New Rep System

Hi MoFos,

As you may have noticed already, there are little icons on each post now; a thumbs up, and a thumbs down. These represent the new rep system. Here are the pertinent changes:

• A thumbs up is +1, a thumbs down is -1. It doesn't matter who you are, how many posts you have, or how long you've been a member.
• Clicking the icon will not interfere with your browsing at all. The icons should be replaced by a confirmation almost instantly, without any reloads or delays. It's been built this way to encourage people to continuously rate posts as they read through a thread.
• You may approve or disapprove of each post one time. Subsequent ratings will be ignored.
• Ratings are anonymous.

As before, it's up to each member to decide what criteria to use for approving or disapproving of a post. I very strongly recommend, however, that we all remain open to disapproving of posts even from people we generally like. One of the problems with the old system is that people took it personally when they received negative rep. It became a bomb you drop only when you very strongly disapproved of what someone had to say.

I don't specifically desire that we have a high number of negative ratings, of course, but a system that truly reflects what people think is going to have a fair number of them. If the overwhelming majority of the ratings are positive, it means the system isn't really working. I plan to disapprove of any posts I find rude, overly sensitive, irrational, highly off-topic, or even uninsightful.

My hope is that this system will allow the community to quantify not just its positive feelings towards users and posts, but it's negative ones as well, so that we can find a way to highlight positives and discourage negatives. Doing the latter without upsetting people is a tall order, but I think this may help.

A few tweaks are upcoming, of course. I'll likely be programming in a safeguard to stop people from approving or disapproving of the same person too often, and a minimum post count may be implemented as well. I don't think we'll be instituting any sort of increased ratings (positive or negative) for tenure or post counts, however.

I'll be replying to this thread a little later with a few ideas for where I plan to take this system. There are quite a few practical applications that I'm very excited about. In the meantime, please feel free to respond with your thoughts. I welcome any and all input. I've put a lot of thought into this system, and I admit I am a little married to the core concepts, but I'm definitely open to moderate changes.

Fire away, MoFos.

EDIT: if you're just reading this, check out my post later in the thread, detailing potential uses for the system.

huh... I'm glad there's a rep system, as I think it helps temper a lot of foolishness.
I have to say though, I will miss those little rep notes.

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Review: Cabin in the Woods 8/10

Several members have said the same thing. I do hope to find a way to let users leave each other little notes apart from the rep system. Something private, like a PM, but quicker and easier.

Either way, I hope you guys won't let the temporary exclusion of notes from the site color your opinion of the new system. The people have spoken, and they pretty obviously want the comments back in some form or another, so it'll definitely happen.

Yay!

Great, I can use this system no problem!

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"When I was younger, I always wanted to be somebody. Now that I'm older, I realise I should've been more specific."

So, where does this rep show up, then? Not the notes - I realise you're still working on that. But the accumulation of points?

I was wondering the same thing...

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Great question. An answer half-exists at the moment.

I've created a small page which displays the top X posts, based on net rating (positives netted out against negatives. IE: 3 thumbs up and 1 thumbs down for a particular post leaves it with 2 points). It also displays the top users (also netted out), and allows you to view both using only ratings from the last day, week, or month, instead of all of them.

I'm still playing with it a bit, and hope to have it up early next week. In the meantime, I hope you'll all use the rep system extensively; the page mentioned above, and all the other ideas I have in the works, all work best with more ratings.

"I plan to disapprove of any posts I find rude, overly sensitive, irrational, highly off-topic, or even uninsightful."

Dag, that is about 99% of my posts. Insight?

Sedai <---- Blind

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Okay, I promised ideas for practical applications...so...

At first, the system seems simplistic. And it is; by design. But once the ratings are stored, there are hundreds of things we can do with them. Wouldn't it be cool, for example, if...

• ...you could click a link inside a thread and immediately be taken to the highest rated post in that thread?

• ...the highest and lowest rated posts were a slightly different color, or style, so that you could identify them easily?

• ...you could easily view the day's most popular posts?

• ...you could view each user's all-time most popular posts? Or the site's all-time most popular posts, in a "greatest hits" of MoFo?

• ...you could run searches, and exclude results that don't meet a minimum rating?

The applications are almost limitless, really. I think the first would be particularly helpful in large threads. It's good that we've got almost 200 posts in the Matrix Revolutions thread, but that can be pretty daunting for a new user to scour through, and I imagine a lot of the regulars wouldn't mind skipping over the shorter, less substantive posts in those kinds of threads, and getting right to the real discussions.

What do you guys think of these? Do you especially like or dislike any of these ideas? Do you have any others? I anticipate that some of these would be, compared to some other site projects, relatively easy to implement. The turnaround between community input and implementation might be surprisingly short on a few of them.

I feel like Ceaser at the Colosseum! Excellent.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Do you want us to go through threads, giving them a retrospective thumbing? (ahem )

That's true about the retroactive thing. How can we go through the tens of thousands of *old* posts and rate them. In our *koff* spare time?

In essence, though, I like this system. I think I'll give your posts a thumbs-up.

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Linda's Author Website
Linda's Amazon Author page

A couple more ideas:

Top 10 posts of the week

Annual Rep Rewards for helpful users. The reward could be a DVD, or a piece of movie memorabilia.

It's up to you guys, of course. I plan to rate old posts as I come across them in the normal process of browsing the site. I may go out of my way to rate some of them, as well, but I don't expect anyone else to. It's unfortunate that posts before today probably won't ever get the kind of recognition they ought to, but that probably can't be helped.

Still, a number of older, popular threads are obviously still around and being added to on a regular basis, so I'd say we all still scroll by a fair number of older posts anyway. And if one catches your eye, hey, it only takes a second to register your opinion of it.

Great ideas. Both easy to implement, too. I'll save them both.

Damn, I was thinking about how all my old posts would drift off into the ether, but, after thinking about it, there are probably only two posts I can think of that actually posted something I consider worth saving (reviews aside, of course). Maybe it's better to let it drift...

I think review threads would be a prime place to start (apart from my old tat, of course) if anyone wants to wile away a spare half hour...

My thumb says yes

Which can be quite distracting while typing


I like the 'best post of the day' thing. (will it be 'of the last 24hrs' tho, rather than based around the EST day or whatever?) EDIT: And the best-of-the-week thing too. All the ideas sounds useful in fact. I'm sure there'll be teething troubles, but it looks pretty sound.

I'm glad the comments are coming back too. They were a fun addition. The only thing i'll miss is a certain balance that had evolved there - where neg reppers had to justify themselves etc. I'm sure a similar flow will emerge with this system too tho.

I think the only thing you have to fear is that MoFo's top post is going to be an esoteric bit of wisdom by Mr Last (possibly involving koalas, the texture of toblerones and a song about broken glass )

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

awesome. my only concern being that the previous ratings system - can't be tied in some way to the new one. and that unless we go back and find old ones, they can, indeed, go off into the ether.

WAAAAAh. but i must say, i like having it tied to each post because i never really gave rep before. mainly because it seemed like an effort. now i can just click once, and be done. it'd be cool to have a comment OPTION but not have to give one.

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life without movies is like cereal without milk. possible, but disgusting. but not nearly as bad as cereal with water. don't lie. I know you've done it.

Lovin' the new rating system chris.
The post of the day thing is a great idea. Can't wait to see how it turns out when its all said and done

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"A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theater admission and the babysitter were worth it."
- Alfred Hitchcock