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While online tonight..........

I have only seen a couple forums so far with reputation points, ranks have been around quick some time, what is your opinion of reputation points and ranks? To go even further, having to have different post counts to have an avatar or signature and user title? There was one once with a ten post rule, no problem there.

(Personally I have not posted on such forums, yet, I have seen them.)

No time limits and having to type in fuzzy codes for a simple search, I noticed that showing up more often.

The one I would be the hardest on is reputation points, comes across of who likes who and a popularity contest, no real point to have it, at least not for a general conversation forum.

Serious, is there a good reason for any forum to have such a point system?

Avatars that are six inches each way are too large.

This topic is ending up as a general best forum type topic.


Note - I like the format this forum uses.

I have posted at a now nonexistent (gee, I wonder why) forum that did have a sort of system like the reputation points you described. I think it was basically there so the mods wouldn't have to actually do anything, and yes, it was used predominantly the way you described: Everyone would give the highest rating possible (5) to their circle of friends frequently, and even the smallest of disagreements often resulted in a spamming of 1s.

Also, regarding avatars, I have a simple rule of thumb: If the blank space at the bottom of your posts is frequently larger than the actual content, you need a smaller avatar. If you're posting in, say, the board games section in a thread like the movie titles game, your avatar shouldn't make the post take up the entire page.

On this forum I saw, they can give and take points, and how much is based on their own point and post counts.

I know someone that goes to forums with two mile long signatures, rather messy, I have never posted or even visited such a forum, I believe those are mostly fan sites that have large pictures and banners of said person.

There was a time when I thought it would be best if post counts could only been seen in the users profile, however, that was many years ago (seven, eight years) where too many people were obsessed with their post costs, for the last few years, I rarely seen anyone care much about post counts, just shows how active a member is.

I believe you're referring to the Simple Machines-type of forum structure. They do work in some cases-fail miserably in others.

Face it: there is NO universal Forum type that will please everyone.

At least this forum seems well laid out and responsive; I've been to some that were anything but...and it showed.

RedEye wrote:I believe you're referring to the Simple Machines-type of forum structure. They do work in some cases-fail miserably in others.

From what I saw on the two forums, it does not appear to be causing any problems, none that I have seen, one has to do with reputation with deals, the other is just a product site. For a general conversation forum, I cannot see a point in a member vote point system.

Face it: there is NO universal Forum type that will please everyone.

No, most forums now days have a likable set up, the problem on some are too many features, long signatures, huge avatars, popularity points, codes to type for searches etc...

Karma, reputation points, whatever they decide to call them...when they're given an actual use, it's mostly for privileges. When they have no such purpose, then nothing good really comes out of them at all. I've seen people use such points mainly for bragging rights and saying that they're better than others. I've also seen people with high points instantly toss aside a valid argument or intelligent post just because the person who made it had low points.

I did see at least a couple people that appeared to post in a way so they would get points.
We know forums with post count rules have been around awhile, one had a couple post count rules to avoid spammers. Forums with privileges, I have only heard about those, which goes back to custom avatars, ranks and such, which people should be able to choice from the start, yes, it is there board, however, some do not make it too inviting with two hundred rules guidelines for each thing you may want to do. (Mostly of what should go where.)

Example based on reading different forums - That news should go in the news topic, Main Forum > General Conversation > Page 24 > Post 18 > News > Page 889 (Trying to condens the forum a little too much, I believe that has to do with founds and bandwidth issues. )

Gaining privledges based on posts doesn't bother me much.

Reputation/karma/etc. are worthless and endlessly abused. Only one forum I frequent has it and it's a small forum who uses the system more for horsing around than an accurate measure of anything.

Avatars, well, if your avatar is big enough that you change the forum of the page due to it's width or causes your post to be much longer than it's text due to length, it's way too big. Same goes for sigs.

There was a time when I preferred a forum have fifty by fifty avatars to keep it simple, however, with the custom artwork done here, the larger onces are nicer, yet, not too large.

Xiroteus wrote:There was a time when I preferred a forum have fifty by fifty avatars to keep it simple, however, with the custom artwork done here, the larger onces are nicer, yet, not too large.

I like my avies size-limits around the 100 by 100 range, or at most 150 by 150. Though I care less about the height of an avatar than it's width as that tends to bend the forum all out of shape. Avatars like the one Redeye, Joker, Z, etc. use aren't so bad despite being 200 somethin' pixels tall. They look cool without distorting the forum.

It's a chore to find (or resize) something in stuff like fifty by fifty that looks cool.

Avatars, as far as I'm concerned, should be 150 wide at max and 250 tall at max. Signatures should be limited to small images if any and no videos or animations.

Kudos points are unnecessary; you learn the reputation of the big typers fairly easily just from being there.

Reputation points is kind of like Communism, the Edsel, and Mint-flavored Starbucks coffee--it's one of those things that's a good idea in theory, but in practice generally doesn't work well. The idea behind it is that one can weed out jerks and troublemakers. It would seem to me though that in the long run it would create bigger problems; unpleasant members generally don't stick around very long, whereas the kinds of problems generated by popularity contests produce lasting hurt feelings that could cause loss of good people. I'm really glad we don't have them here, because we're already going through a down-cycle, with good people bailing out or losing interest. Last thing we need is something that actively catalyzes more of it.

Avatar size restrictions is a fairly simple thing; just don't let pictures larger than a certain size go through. If it's an outside link, set maximum boundaries, and people who don't want their avatars squished will upload smaller versions that fit.

I am firmly against any form of ranks or emblems that make someone look superior to someone else. That creates some horrible egocentric/elitist personalities almost always. One gamer clan I was in known as "The Forerunners" was around since Half-Life (the first one) was released. Lo and behold, when they implimented ranks, everyone started getting pissed at each other. Even I was mad that I was being treated as less of a member than others. That led to many people leaving and not coming back.

The same could happen here if ranks are placed on people. The post counts are quite enough. I wouldn't really care if the Admin and Moderator tags were hidden. I just do this job to help out, not to feel "superior" or sport a fancy title. Even if a title carries no powers with it, you'd be supprised how often an annoying ego still rises from it.

At least here, we can either let the Post count set out "title and Moons" or just use our own title (like mine...).

Long signatures are determined by the letter count allowed in the signtaure box. Most of us have more than our name there...another no big deal.

As for the Avatar thing: it's up to us to ask for a custom space from an administrator, or live with a 100x100 space. Lots of us have larger than average Ava's.

Generally, the Admins here are doing a good job, and it shows. That is not the case in a lot of Forums, where one busy person is the Administrator and everything else as well. They're just a bit overcomitted, and their Forum shows it. That's life, on the Web...

Here as well a past small message board group have Administrators and Moderators that feel like regular members unlike some forums where the Moderator and Administrator can have a bit of an ego and the user title sometimes shows it, once I saw Moderator Lord and other such titles, there is middle ground to this as well, where it is mostly a job with no ego involved, Not sure why any forum feels the need for points and ranks, even taking away points, if someone disagrees with someone and their points can go down, waste of time, I only found out about this point system within the last month.

Even if a title carries no powers with it, you'd be supprised how often an annoying ego still rises from it.

That would be post count titles, that one forum had that as well, different color name and under title depending on post count.