46 replies to this topic

[Luminosity]

I think that the current reputation could be harming participation. It is capricious and unfair. I used to have five out of five stars under the old system. Under the new system I have a "bad reputation" and a rating of -53. I am the same person. I feel insulted and my ego feels punctured when I look at this. I wonder if others have felt the same way.

I wish you would go back to the old system.

Edited by Luminosity, 17 February 2014 - 04:17 AM.

[niner]

Where is this reputation found? What's it based on? Luminosity, you still have 725 Thank you points, which is pretty decent. I don't know about the reputation thing, but I can understand that you would feel bad about being told you have a "bad reputation". I hope someone who understands how the rep system works will clarify.

[Luminosity]

http://www.longecity...page/index.html

I clicked on the Longecity icon in the upper left corner and this is what I found. I stumble onto it periodically and it ruins my day. That screen doesn't even list our number of friends, just "new friend requests." I am grateful for the thank you points. The bad reputation was voted by random participants who can now do that when they don't like your posts. If you suggest an addict can get treatment, for instance, you can get a bunch of negative votes. It's that capricious. I think that the negative votes knocked down my stars from five out of five to three. Now you don't even display the stars under our name. Before I had five stars displayed under my icon on all my posts. People listened to me more. I've been studying on supplements for 33 years so that seemed right to me. Now I don't have the same impact.

Edited by Luminosity, 17 February 2014 - 04:18 AM.

[Shannon Vyff]

I agree that the old system was better. This should be able to be changed within admin. I still think impact though is made through what content you are putting out there, people also look at posting history. I know I am not influenced by the reputation system.

[niner]

Ah, I see. My reputation is "neutral". What exactly does it take to get a "good" reputation around here, anyway?

One thing I can say about this "reputation" system is that no one seems to know it exists, or pay any attention to it. However, it's annoying that it is saying things about us that make us feel unappreciated.

[rwac]

I didn't know about this system. I don't even know how to look up someone else's reputation.

Ah, I see. My reputation is "neutral". What exactly does it take to get a "good" reputation around here, anyway?

I have no idea.

[MizTen]

Well, I guess I should feel better if niner's reputation is neutral. Because so is mine. Wouldn't niner's reputation, with 100's of helpful posts, be far better than mine with only a few?

So I guess Longecity's social system is sort of socialistic, we're all equal regardless of the actual value of our contributions?!?!

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk

[caliban]

1) A user's Thank You points are displayed underneath the avatar and are one gauge of community contribution - it is an imperfect method, not least because users can spend these points. Incidentally, the fact that the threadstarter has quite as many points is partially due the system rewarding blog entries very generously for a period to encourage blogging.

2) The reputation system is explained here:
http://www.longecity...m-explained-r11

the first link on the bottom of that page doesn't work, because we decided to make a user's reputation by this method invisible to others as it created too much lament and we wanted to focus on the T-system instead. The stat you see on the portal page is the only point where this way of measuring reputation is visible - i.e. only to yourself, hence no-one could be influenced by it. It states the account of positive vers. negative votes you have received for posting activity. If you are often posting controversially, don't be surprised if that number is low or negative. We are working on the frontpage currently and might decide to remove that feature in revisions.

3) The star rating is completely separate from these systems. This means someone has actually gone into your profile and rated you there. I expect not many people do this, so I wouldn't put much stock in it.

4) There is an on-going consultation in the Members area about significant changes to the reputation system and how posts are rated. As usual, no-one has bothered to respond to this, but I'm sure people, including leadership, will happily proclaim ignorance after it has been implemented.

Edited by caliban, 17 February 2014 - 04:29 PM.
link

[maxwatt]

Few members pay much attention to reputation, T scor or stars in my experience.

[niner]

Stars used to be a big deal when they showed up on every post. Then we got the T score. These mainly seem to get noticed when they are large negative values. As currently configured, the reputation value only seems to be hurting or annoying people. I'd drop it entirely, as it doesn't seem useful, but does seem harmful.

[Luminosity]

I agree with Niner. I got most of my negative votes from substance abusers whom I urged to get treatment, Big Pharma or government shills, and people who didn't like something I said and went after other unrelated posts and voted them down too. None of that is legitimate. I seem to have lost two stars too, after the new system was instituted.

Crowd-sourcing disciplinary actions in this way seems to have backfired. Am I wrong in thinking that before, it was mostly the administrators who even knew how to work the reputation system? Before the right people seemed to have stars. Handing the ability to give out adverse actions to members is something we need to look at. I think that the largest number of people here are young males with mental, emotional or cognitive issues. Also, know that Big Pharma and government shills work this site. They have learned how to use the reputation system for their own purposes.

I wish you would put our stars back under our names on all our posts. This helped people to know how to weigh our posts. Otherwise a disturbed teenager's voice weighs the same as someone with a doctorate. I wish you'd go back to the old system.

Edited by Luminosity, 18 February 2014 - 03:49 AM.

[Luminosity]

Click on the Longecity Icon on the upper left hand corner of the screen to see your score. When someone votes on your posts it affects your Longecity reputation. There are icons to vote on posts that on the lower right hand corner of the post. Not everyone who does that is rational. I used to have five our of five stars under the old reputation system here now I have a "bad reputation."

I believe that a large number of negative votes causes a post to be less visible? Eventually I think it becomes invisible? (One problem with the system of rewards and punishments here is that most people do not understand it.) Two problems, if the post is legitimate, someone like Big Pharma shills can exploit the reputation system to make that post less visible. The other problem is that if a post is really hateful, it should be dealt with sooner by administrators. By the time is it voted down by the community, it has done a lot of damage. I don't think we can crowd-source discipline to this degree.

To see a further discussion of the reputation system here, go here:

http://www.longecity...-participation/

I have reproduced my reputation page below. IF YOU SHARE YOURS, YOU SHOULD REMOVE YOUR EMAIL.



Welcome back, Luminosity



Name Luminosity Group Member Email Joined 14-May 11 Total Posts 1,610 Total Topics 174 Reputation
-53 Bad Avg. Daily Posts 1.59

New Topics 26 New Posts 256 New Conversations 0 New Friend Requests 0 Comments Pending Approval 0

Edited by Luminosity, 18 February 2014 - 04:32 AM.

[Dakman]

Is it really that big of a deal




Seems your ego isn't very robust

[niner]

I wish you would put our stars back under our names on all our posts. This helped people to know how to weigh our posts. Otherwise a disturbed teenager's voice weighs the same as someone with a doctorate. I wish you'd go back to the old system.

The star system also suffers from the disturbed teenager problem. (I lost my 5 star rating long ago.) I think the Thank You points system is the best we've come up with, although it has its own problems- There are ways to accumulate a lot of points without having any particular expertise or knowledge, thus artificially boosting the perceived gravitas of your posts. If you spend your points in the T-economy, then you become an apparent bozo again.

[MizTen]

Is it really that big of a deal




Seems your ego isn't very robust

Luminosity has a blog and posts quite a bit. So those counters can be helpful feedback or frustrating if they don't seem to reflect what (and how) the member has contributed.

For me, it totally doesn't matter and there are other ways to gauge the value I contribute or don't contribute or reduce (to the community).

But it makes sense to use the reputation counter if you spend a lot of time posting.

[mikeinnaples]

Reputation
150 Neutral

I honestly thought I was a much bigger asshole.



Thanks for pointing out the feature. I never noticed it.

[nowayout]

4) There is an on-going consultation in the Members area about significant changes to the reputation system and how posts are rated. As usual, no-one has bothered to respond to this, but I'm sure people, including leadership, will happily proclaim ignorance after it has been implemented.

I think the downvoting ability should be removed. It is being abused to bully people. There are good reasons why on most other social applications you can "fave" or "like" a comment but not "dislike" it. There is already a "report" button for abusive posts, and that should be enough.

I have noticed that all posts of a couple of participants are being downvoted. These are completely civil and helpful posts written with good intentions, but obviously some people have decided for some reason that they have a problem with their target and are trying to bully that individual into submission. The downvote button gives them a way to bully anonymously, so their own reputation is safe.

I don't really have a stake in it (I am unaware if any of my posts have been downvoted and i don't much care), but seeing this kind of abusive behavior here bothers me. It should not be enabled.

Edited by nowayout, 18 February 2014 - 06:47 PM.

[Luminosity]

Thanks to the last four of you for your observations.

As for the first, if you've nothing to contribute, silence is an option.

Edited by Luminosity, 22 February 2014 - 05:43 AM.

[Luminosity]

A new rating system is being used to gratuitously insult participants, sometimes by site administrators looking through people's old posts.  The writer is then notified of this.  I've just had three such notifications.  Every day there are fewer people on this site.  I wonder if this is why.  Two of the people who notified me that my posts are not in accordance with their liking are people I put on ignore because they seem to be trolling or disturbed, but they can still get me this way.

 

One of the ways a site can thrive, (or exist) is allowing people to carve out their own space and be free of those that do not like them.  

 

I just found Niner had rated an old opinion piece I wrote about health care, based on my own experiences, "dangerous" "irresponsible" and "needing references"  Niner often seems to be trolling my posts to get attention.  This isn't helpful.

 

http://www.longecity...ng/#entry659829

 

I am insulted.  

 

A site user, who is disturbed, and who I have on ignore, rated one of my old posts, "ill-informed" when I questioned people injecting stuff into themselves outside of medical prescriptions.

 

http://www.longecity...ng/#entry537894

 

Caliban took the time to tell me my post about a newly discovered UFO witness was "strange."   

 

http://www.longecity...ge/#entry672623

 

When participants come here and have one nice message and three people picking at them, possibly for their own strange reasons, how can the site continue to exist?  My posts have generated hundreds of thousands of views, many compliments and interesting discussions.  A number have been designated as "hot."  Some administrators value my participation.  I take time to respond to people.    

 

There are fewer and fewer people on this site every day.  Is this why?

Edited by Luminosity, 08 July 2014 - 02:44 AM.

[Shannon Vyff]

Less moderation and more support of our active users is something to work on. I'm not sure we are losing any more members than ever though, we have always had a high turn over rate.

[Luminosity]

Thanks for responding.  Lately I and others have noticed more losses.  

[JohnDoe1234]

Luminosity, 

 

Thank you for inviting me to this discussion.

 

It has been many years since I've frequented these forums. As such, I do not remember or know you and thus have nothing against you personally. However, I did take a look at the links to the threads you cited. And, with all respect, it is precisely because of posts like yours that I left these forums.

 

They seem to have little to no positive impact on the image of our cause.

 

Have a nice day.

 - Joseph

[YOLF]

I wouldn't feel too insulted. "Strange" is tallied as "unsure" and depicted as such in the rating options. I think that's some kind of technical typo. 

 

Anyways, membership growth looked to be something like 3% last month (it'll be 36% if it continues like that for a year). Membership revenue was up by 8% in 2013 as was advertising revenue. There are some factors that are influencing the numbers such as a more clear/expanded description of who can get the discount membership, and there were some problems that might have lowered my count from the previous month. But all in all, I think we're doing better and that this feature will give more accurate feedback to our readers and users.

 

I also wouldn't feel picked on. As a prolific poster, you're more likely to get ratings and you've probably received as many as you have from leadership because we've been testing out the system and your posts are numerous. I've been rated at least 10 times in the last couple of days.

[ADVANCESSSS]

Lol, that's actually so funny the way and what you said luminosity lol...

[PWAIN]

You may want to try the mobile phone version. You can neither give or see ratings so no distractions. I don't really care for them myself, they seem a bit gimmicky but I wouldn't get stressed out about them.

[Dakman]

Thanks to the last four of you for your observations.

As for the first, if you've nothing to contribute, silence is an option.

I've been here only a short time but it seems to me that you have that sort of personality and mannerisms that attract the kind of attention you're complaining of. Also I feel your use of the "people leaving" routine is merely to give your rant some substance, because otherwise without it, it just looks like you're having a wee grizzle that others have said unfavourable things about you.

Clearly my comments will be like a red rag to a bull, I questioned your sensitivity once before regarding your interest in your reputation, so know the likely response, but still felt compelled to post

[Luminosity]

A thread I wrote about a new feedback system here was "disappeared."  That is the second time a thread I wrote about a forum issues was disappeared.  So much for open debate.   

 

A new feedback system caused me to start my last visit here with three thread critiques waiting for me, two from administrators. 

 

A site user, who is disturbed, rated one of my posts "ill-informed" when I questioned people injecting stuff into themselves outside of medical prescriptions.     http://www.longecity...ng/#entry537894

 

Site administrator Caliban took the time to tell me my post about a newly discovered UFO witness was "strange."

 

http://www.longecity...ge/#entry672623

 

Niner rated an old opinion piece I wrote about health care, based on my own experiences, "dangerous" "irresponsible" and "needing references." http://www.longecity...ng/#entry659829

 

Niner is helpful to people on the site, and is knowledgable in his professional field (chemistry).  Unfortunately he has developed a habit of dogging my posts with critiques that don't seem rational.  I find this is hard to deal with.  I would appreciate it if it would stop. 

 

I feel that It will be impossible for the site to continue if people are deluged with negative feedback, not all of it rational.  We need to not pick at each other in this way. 

 

If I posted anything that you valued, or took time to give you information, let the administrators know you value my participation here.  Maybe you could also tell them if you think the new feedback system should be scrapped.  I do.  

 

These seem to be the ones running the site:  s123, caliban, mind, maxwatt, shepard, rwac  n-i-n-e-r is also on the list, but the auto-correct here keeps turning it into inner.

 

  

 

 

Edited by Luminosity, 10 July 2014 - 01:31 AM.

[Dakman]

Aliens stole it

Damn aliens, always meddling.

[niner]

Niner rated an old opinion piece I wrote about health care, based on my own experiences, "dangerous" "irresponsible" and "needing references." http://www.longecity...ng/#entry659829

 

Niner is helpful to people on the site, and is knowledgable in his professional field (chemistry).  Unfortunately he has developed a habit of dogging my posts with critiques that don't seem rational.  I find this is hard to deal with.  I would appreciate it if it would stop. 

 

I feel that It will be impossible for the site to continue if people are deluged with negative feedback, not all of it rational.  We need to not pick at each other in this way. 

 

If I posted anything that you valued, or took time to give you information, let the administrators know you value my participation here.  Maybe you could also tell them if you think the new feedback system should be scrapped.  I do.  

 

These seem to be the ones running the site:  s123, caliban, mind, maxwatt, shepard, rwac  n-i-n-e-r is also on the list, but the auto-correct here keeps turning it into inner.

 

I initially rated that rant "needing references", but changed it to "dangerous and irresponsible" upon further consideration.   I didn't do that to troll you, I did it because that's what I think.   I certainly don't run this site.  I donate my time here, but have absolutely no say in the way it is run.  My posts are as likely to be "disappeared" as yours are.   You seem to be asking for a place where you can broadcast your opinions, free of any criticism.  Longecity is more of a marketplace of ideas, and ideas get voted up or down.   There are probably blogging sites where you can turn off comments, or you could host your own such site.

[sk_scientific]

My T score isn't changing with likes any longer.  Isn't it supposed to?

 

http://www.longecity...e-2#entry676605

Edited by sk_scientific, 23 July 2014 - 11:44 PM.