Reputation system: meaning & value

[Rivem]

I'm with diachi and Jerry on this one. There's really no point in trying to change things now. I believe that people around here respect members for what they do here and not the reputation they have accumulated. If capping the rep system didn't have the outcome people thought it would, we'd be back here asking Avery to do yet something else. It's been this way since the beginning and I doubt any changes are going to have the desired effect.

I understand, but I feel like we're only thinking about ourselves (more experienced members) and not new members when we make assumptions that everybody understands.

Honestly, a better solution might be to turn it off if we all agree it's pretty much worthless now. It's been dropped from a lot of vBulletin forums for similar reasons. A few other forums treat it more like a game and do frequent resets and/or redistributions. It'd be much easier to do than script any caps.

Either way, I don't want to really incite drama, so I'll yield the rest of the discussion to other members. Probably pushed a bit too much already:yabbem:. Just wanted to discuss what I perceive as a bit of a growing issue.

 

[RB astro]

VBulletin is limited to 7 bits, so once a member's rep reaches 63,999 it will reset to zero.
I suspect we'll see a mad rush to neg rep each other soon in order to keep our reps up.
:crackup: j/k

RB

 

[Encap]

I'm with diachi and Jerry on this one. There's really no point in trying to change things now. I believe that people around here respect members for what they do here and not the reputation they have accumulated. If capping the rep system didn't have the outcome people thought it would, we'd be back here asking Avery to do yet something else. It's been this way since the beginning and I doubt any changes are going to have the desired effect.

Ditto the above and it seems to an an activity everyone enjoys what with the badges and all and it still serves as a guide of sorts as well, just bigger numbers and to indicate who is currently active contributing --- the only real difference is that someone with a massive number of +reps carries a bigger stick both positive and negative rep-wise than used to be the case.

I see it as all good fun--has never turned ugly--serves the purpose of enjoying the rep activity itself and it also serves the purpose of people making better quality posts and more of them that will get +rep as well--to some degree also...is about participation in few a positive ways--so...

 

[Alaskan]

...Regarding the rep limit, if the counter for reps is limited to seven bits, perhaps we should just turn off the rep system, or, if possible, only display green tiles without numbers before we reach the level where all of the green tiles go away.

Edit; relief it was a joke, reduced post.

 

[RB astro]

I was only kidding about the 7 bits Chis.
The thought just sounded funny to me.

 

[Alaskan]

ha, gotme, ok, well then i guess the swordsman won't get us in the end.

 

[lasersbee]

I guess it is pointless, but I liked to use it as a way to judge the value of a member's posts.

That was the way it was.... before 2013.
You have not been here long enough to know
how the rep system was abused by some LPF
members in 2013 to conspire to get rid of some
members here. The offending members know
who they are...

Alaskan saw that abuse and put a stop to it
by giving out +Reps as often as he could to
any members but the Rep abuse conspiring
members.

That Rep abuse has stopped. It was the ONLY
reason I returned to LPF after 3 years...

The Rep System is not what it used to be and
never will again... Over at PL they don't even
have or want a rep system and the Forum works
just fine.

LPF has always had a Rep system and it will
continue to evolve along with the LPF Forum
Community.

Evolution is a good thing... IMO

[EDIT]

Honestly, a better solution might be to turn it off if we all agree it's pretty much worthless now.

Do you know how many times a Poll was
created in the past 9 years on LPF asking
if we should remove the Rep System...:thinking:

It is still here...

The Reps System is part of LPF and will stay
here... IMO.


Jerry

 

[CurtisOliver]

Precisely, can't rep you again yet Jerry.

 

[lasersbee]

VBulletin is limited to 7 bits, so once a member's rep reaches 63,999 it will reset to zero.
I suspect we'll see a mad rush to neg rep each other soon in order to keep our reps up.
:crackup: j/k

RB

Hmmmm... IIRC... 7 bits is 128:thinking:
and 7 digits is 9,999,999 :thinking:

But the neg repping looks like a plan just
before the VBulletin Software resets Reps
to zero...

Precisely, can't rep you again yet Jerry.

Hey no problem... Neither can I....

Jerry

 

[RB astro]

Hahaha, yeah I know Jerry, you got me.
I just wanted it to sound right.
Last time I played around with binary George Boole was still finishing his algebra exam.

:crackup:

 

[Rivem]

Hahaha, yeah I know Jerry, you got me.
I just wanted it to sound right.
Last time I played around with binary George Boole was still finishing his algebra exam.

:crackup:

The actual max value is probably ~2.147 billion. It is very likely a signed long int, so the rollover would go to -2.147 billion which is a huge hole if there weren't protections. I doubt provisions would have been made for 64 bit numbers, but we're probably past 16 bit numbers unless there's some coding shenanigans. We'd know after somebody exceeds 65,536.

 

[CurtisOliver]

It all depends on whether the forum has allowed for negative integers on rep power. But you seem to have the more reasonable of guesses IMO.

 

[Rivem]

It all depends on whether the forum has allowed for negative integers on rep power. But who seem to have the more reasonable of guesses IMO.

You're right. It's the Rep points that are signed, not the power. We've seen heavily neged members with 0 rep power, so we'll have to see when 65,536 (max 16 bit unsigned int) comes around. If that's the max, it'll probably just stop there. Then the rep power cap would have been naturally imposed.

 

[Radim]

I'm going to bring this thread back up to say the rep system should probably be capped somewhere so that there's at least a margin where reputable members, new members, and questionable members can be defined. It's getting to the point where a new member will be at 10k in a few weeks while older, but very helpful and less active members have about the same.

Not that it's an issue, but the rep system has no external value other than pats on the back unless there's some way to quantify it across a lot of members. Just in the summer, we went from 10k being an achievement to 50k across a lot of the active members. The growth will only accelerate as these numbers climb, so the numbers will become even more useless.

If anything, a troll/scammer like a few of the worst ones we've had could easily get up to a huge rep number by acting fine for a short amount of time, and cause issues later when their rep is greater than a lot of senior,, trustworthy members.

Just my thoughts as the inflation continues.

Edit: I revise my opinion. The rep doesn't need to be capped per say, just the rep power.

Interesting. Rep+

I see kind of max. rep power for certain time/post numbers. Rep is still counted but once the time and/or post level is achieved the score is released for rep power till maximum of that level member has just achieved. I believe it could reduce some problems, but still if there are levels wrongly set it will be just bothering and maybe without effect.

Still rep is just some number as discussed before, but with 100k you will start to create kittens as defined earlier. Worth to have. :crackup:

 

[H2Oxide]

You're right. It's the Rep points that are signed, not the power. We've seen heavily neged members with 0 rep power, so we'll have to see when 65,536 (max 16 bit unsigned int) comes around. If that's the max, it'll probably just stop there. Then the rep power cap would have been naturally imposed.

bodybuilding(dot)com uses a rep system that at least looks nearly identical to ours, and users over there have >100,000 rep.

 

[CurtisOliver]

As rep points is naturally a larger number then we'll have to start by estimating that maximum instead of rep power; as I believe that both integers will have the same max value. We are seeing 5,000,000+ points now. And as everything is usually in binary quantities then (2^15)-1 is ruled out as that would only give 32,767 points. The next is 32 bit: (2^31)-1 with a max of 2,147,483,647 points. If this is the max, then we would have to assume that 21,474,836 is highest rep power someone can have.
Now if we on the off-chance happen to have 64 bit integers, then (2^63)-1 would see a value of 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 points and a max rep power of ... 92,233,720,368,547,758!
I'm going to put my bet on 32 bit.
But the chances of any of us reaching the limit is incredibly low, as I can't seriously see the mods letting us post with 21,000,000 rep power now can you?