Calling all R3v members. Please read this!

[elguapo84]

Hello everyone! As some of you may or may not know, we are performing a user-centered redesign of R3v's reputation system (as part of a class project). An online reputation system is a system in which users can submit feedback or ratings about other users or products. An example is ebay's star system and positive/negative feedback. As it applies to our forums, a reputation system should convey some information about the credibility, knowledgeability and/or trustworthiness of a given member. Currently, there is no formal "reputation" system on R3v. To infer a member's reputation, one can draw from a combination of post count, join date, transaction feedback and post content. As this is a fairly complicated process and somewhat unreliable, we would like to design a system that will make it quicker and easier for members to gauge someone's reputation.

All that said, we would like your feedback and opinions to help us design this system. Our first activity is what is called a Wants and Needs Analysis. Essentially, we would like you to discuss the sorts of features you would want from such a system. Please use the following brainstorming questions as a reference. Feel free to quote each other and talk back and forth.

Thank you very much for your participation. We look forward to hearing your input.

Brainstorming questions:

What characteristics does an ideal reputation system need to have?

What activities would you like to perform with a reputation system?

What information would you like to get from a reputation system?

[Farbin Kaiber]

rob.

[Raxe]

I don't know how to answer your questions, but I prefer to buy from people who sell a lot (aka power sellers.)


:)

[SpecRaceM5]

Is this for sellers or general member personality. The first should just consist of shipping time, quality of product, quality of description, communication. The later should consist of if the person is an ass hat or not. Some members are and should not be taken seriously by new members. I see quite a bit of post whoring as well with posts and threads created to raise post counts instead of raise the level of useful forum content. Said members often then complain about reposts and search functions to new members who are posting more worth wild content.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers,

Brian

[JasonC]

IDK? If it's anything like e30tech, then i don't see it working very well on here. If someone don't like what you said, they just hide and give you a bad rep instead of calling you out. And remember the "tag" thing that was on here for a day or two, people couldn't handle that. I'm sure a rep system would be pretty much the same.

[Farbin Kaiber]

It would have had to have been here at inception, otherwise it's simply a new toy.

[Slangbox]

I know I'm new here, so disregard my comments if you wish, but I've been thinking about this since the idea was brought up a week or two ago.

Obviously the immaturity issue must be addressed. If reputation were affected by each single click of a "thumbs-down" button, then massive reputation spamming would ensue. I've thought of a possible way around this, however. Imagine this: "I'mAnAss3000" submits a reply along the lines of "Suck my cok teh M42 is the wrst 6-cilyndr evar." In addition to telling this guy off, members could click the Thumbs-Down button for that post. However, one single click would not affect reputation. There has to be a threshold for negative reputation. Let's say, arbitrarily, five. This would mean that five different members would have to click the thumbs-down for that post for it to be counted as a negative post. Another important note: positive feedback would work similarly, except that the threshold should be lower; maybe two or three. Why? Because the human brain is more likely to skip over acceptable things than unacceptable things. In other words, people are more likely to submit feedback about a negative comment than a positive comment, so if the thresholds were the same, the average reputation would be in the negative, which would make me sadface.

Okay, so now that we've got a system for submitting feedback, what to do with that feedback? In my opinion there are two ways in which this could be represented. Obviously you want reputation to be displayed with a member's information on each post. One way to represent it would be to list the number of positive and negative responses. The other way would be to display them by percentages (%positive and %negative). I think the best way, however, would be to give members an option in the User CP to choose between numbers, percentages, or both.

If the R3V community feels that a reputation system needs to be implemented, I believe that this would be a very fair and effective way to execute it. Feel free to tell me any inconsistencies or problems you see with this.

-Slangbox

[SpecRaceM5]

I know I'm new here, so disregard my comments if you wish, but I've been thinking about this since the idea was brought up a week or two ago.

Obviously the immaturity issue must be addressed. If reputation were affected by each single click of a "thumbs-down" button, then massive reputation spamming would ensue. I've thought of a possible way around this, however. Imagine this: "I'mAnAss3000" submits a reply along the lines of "Suck my cok teh M42 is the wrst 6-cilyndr evar." In addition to telling this guy off, members could click the Thumbs-Down button for that post. However, one single click would not affect reputation. There has to be a threshold for negative reputation. Let's say, arbitrarily, five. This would mean that five different members would have to click the thumbs-down for that post for it to be counted as a negative post. Another important note: positive feedback would work similarly, except that the threshold should be lower; maybe two or three. Why? Because the human brain is more likely to skip over acceptable things than unacceptable things. In other words, people are more likely to submit feedback about a negative comment than a positive comment, so if the thresholds were the same, the average reputation would be in the negative, which would make me sadface.

Okay, so now that we've got a system for submitting feedback, what to do with that feedback? In my opinion there are two ways in which this could be represented. Obviously you want reputation to be displayed with a member's information on each post. One way to represent it would be to list the number of positive and negative responses. The other way would be to display them by percentages (%positive and %negative). I think the best way, however, would be to give members an option in the User CP to choose between numbers, percentages, or both.

If the R3V community feels that a reputation system needs to be implemented, I believe that this would be a very fair and effective way to execute it. Feel free to tell me any inconsistencies or problems you see with this.

-Slangbox

That all sounds fine and dandy, however after thinking about it more, I agree with JasonC. For immaturity it doesn't make much sense to do. That's what the Moderators are for. If someone is making stupid posts, then mods should deal with them accordingly. They know who does it more then others. The solution to stupid posts and immaturity (the later being more important IMO) is to get moderators who don't tolerate it and have a moderator policy that deals with offenders accordingly.

As for seller feedback, I think the system we already have is good. It keeps people from posting unjustified negative hits since the person has to post a reply to the persons thread. They are taking responsibility for their negative hit. They also better post a reason or people will see it is just some ass who didn't like something the member in question said.

Cheers,

Brian

[Slangbox]

^^SpecRaceM5^^, to clarify, I wasn't trying to address immaturity in posts, but rather the immaturity that exhibits itself when you have an anonymous one-click feedback system, where disgruntled member A can sit there and spam member B's reputation because member B said something about member A's mother's resemblance to a retarded orangutan.

And I agree, the seller feedback system is fine as it is.

[VacMan]

Check out www.thumpertalk.com. They have a "gas tank" system where people give each other fuel or take it away. If someone gets to empty they are suspended and can't post until someone gives them more gas or an admin gets involved. I think that would be a cool way of keeping undesirables off the forum.

Tim

[TDE30]

rob.

[Dave]

After reading that, I WANT to kick you square in the nuts.

I NEED to put you on my ignore list.

[PhillyG]

I think a seller rep system would be great. Let you know whos not bullshiting.

[Charlie]

It really seems unnecessary. This board is pretty good at "self-regulating" the idiots.

-Charlie

[blunttech]

It really seems unnecessary. This board is pretty good at "self-regulating" the idiots.

-Charlie

i dunno dude . we are still here