OK, how does someone give reputation that's gray? What does it mean?

And can the comment box be a required field when giving reputation?

Serunson commented: My rep back to ya :P +4

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Greay means the person who gave you the rep was a newbie. newbie rep isnt worth anything, its neutural. you have to accumulate a certain amount of time/posts in order for your rep to count for anything. This is to prevent people making multiple accounts to wage rep wars

commented: Hello from sunny surrey :) +7

> And can the comment box be a required field when giving reputation?
Why? Sometimes I just want to give someone kudos for a good post without having anything more to say. Overall, the simpler it is to give rep, the more accurate it will be in the long run, because you're not limiting giving rep to the people who want to take the time to type out personal messages.

> And can the comment box be a required field when giving reputation?
Why? Sometimes I just want to give someone kudos for a good post without having anything more to say.

That's fine. But I'd be interested why someone gave bad rep on an innocuous post.

then, why not better make the comment box a required field when giving bad rep? this way at least you know why you are being bad repped... how about it?

then, why not better make the comment box a required field when giving bad rep? this way at least you know why you are being bad repped... how about it?

That's the way it used to be. But people just typed a period or some random letters, making a forced comment absolutely useless.

I guess it would be a pretty hard work for mods... but, why not validating bad rep points? I mean, before they are assigned to someone, being checked if the reason is valid by a mod?

Because reputation is subjective ... it's someone's personal opinion as to whether "they agree" or "they disagree" with someone else's post.

It wouldn't make sense for it to be moderated any more than it would make sense for voting in a poll to be moderated or rating a thread from 1 to 5 would be.

And the people that need their reputation to be "moderated" obviously are taking reputation far too seriously. I used to care more about, but now, eh... It's also a feature that is somewhat broken, in my opinion.

The only reason to monitor rep comments is to filter out objectional language and the language filter should do that. Otherwise I could care less about the comments, other than to read them and possibly find out any problems I may have caused.

commented: thanks for the rep! +1

Who cares about geek lounge reputation anyway? It is the reputation points and comments of Narue (has never given me anything), Salem and the rest of the regulars, that I get in the C/C++ forums that I really care about. Even a grey coloured thanks rep from a newbie in the C/C++ forums are worth a 100 "I agree" reputation points in the geeks lounge to me.

commented: agree -- rep not relevant in geeks lounge +14
commented: Disclaimer: This rep doesn't count. ;-) +19
commented: thanks for the rep +1
commented: Yes. Good explanation. -2
commented: :D :D :D :D .. +3
commented: Wolfpack you never fail to amuse me :D +2

well... that are all good points, but i meant moderating rep points that have no reason to be...

i mean... i don't care about rep points (i'd probably get -rep for that though), but there are people that actually do... that is why i concern...

that would be to avoid what joeprogrammer said... that people gives away -rep points to everyone with no reason at all, and fill the comment field with random letters... that is what my point was... not moderate the points as in the moderators point of view, but having a subjective, non selective, point of view and moderating those points given with no reason...

By the way... that was a good one... its out in the field where rep points are worth...

commented: Yep. +2

how much rep do u need to get the second block? ~ it really annoying that i still only have 1 :( ............

commented: here' +14
commented: this ought to help +8
commented: You'll get there... :) +11
commented: Hello from sunny surrey :) +7
commented: -_- +3
commented: Why to stop here. Have one more. And be happy. +2
commented: maybe you get to the third one... +1

I think you have to have 100??

Every 100 points you get new block.
Now, however reputation points seems to be pointless as point are given just for complimentary note or deffending your buddy in coffee house and not stuff like reporting bad posts or valuable information in technical section where everything actualy started. So choose your alliance

commented: Let's see how long this can be. aoeuhtnsaoeuhtnsaoeuhtns aoeuhtns aouehtn saoeuhtn saoeu htnsa oeuh tnsao euhtn aoheus ntaoheu aoteuhna oetuhsanoteuh atnoesutha oesnuh asntoeuhs antohe santoh eusnatoeu hao etuhsa onteuh aotneauhsoteuh aoneu haontuhe +6

> it really annoying that i still only have 1
Start contributing, they would automatically grow.

In my opinion, reputation should just be disabled. At least the point system. Too many users wonder what reputation does in the first place, writing an FAQ would do little to help, judging by the number of people that read the rules or use code tags.

Negative reputation is nearly completely useless, because if you negative-rep someone, chances are they have friends who will give them rep back.

Positive reputation is usually pointless, because it's handed out for stupid reasons. As an example of this, try looking through some of the posting games. It's amazing how much reputation is handed there. (I know, I don't post there, but I just happened to stumble on it when I was looking at some user's "latest reputation".)

From the way I understand it, reputation wasn't designed to be subjective. It was supposed to be a gauge of whether or not the post was good -- not if you agree with their opinion or not. In theory, you could give positive reputation to a post you don't agree with, as long as it's well-written.

Of course, we're all human, and we tend to give reputation for completely useless reasons, we're more likely to give reputation to our friends, and the net result is that reputation is screwed up. Just because I have something like the fourth-highest reputation doesn't mean I'm really that smart.

The one good thing I see in reputation is comments on posts you've made. I wouldn't be heartbroken if the points system was removed and just the comments were left in, so you can still let a user know whether or not you approve of their post.

commented: I agree, especially with the part that says about you not being that smart. +8
commented: That was a reaaly good one... you are totally right my friend... +1

Amen to that. I completely agree that reputation is no measure of your helpfulness.

According to me, Salem is the most reputable person around, considering that I haven't seen his single post out of the C / C++ forum -- in short hard earned, well deserved reputation.

If you check my CP you will see that like 70% of my rep is from people who i have helped in the winxp/2k forum

commented: i can give you rep again! +2

And yet people are getting good reps for saying the rep system is worthless. =D That's interesting.

;-) Jk.

commented: thanks for getting me to 100! +2

Amen to that. I completely agree that reputation is no measure of your helpfulness.

According to me, Salem is the most reputable person around, considering that I haven't seen his single post out of the C / C++ forum -- in short hard earned, well deserved reputation.

The reputation system works in the sense that Salem has the highest reputation of anyone else who has as few posts as he does. In fact, all other members who have a similar amount of rep as him have 4X his number of posts.

(This is with the exception of a very few members who registered back in 2002, when the rep system was first introduced, and there were only like 5 regular members on DaniWeb, all of whom were moderators, all of whom were giving each other a ridiculous amount of good rep, and when one could give out more rep points at a time.)

:( i wish i was here in 2002 for that

Believe me, you didn't miss much :) DaniWeb got off to a very slow start ... our second month, we had one new post and zero new threads over the course of the entire month.

I joined in what, 2005? It was about the same then as it is now IMHO, just with a different colour scheme.

Since 2005 we've quadroupled the number of new posts made per day and tripled the number of new threads made per day.

Woops, hmm maybe thats just my imagination, rose tinted glasses and all that...

i at 69 rep points! :D

commented: Any improvement? +8

yay i got 273

but i think we are getting a bit off topic now...

The first problem with the rep system is that it is all-or-nothing "agree or disagree". So for people with lots of rep, they can only "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree".

For anyone familiar with devshed's approach (which I find much better in this respect), you can choose how many points to give up to your maximum (both maximum points per comment, and maximum reps per day). This for example allows you to politely (or jokingly) disagree with someone, without knocking them into the ground.

The second problem is one of "worth". As WolfPack says, who the rep came from and for what is far more important. Some oik with an axe to grind on the coffee house fora isn't worth a hill of beans to most people.

My suggestion would be that each forum should have a "scale factor" which is multiplied by the points you want to give to that person. In the coffee house, this scale factor is zero, so everyone can agree and disagree all they want, and nothing really changes. On all the other forums, the scale factor is 1 so that good posts are duly recognised and rewarded.

commented: Interesting suggestion. +8
commented: you need to get out more. -2
commented: void main'ers are DOOMed, i agree i agreeeeeee :eek: +3

Who cares about geek lounge reputation anyway?

Even a grey coloured thanks rep from a newbie in the C/C++ forums are worth a 100 "I agree" reputation points in the geeks lounge to me.

Laughing out loud. Looking at the latest negative reputation I receieved for the above post, I think someone (I am not naming names) who takes the geeks lounge rep very seriously, as that is the only way she gets her (Yeah, you now know who) much needed reputation, is very very vexed.
:D

commented: lol +14
commented: ;) +2
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