Likes vs Rep

[RobA]

"Rep" is the original vbulletin mechanism for peer recognition. You get rep automatically as your post counts increase, and you get rep when other users rep you. The more rep you have, the more rep you give when repping. Rep is intended to reflect a user's standing with the community. The only way to rep someone is by clicking the rep icon associated with a post. All users are limited in the amount of times they can rep in a day. Rep is private, in that only the recipient of rep sees individual reps and the comments. You can also give negative rep ("I disapprove").

"Likes" came with the vbSEO add-on. You can like as many posts as you want. Likes DO NOT contribute to a user's reputation, and all likes are equal (i.e. there is no difference between a like from a newb and a like from the board admin). The nice features of likes are the rollup at the top of the thread (you can see the total of the liked posts in a thread as well as what posts were liked how many times). You can also see everyone who has liked a post - so it is more "social". There is no connection with facebook Likes other than the label (which we could change). As it was added later, old posts will not have any likes. There have been requests of vbSEO to have likes linked with rep (i.e. x likes gives a rep point) but this has not been done.

The last thing is thread ratings. Threads can be rated as 1-5 compasses, and is intended to be a reflection of the quality of content of a thread (mainly used for tutorials and finished map posts). We use rating to determine what tutorials are deserving of an award.


SO they all overlap a bit, but have different functions.

In general:

- If you read a post and think "uh-huh, I agree" or "you said it, brother", a like is probably in order, rather than cluttering up the forum with a "hear, hear!" or a smileys-applause-597229.gif.
- If you read a post and think "That is great - this is high quality stuff and I want to acknowledge it as increasing the quality of the site" then give some rep (and post a response if you want to make it public recognition).
- If you read a thread and think "This is quality content" then rate the thread.

And nothing says you can't do more than one!

-Rob A>

[Robbie]

I just found a new setting that links the likes with rep...so now liking something will also give rep. There's nothing I can do to apply rep to existing likes (I don't think), but from now on it should work. Feel free to test it and let me know.

Also, I've turned off like notifications. That might save us some overhead, and prevent you from having LOTS of notifications. If there's an olverwhelming desire to turn them back on I'll do so.

[Robbie]

Also, you can easily view likes on your profile page.

[Ramah]

Ok, just read all this. Predictably late to the party. So, if "Like" now also gives rep does it still fall under the "Have to give 10 other reps before you can rep this user again" rule? If so, which it probably should, will it just not add the rep? Or will it not add the like?
In the end rep means nothing but epeen but still, hitting a member with 20 rep simply for liking a funny comment about stuffed crust pizzas or something seems wrong. Will people who have read this topic stop pressing Like as much? Will savvy commenters start shooting up in rep?

Hehe. Just playing devil's advocate here but I think it would be interesting to know.

Edit: Oh, another question.... I just wanted to give Viking some rep for his CC award but I see that now the ability to give rep has been removed? Seems like it as I cannot see the rep star now in the sidebar on new posts. If that is the case then now the only way to give rep is to hit the Like button? That is fair enough but I see that 6 people have "Liked" the post by Arsheesh naming it the CC map. Which is fine - it is a good choice and deserves to be liked. But won't that now give rep to Arsheesh? Will people hit Like on that post maybe thinking it will go to Viking?

The main thing I liked about giving and receiving rep was the short notes you can give when you pressed the button.

I personally do not think linking Like and Rep is such a good idea.

[- Max -]

Edit: Oh, another question.... I just wanted to give Viking some rep for his CC award but I see that now the ability to give rep has been removed? Seems like it as I cannot see the rep star now in the sidebar on new posts. If that is the case then now the only way to give rep is to hit the Like button? That is fair enough but I see that 6 people have "Liked" the post by Arsheesh naming it the CC map. Which is fine - it is a good choice and deserves to be liked. But won't that now give rep to Arsheesh? Will people hit Like on that post maybe thinking it will go to Viking?

You can't spread rep on CC award thread, you have to go on finished map thread or elsewhere to rep someone

also I don't think the likes gives rep works atm.

[Robbie]

Meh, I just set it back the way it was then. That's no good. Also I'm leaving notifications off...please test and let me know that reputation giving is restored and liking is now separate.

[Ramah]

You can't spread rep on CC award thread, you have to go on finished map thread or elsewhere to rep someone

also I don't think the likes gives rep works atm.

Well, you can. Or at least you could. You just had to rep a post made by the creator of the map in that thread. Viking replied in the CC thread and I was going to rep him there but there was no icon. But that wasn't the point, the point was that people were liking the post of that map and the poster was getting rep which seemed odd.

Anyway, as Arcana has returned it to normal and I can now see an icon at the bottom of your sidebar once again then all is good in the world.