What should we do about Rep ?

[Tiana]

Yeah, it's 2020, can we also have bigger avatars plz? Most people do not have a 800 pixel wide monitor anymore.

And I don't think rep should be wiped out for old users, that's 14 years of history. They earned that. But, maybe it could be adjusted so that literally everyone isn't maxed out after no time at all? Or, eliminate the visual entirely, don't adjust the point score... just hide it from other users... and just leave it as a way to leave a quick fast nice comment.

[Arimel]

I have to agree with what has been said already.

I never really understood how the point system work with rep, I use it more as a "I really like what you did" kind of thing. I wouldn't mind if it is converted into a simpler thing.

I can echo Cedric H. here. I never actually understood the system and only just found out about the score being displayed on the green bar. I did not know that was there!

Also, while we are talking about rep, am I the only one who is seriously annoyed at how the maxed out reputation bar doesn't align with the maximum avatar size? This little gap here is driving me insane!

Completely! And the fade from dark green to light green. I always thought that it was building up to a yellow or white as 'complete'.


To the question though, I do enjoy the rep button and use it as a like button, like others mentioned above (although I may use it a bit too frequently sometimes!). Evening out the scores being awarded is a good idea though, particularly as time progresses this will only get more out of sink. I do not think negative rep is a good idea, again for the reasons entered above about it not being constructive. Rep should be more of a compliment in a my sense.

[Yrda]

Completely! And the fade from dark green to light green. I always thought that it was building up to a yellow or white as 'complete'.

About this and the width of the element compared to the avatar max/standard size:

Maybe there could be a subtle dark brown-gray "empty" bar as wide as the max avatar size and with the same width for every member.
If the member has little rep, only a little bit of this bar is filled light green, if the member has much rep, the bar fills up light green. In any case you could always see how wide the bar can become from the beginning on.

[Eowyn Cwper]

Two suggestions as on how to transition to a simpler system (if we do – it seems like somewhere we could get stuck though, so I'm sorry if I'm going too fast).

1. Freeze the old rep score and leave it there for old members along with the new rep (I have 472 points, so you could have this amount to show next to my avatar to acknowledge that I was there before it all changed).
2. We know how many times a user was repped, right? Could we just convert the old rep into that (I was repped 6 times so I would have 6 rep) and let this amount go up as new upvotes are given?

[Ilanthar]

Although it's always pleasing to receive some kind of "rep" or "like", I value mostly the kind comments & constructive criticism, being in the thread or wrote along with the rep.

In fact, I enjoy the rep system because it's not just a like button, because it's based (yet not enough) on different factors including the participation to the guild AND because it allows to give a comment to the receiver only, which, in some occasions is kinda useful (I believe). On rare occasions, I gave rep to reward very useful comments.

To sum up, I like the idea of the rep system, but I think it should be reset & modified.

@Kellerica : now I can but only see this disturbing problem with the rep bar !!!

[Eilathen]

Ah yes, the rep system. If we do talk about it, this is my chance, i guess....

As an idea, i like it. If I'm being honest, I liked the "I like"-Button even more.

And last but not least (but a bit tangential to the original question) : I'm a bit sad that most members seem to think that only posted maps seem worthy of rep. . I know i might be the only one (because i'm one of those very few long time members who almost never posts maps) but i think there is more that is rep. worthy. For example a good and helpful critic. But as said, that might just be me.

[Styescape]

Most of my ideas on rep were posted by all of you before, so here is just a summary of my opinion:

- I like the rep idea as a whole very much

- Biggest issue in my opinion ist the big gap between the value of rep coming from different people and therefore the possibility of gaining much rep with just one post, if the "right" person reps you. Don't get my wrong, I don't have a problem, if someone has a high rep! But it makes the system (or at least the shown bar) a bit obsolote, because it tells you nothing about the person's activity within the community and presented work

- to have +1 by everyone is definitly an option. I personally would also be fine with a version, which works with almost the same system as it does now, but with a strong decrease of the boost system. What I have in mind is: you could spread more rep for years of participating, 1000 posts and the like, but it could just give you the chance to rep for example just 5 points max. with one rep, not 10000 or whatever. That wouldn't change the whole system, but could prevent a new inflation

- to start with zero now and show the "old rep" at once might be a good idea

[Redrobes]

I have been out today so I have much to catch up on. Let me respond to a number of comments of which some of them were posted multiple times.

We have some options about the "what" we can do about the Rep system "if" people think it needs to change. So for now the poll is about whether it should change and by what kind of degree. It has been enlightening to see the responses so far with votes in every option. There are some limitations based on what is implemented by the vBulletin system we have and the weightings. There is a cap which at present is unused so we could do a +1 only system or we can have some other options. In theory only we could possibly retroactively adjust peoples rep scores but that might be difficult. Again, in theory we could reset them back to zero and start again but it would be difficult. I was going to run another poll about what options we have and what people might think is the best one to adopt based on the feasibility of how easy it would be to implement.

At present I know when I hit the rep button I can give negative Rep with the "I disapprove" option but then being an admin I have lots of things / options just slightly different to most members. I am not sure if only admins and CL's have that option or everybody. I know my rep is limited to +10 at the mo because I am an admin. My normal member rep power would be higher if I was not an admin but there is the option to make admin rep the same as everyone else's - which I think is a good idea TBH. It seems to be a general consensus (of which I agree with too) that we don't need negative rep on the site. If CL's & admins still get then that's not too big a deal. I have never heard of anybody ever giving negative rep at any time anyway. Please correct me if you know different. Negative scores on some sites is a useful thing esp when dealing with opinions and facts where they can be wrong and it can be useful to push some posts down rankings. But here, there is no wrong map.

At the end of the day the trophy cabinet of silver and gold compasses, and especially our highest achievement of the Annual Awards and other similar shiny things under the members icon is the best indicator of reputation but I like the idea of rep as a means for members to doff the cap to another map. The "why" you leave rep is left entirely up to those giving it. Whilst maybe specific advice or participation is deserved, normally it is given for good artwork. We have a special shiny award in the trophy cabinet for outstanding participation such as running events or organizing things above and beyond the expected level of engagement.

So to the rep bar... well I had never considered that. I will look to see how that is implemented and whether we can satisfy the OCD nature and justify it against the right hand side. I don't know if its a set of bitmaps or something else.

As for the Icon size. I think that does raise a good point. 64x64 or 80x80 is too damn small now. Not sure how the guild looks on everyones machine or device but I think the left darker brown bar is a lot wider than the icon so we ought to accommodate something about twice as wide by 1.5x high or similar. Of course that would mean that the Rep bar would have to extend that much further...

[Yrda]

Sounds good, Redrobes!

Just to show what I see when I press the Reputation button (and a 1920x1080 monitor)
EDIT: with a little manipulation on the avatar size and rep - 120px avatar, rep made "half empty":

Don't know what the number in the tooltip means.

And about the avatar size: 120px should be enough, what do you think?

I'm not sure about the rep bar width - it might still look somewhat chaotic when someone doesn't use a square / full size avatar. But an increased avatar icon size could also be a motivation to create a fresh new one in the new size.

[Falconius]

Hmm.
It looks especially tiny on 4k, and that is already at 140% zoom: