Thanks - Coming Soon

[Janet H]

As you may be aware the recent hack played havoc with all sorts of things including reputation. Rep scores for many members were wiped out and we've been wrestling with how to handle this. Shortly you will see a new feature that replaces reputation and works a little differently.

The old rep system was essentially a points collection contest and skewed to favor posters that had lots of existing rep points. It didn't accurately reflect the good posting or advice that a member might give and to new members especially this was unfair.

Since we want to encourage great posting about computer related tech topics, it seems reasonable to reward anyone who makes a great post regardless of how long they've been a member or how many posts they've made. So, in the next few days you will see a new thanks button on every post and clicking is a nice way to show agreement or appreciation for a good post.

Each time you click the thanks button, you will have the opportunity to leave a comment which the post author can read.

You will be able to access your own thanks comments in your user cp (click on user cp on the upper nav bar) and the last 30 or so will be displayed in the center section of the page under "Latest Thanks received"

When you have been thanked you will receive a PM notification containing a link to the details of the comment. If you do not wish to receive this notification you may disable that option in your user cp. >User cp >>edit options >>> Messaging & Notification. be sure to scroll and click save.

Spread the good vibe around, show your appreciation for a good post - give a little thanks

[Tommy Boy]

I've seen this on other forums and it seems to be a lot better than the rep system. Does it show any kind of points tally or anything? I think that was the main problem with the rep system, seeing who could get the highest rep to display.

Thanks for the new addition!

[IAntDemo]

I thought this was a great new feature.. great idea, so I carried on reading.. and said (OMFG-EF EF S) in my head, but then I read on past the ''If you do..'', seems great, can't wait

When you have been thanked you will receive a PM notification containing a link to the details of the comment. If you do not wish to receive this notification you may disable that option in your user cp. >User cp >>edit options >>> Messaging & Notification. be sure to scroll and click save.

[iPwn]

Originally Posted by Tommy Boy

I've seen this on other forums and it seems to be a lot better than the rep system. Does it show any kind of points tally or anything? I think that was the main problem with the rep system, seeing who could get the highest rep to display.

Thanks for the new addition!

While I like the idea of my rep being displayed, you're absolutely correct, it does become a popularity contest of sorts. With that in mind I think that they should be displayed under the post that thanks was received on and in the user's stats in their profile but not on the user information panel by each post.

[Andy R]

The number of Thanks people get is NOT displayed.

[ssc456]

Hi guys,

just my 2 cents here, i've been a member for a long time here and granted i'm not as active as i used to be but i am dissapointed in the loss of the rep system. I'm not sure of the exact details and if all existing rep was lost to an extent where it was unrecoverable but i'm not very please about losing mine.

Yes there are those who treated it as a populoarity contest but there are also many members on here including myself that were proud of their rep and used it as "a badge of honour" . . . . . .

Ok I don't want to sound like a drama queen here and over dramatise this but the amount of reputation you had gave a good indication of what type of member you are, a member with alot of reputation you could almost always accurately assume was a sensible member, who tried to help out wherever possible and was a valuable member of the forum and i think that members with a nice chunk of reputation like myself were proud to have it.

[IAntDemo]

I think the rep got deleted threw the hackers

[Lowndsey]

Originally Posted by IAntDemo

I think the rep got deleted threw the hackers

No it wasn't deleted just disabled. It is still there.

[Janet H]

Originally Posted by Lowndsey

No it wasn't deleted just disabled. It is still there.

Rep has been disabled but for some usergroups the actual data is gone so they have no scores. It's a bit of an uneven mess and so starting fresh with the thanks system seems like the best path forward - I also think it will be a good addition to the board.

[berry120]

just my 2 cents here, i've been a member for a long time here and granted i'm not as active as i used to be but i am dissapointed in the loss of the rep system.

Must admit that I'm the same on this. I don't really care in the sense that *my rep* has gone, but I don't think it's the best decision for the site overall. The thanks system is a good one and leaves a nice private message for people to pick up saying their post is good, but I don't really think this works as a complete replacement for a rep system.

My logic is thus, that the main thing rep was good for was for giving new members an instant idea of who they could trust. It was good for other things too, like giving you a warm fuzzy feeling inside, but that wasn't the main point of it. Anyone could come and see a big green bar which gave an instant visual notification to anyone that this was a respected member.

What we have now is a system that's flipped it on its head, and placed more importance on the warm fuzzy feeling than notifying newcomers about trusted members. They'll still look for a "trust measure", but that will likely be on post count like days of old. While rep isn't perfect, it's a much better measure of performance than post count ever was (anyone can post any old rubbish and get "rewarded"!)

I also think this can actively *discourage* new members from joining too - because many people who join forums to be active and helpful look for that challenge / reward scenario in which they can earn things like reputation to gain more respect. It's the type of thing that made StackOverflow so successful for instance. Without it then it just wouldn't be what it is today.

I'm not necessarily saying bring back the old reputation system, though I think it'd be better than the current proposal. It seems to me that the thought process has been something along the lines of "the old reputation system didn't work, so let's dump reputation entirely" rather than "the old reputation system didn't work, let's put our heads together and make it better". Yes, I know you might argue that the latter approach was taken and "thanks" was proposed as the answer, but it's something entirely different that doesn't address any of the issues rep tries to solve. I actually quite like the system if it ran alongside rep, just not instead of it. I don't see the fact rep has been partially lost as an issue at all, just dump everyone's rep scores (well, back them up first just in case!) and start over. New era, new rep scores.

In terms of competing to try and get the highest rep score - that (for the site, if done fairly) is a good thing! If people are competing for more and more rep on public display it means that they're competing to write more thoughtful, helpful posts and answers to questions. More people competing in this way drives the overall quality up = healthy competition.