What should we do about rep PART TWO !

[Redrobes]

So in the last thread I asked you all about whether you thought the rep system was worth it and if you liked it and if you thought it was working in its current form. The poll showed that by quite a large majority that the rep system needs tweaking.

As mentioned in that thread the issue is the severe rep inflation in that some members can make a new recruit jump through all of the levels in a couple of hits because there is a problem in the way the rep power that one gives is calculated.

The main thing that I have to say is that not every possible option is open to us. The forum uses a data base and I dont want to modify the data base outside of the vBulletin system because there is a likelihood that it will become messed up and not function any more.

So we have to stick with what options vBulletin gives us to change parameters to make the rep system sensible. I will now list all of the options that are available as parameters to adjust and its our job to work out what to set these to.

Initial power - a new member gets this.
For every X days being a member get +1 power. I.e. set the X parameter.
For every Y posts get +1 power. I.e. set the Y parameter.
For every Z points of current reputation get +1 power. I.e. set the Z parameter.
How many posts you have made before your rep award starts counting.
How much current rep a you have before your rep award starts counting.
Max number of rep awards you can give out in 24 hours.
How many different members you award before you can give the first more rep.
A rep power cap. I.e. the max amount you can award no matter how many +1's you have.

So thats the list to argue over.

Some people have expressed the desire that everyone gets the same rep power which is an option to consider.

For information the member with the most posts is about 11,000. The member with the highest current rep is 85,000. The longest member is about 14 years.

The new bar at the top of your rep score maxes out at 55,000 to 60,000 so this is the new full rep score. I.e. if we just go with +1 for everybody then it will take a long time and a lot of people repping to make it up to 60,000. What we need is for people to progress in a suitable time and pace to show forum activity and quality of comments and art posted. In my view somethng like a 1000 or so rep awards should be ample to get you to full. So what I am saying is that small amounts would be 10 and large amounts would be 100 - 200 or so. We will definitely need some kind of cap tho that is for certain. The exact numbers for all of the parameters are up for discussion.

So how about it. How do you want to see your rep ?

If you give me another option early enough then I can add it to the poll.

Let me try to capture some options for a poll.

[Korash]

Not sure why the last option on the poll has a start level of +30. I would put it lower, say 1 or 5. Other wise that would be my option.

[Redrobes]

If an option is close but you think needs a bit of adjustment then vote for it and comment about the adjustment and we can have a final discussion about the winning option and expressed comments regarding it. Maybe a start of +5 would be fine.

[Korash]

If an option is close but you think needs a bit of adjustment then vote for it and comment about the adjustment and we can have a final discussion about the winning option and expressed comments regarding it. Maybe a start of +5 would be fine.

LOL...I did the opposite. I wrote the comment and then voted on the option that I commented on. Regardless of how Rep is accumulated, a lower cap is required and I am glad that this is happening.

[Greason Wolfe]

Well, I voted for the one I thought seemed most reasonable. Will wait to see final results of the poll before commenting about whether or not any other tweaking of the system might be warranted.

[Azélor]

I think the first 4 options are identical.
It's just a bigger number. Just like some RPG. Same thing but bigger numbers.
I guess one could argue bigger numbers are more appealing.

[ChickPea]

Couple of random thoughts...

I like the idea of a fixed amount of rep, as this is the most obvious way to stop it getting even more wildly out of hand. I'd probably go for 20 or 50 points. 1 point is just too cruel for newer members.

I feel a higher weighting should be given to amount of posts a member has. Yes, quality maps are important of course, but we're a forum ultimately, and people who take time to contribute deserve some small reward for their effort. Not bothered about the length of time one has been a member. You could have been here for a dozen years and posted 20 times. Or, you could have been here a year and posted several hundred times. The latter is more deserving of rep, imho. I suppose it's possible some people could post randomly to boost their count, but I can't see it. I know this place, and people will simply ignore anyone who doesn't make sensible posts.

So I'd suggest something like rep capped at 20 or 50 points AND you also get 20 or 50 points for every 100 posts. Don't know how that works with the poll options, so I haven't voted yet.

[Greg]

1 point is just too cruel for newer members.

I agree with this ChickPea, would feel like you're not getting anywhere at all.

I feel a higher weighting should be given to amount of posts a member has.

I agree that number of posts made is potentially a greater contribution than years spent here. Anyone who contributes usually has something useful to say and I can't think of anyone who spams the site with useless content.

At the moment, I've cast my vote for "+30 to start, +1 per 60 days, +1 per 100 posts, +1 per 4000 rep cap at +100." but I've really no idea on sensible numbers to use. That sounds like it could be about right, but it's hard to tell.

Theoretically if you didn't post, it would take a lurker ~12 years to max their rep power out which is a long time, but equally should they have equal rep power? I'm not sure of the best solution to that, but perhaps that's just a niche problem to overlook since they might never become an active member (just don't want floods of forgotten members coming back at once with full power like some army of the dead, haha!!)

Just looking at this thread of people I think everyone would theoretically be at the rep power cap given either the number posted and years a members alone, but that's because they're all key members. The +1 every 4000 pts I think is potentially harder to achieve than the others, but if you're an active member, then rep should hopefully come your way too.

[bkh1914]

I agree with the comments about giving contributing members higher rep power.
Since most rep is given out for maps, a combination of number of posts and rep received is a good way to balance the two types of forum contributions.

I was questioning the rep for membership time value because some people disappear for years and then reappear. (I was totally absent for 7 years.)
But there's no way to monitor that and it really isn't that many rep power points.

I agree with Korash about a lower starting value in the 1-5 range.

[Redrobes]

I'll just clarify that the cap is the maximum amount of rep power that anyone can give. So if there was a starting value and we allow some +1's per something then the cap takes effect when the start plus all of the +1's add up to something more than the cap whereby it is capped off at the cap value.

so having "rep capped at 20 or 50 points AND you also get 20 or 50 points for every 100 posts" doesnt make sense. You can start with 20 or 50 points and have 20 or 50 per 100 posts capped at 100 or 200 but you cant cap at 20 and have any more extras to it. The cap is the limit.

Also for Azelor, yes the numbers are bigger but we have the situation where the current rep scores are in the tens of thousands up to 85,000 range. This is just where we are at this point and it would be very hard if not impossible to alter everyones scores to put them back down to small values again. So its a matter of awarding amounts of rep commensurate with the amounts of current scores we have right now to balance it all up. If we started it all again with everyone back to zero then we could easily have +1 to +3 but if some people have 52,000 or whatever then should we have everyone awarding only +1 and taking forever to get someone up one pip on the rep bar. The whole issue is how do we balance an amount of rep that makes people go up to nice values in reasonable times.

If people think that its alright to have everyone award +1 rep and also keep some members with many tens of thousands built up before we change the rules on how much rep is awarded, then thats ok if thats what we want. But the other option is to increase the starting rep amount and cap it off at some value so that newer members stand a chance of getting up a full rep bar eventually.

Bear in mind that the maximum number of posts that anyone has ever made is 11,000. If every post that member did was followed with a rep award then they would still only have half of their pips lit up. It would take a collossal effort for members to get any new person to a full rep bar with +1 only each time.

Perhaps the question to consider is how many times should a new member have to rep someone to fill their bar. And how many times should an experienced well respected member have to rep someone to fill their bar. The two amounts can be the same or different but right now they are about 1:1000 ratio difference and that is causing a lot of issues. I can be persuaded with a 1:1 or a 1:3 or 1:10 but beyond about 1:10 it feels to me to be a bit icky. If you want a new person to rep someone 1000 times to get another to full bar then thats 55pts per award. If you wanted them to take 5000 rep awards to get them there then thats 10pts per award. If you think experienced people should have 5x the rep award power than a new member and the experienced member take 200 awards then thats about 275 pts for an experienced member and 55 for a new member. So have a think about the numbers and vote accordingly.

Whats the starting award value, what kinds of things do you want to increase the award value by and by how much. And then whats the final cap / limit that nobody can exceed.