Have the OP rate each poster of the thread only once of the help to him performance with the negative post consisting of a Poor button and then of course a Good and Exel button. This might keep flame down to a minumum and improve the quality of the posts. I am afraid that negative ratings beyond this may keep some people from help posting at all.

Just to clarify a couple things here.

* Nothing has been decided yet and no reputation system has been enabled. We're getting feedback *before* we make a decision.
* It's possible there would be no negative feedback under a system if we do implement it, but at a minimum you'd need 150 posts to give negative feedback. Combined with the fact that you would have limited feedback points to give, the potential for abuse on the negative side is near 0.
* If we do decide to move forward with a reputation system, you'd almost certain retain the option to opt out of it...leaving your LQ experience exactly as it is now.

--jeremy

I would think that it may also be desirable to limit negative feedback to those with positive reputations.

Forrest

I am for this, but the button needs a little work. Also, I know that a "downvote" button could be abused, but it could be helpful.

My experience with such feedback systems has been limited to Slashdot and the Yahoo SCOX board. People have gamed the Slashdot rating system to where it bears no relationship to what the Slashdot people initially intended. It has also provided the incentive to where the Slashdot people compete to produce witty one liners instead of thoughtful commentary on the subject at hand.

On the Yahoo SCOX forum the games the pro and anti SCO posters played against each other eventually forced Yahoo to redo their posting system to where it became useless for the SCOX wars. And yes, I personally gamed the Yahoo board rating system during the SCOX wars.

Based on my experiences I think that if LinuxQuestions developed a rating or feedback system that it would soon spiral into something which doesn't resemble what the people advocating the system are trying to produce. The Microsoft astroturfers would game the system to try to disrupt the board. There would also be some jerks who don't happen to be employed by Microsoft who would game the system just for the fun of it. The people who take this forum seriously would try a series of revisions to the rating/feedback system to keep the vandals in line. The rating and feedback system would evolve into who knows what. I just don't think that it is worth the time and effort that the well intentioned members would have to spend trying to ward off the vandals.

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Steve Stites

Nothing, just an elitist who thinks they are to good for LQ now???

Well let me pose a question for you.
What is the purpose of showing how many times you have been thanked?

With regard to "gaming" the system. This is another backup as to how useful a post may be. Up to now we've only had the number of posts to give any indication of how knowledgeable a poster is (this wasn't perfect, some of us remember when General used to count for posting) - between that and a reg date check, it would give at least an idea of what you're letting yourself in for when you try something out. This is just one more indicator.

On thinking about it, could it be restricted in the same way that post count is? While I find out a number of interesting things in the General forum, none of them are germane to Linux and just by being an interesting and funny guy you could rack up quite a reputation by holding forth in that forum. At least if it only counts in the technical forums it will keep them "on topic" as it were.

It is, as I said in my post above, another way of letting someone unfamiliar with a poster know how knowledgeable they may be. We don't really do cliques here, so the "300 thanks club" probably won't get off the ground. And if anyone does feel a little superior because they have more thanks than anyone else, we have a healthy membership who can help them keep their feet on the ground.

Which invites the complementary question: What would the harm be?

There is nothing wrong with having metrics on how people use (or abuse) this forum. The benefit is that anyone can see the scorecard in one glance. Without something like this, we would have to keep our own notes on who is the most helpful/credible/patient, etc. Those of us that get senior discount on **everything** could buckle under the strain......

1 members found this post helpful.

Many members here spend countless hours helping other members. They don't do it for money. They don't do it for fame. They do it to help other people. They do it to help promote Linux and Open Source. They do it because they think it's the right thing to do. To me, that's deserving of a thank you. Open Source is very much a meritocracy, and I think this falls directly in line with the spirit of that.

--jeremy

1 members found this post helpful.

And another thing - having a Thanks button isn't especially new to LQ. Anyone remember the old Affero system we used to have?

What is the purpose of this? An answer is either fully correct or not and there are more than enough knowledgeable people on these forums to correct you when you are wrong in a post.

On a similar note why show how many times you have thanked some one?
I see nothing wrong with thanking someone yet why have this information stored in your profile.

I've actually removed this for now.

It's not much use thanking someone if they never get to know about it. The system is merely meant to offer a little recognition.

--jeremy

Does the system pm you and tell you which post you have been thanked for or which thread it was in? If it does then I see no point of the "Thanked x times in y posts". On the other hand if it does not then what is the point also, seeing as they would never know without trawling previous posts why they were thanked.

You may have sensed I am little against it Please do not incorporate this into the forum.