure the helpfulness of a member without some kind of intuition, experience, or inside knowledge.

>it would be interesing to see if one could see all rep points given and why.
You can view all of your previous rep, but others can only see your most recent five.

>sorry to pick on you Narue
When someone picks on me, I let it slide as the result of bad karma.

>minimal effect on narue's rep because it's pretty big
>already and I don't have a huge reputation here.
I don't care what color the dot is, I just enjoy reading the comments. Rep with no comment or "n/a" is just boring.