GameDev.net has a reputation system on their forums which has many advantages. It strongly motivates users to publish deep, informative posts. People are forever chasing higher reputation scores in order to drive their social prestige. Implementing a similar system here would benefit whole Unity community. It would boost quality of most posts and all users would be much more motivated to share their expertise. This in turn would allow everybody to find better answers to their problems through Google. The ultimate result of implementing such system could be general rise of quality of all games made with Unity. This could have a large long-term impact on the community. Another advantage of such system is that it would allow much easier evaluation of post quality. For ex. if somebody posted something controversial, users would be able to judge the post by checking reputation level of the poster. Currently there is only “like” system which motivates people to post something which can be popular. What people need are not “likable” posts, but wise posts which deeply educate, motivate, advise or entertain. Such new reputation system could have honor badge system, something like: “Novice”, “Veteran”, “Expert”, “Master”. There could also be a tiny Asset Store discount attached to higher badges. This would make people chase reputation like crazy, driving overall post quality sky high.
NO.
Why? XD
The forum already works fine.
Some people favor positive reinforcement. I prefer negative reinforcement. What ought to be done is this: post can only receive downvotes. If you get too many down votes, Unity hacks your computer, finds embarrassing photos, and displays them publicly and forever.
This will bring out the best in everybody.
What? I’m not going to spend hours and hours helping people to get a “small discount” when I could just do one more hour of paid work…
I spend time here because I like it and/or because it’s a way to keep in touch with other devs, not out of the desire for any reward.
I do see where you’re coming from in regards to having people recognised as novice/veteran and so on. There’s the real possibility that it could help newbies identify the difference between people who know what they’re talking about and people who just sound like they know what they’re talking about.
My question is, as far as implementation is concerned, how and why it will end up being materially different to the “likes” system that’s already in place? (To be clear, I’m not familiar with their system as I haven’t been there in quite some time.) Your problem with “likes” is reasonable, but the problem isn’t with “likes” themselves, it’s with what people choose to like. That’s a cultural concern rather than a function concern, and if people are going to “like” stuff that’s superficial then what’s to say that they’d “rep” things any differently?
This is a terrible idea, and you are a horrible person.
You should probably also change your passwords, the Unity hackers are coming.
I think they’re just a person with very different experience to us. I get the impression there’s a military background there, where negative reinforcement seems to be the norm, and seems to get results.
I was just joking.
I was not.
I have had bad experience’s with these stupid features. (Most) of it was undeserved. In the end such a thing would only serve to designate who is most liked and who is most disliked (rep bombing anyone??).
Likes are already tracked, just click members and go to the most likes tab.
That’s about all we need around here. What’s kind of free community would it be if people were only participating for their own personal gain?
You would be joking, because you’re a joke. A sad, sad little joke. I’m saving up some downvotes for you once my genius system is put into place.
Go over to answers. They have the karma system. It works pretty much as you describe. I was there for a while, but I came over here because I prefer the less formal environment.
Ultimately these systems aren’t ever much good. The way humans work, they tend to reward volume of posting, rather then quality.
No, look at stackoverflow for the reasons.
My only problem with stack is googling something, landing on a stack page, and its been closed because “the question has been answered elsewhere and that they should google it”
I did, nerd.
But on topic, The likes.
Should they go under the post count under your username.
Not saying yay or nay, as that answer is psychologically intricate, but its forum fodder
The other problem regarding said reputation feature is that it’s just a number. If your reputation is to be a jerk to most everyone, that isn’t reflected. All that can be inferred from the idea is whether you’re well liked or disliked.
It turns the boards into a popularity contest.
I have doubts that any feature like that would boost quality posts. Define “quality”. Realistically the only thing that’s going to happen what I just mentioned.
Who wants the boards to be an uber serious place anyway? Why not have silly, stupid, posts and stuff like that? A reputation feature just says to anyone who visits “We only want serious conversations here, and cool people only”.
When I’m not joking, I’m in agreement with Braineeee here.
I’m pretty sure 75% of my likes are from silly posts.
I’m sorry if I came off sounding like an asshole. This suggestion brought back some bad memories and I am kinda grumpy this morning too.
FYI: Rep bombing occurs when a mass of people get together to down-rep a particular person’s reputation. Its worse when the board administrators are complicit in the action. >:( Not that I would expect that here.
I agree with the post above this one
I think I deserve a like
Consider if someone has two accounts on the both side in a bombing thread, like hedging in stock, it’s hard to lose. Btw, those thread is probably the best place for karma/reputation charging.
Anyway, ask the same question on different forum may get different result, it’s democracy from wide range bias, which is not totally a bad thing.