Negging and positive reps?

[swansont]

The thing is, as I tried to say before, there's a difference between you thinking you can recognize good posts and you actually being able to recognize good posts. And the former doesn't imply the latter. You may think you can pick out the good posts, yet in actually be entirely incapable of doing so.

 

 

Indeed. There is a tendency for people to think their posts are crystal clear, but we have the bias of understanding our own subtext, context and thought process. The proof is when someone else reads it, and if they are confused by what you wrote, you don't get to say that they are not.

[TrappedLight]

 

Indeed. There is a tendency for people to think their posts are crystal clear, but we have the bias of understanding our own subtext, context and thought process. The proof is when someone else reads it, and if they are confused by what you wrote, you don't get to say that they are not.

 

Yes that is correct, that is why if you don't understand something, you simply ask. You shouldn't neg rep someone just because you don't understand something. The real breaking down of contact is when the poster doesn't ask!

[swansont]

 

My attitude has been extremely mild. I once replied to bignose, one incident where I might be called rude. But that's all. I honestly don't recall any other case, only that my posts on occasions have been misinterpreted, but hey that's life.

 

That's obviously not how others see it. You said everyone had the mentality of children in one post, in another you basically told someone to shove off, in another you accused someone of neg-repping you, calling it immature. Problem is that the reputation was given by someone else.

 

In another your response was basically "you talk a load of rubbish" with no substance. Did you expect positive rep for that?

 

No, that's not mild. (It's not the worst we've seen, by a longshot, but those people didn't stick around long before being banned.)

 

You can either learn from this and modify your behavior, or continue to accrue negative rep. If the civility deficit continues, there's the possibility you will be shown the door.

 

Yes that is correct, that is why if you don't understand something, you simply ask. You shouldn't neg rep someone just because you don't understand something. The real breaking down of contact is when the poster doesn't ask!

 

As I've shown above (7 points worth of neg rep), most of your negative rep came from posts that do not involve this situation.

[timo]

None of us here are made to participate here, but there should be a certain level of respect for those who do.

I fully agree. And so should you.

[ydoaPs]

My attitude has been extremely mild. I once replied to bignose, one incident where I might be called rude. But that's all. I honestly don't recall any other case, only that my posts on occasions have been misinterpreted, but hey that's life.

Let's take an example from this very thread which has (as of writing this post) 3 neg reps.

 

With a forum full of posters who clearly have the mentality of children, this is to be expected I suppose.

Do you consider that mild?

[Phi for All]

But my posts are almost never rewarded correctly, which suggests to me the system is abused in some type or manner.

 

If you're still around in a couple of years, I'm going to wave this one in your face on Quote Night.

 

 

 

 

We're all here to learn, and that's best accomplished when we attack the argument and not the person. Socially, it's good to have a tool that lets people know you don't appreciate an uncivil tone or poor answers. It's better to let reputation handle that instead of letting Moderators judge what's uncivil and what isn't.

[Endy0816]

bla bla bla

 

 

 

Would you not find this insulting if someone did this to you?

 

Don't insult and don't demonstrate willful ignorance. Not hugely complicated. Some of your posts are perfectly fine, others demonstrate inappropriate behavior and were rewarded appropriately.

 

You want to smack someone down, smack them down with statements of facts and numbers. You attack the person and you have already admitted that your own argument was insufficient.

[Gees]

We're all here to learn, and that's best accomplished when we attack the argument and not the person.

 

I don't think this is true. Although people always say that we are here to learn, and many people probably are, there are different motivations at work on these forums. Some come to learn, some come to teach, others come to share a social environment that they enjoy. There are people who come here so that they can immerse themselves in a topic that they value, and others who come here to explore the depths of their own ideas. There are a lot of different motivations.

 

TrappedLight;

 

Forgive me if I am wrong, but after reading this thread, I have the idea that you have come here to teach. You seem to want to give information to others, probably thinking that you are helping them, and then are disappointed when they do not seem to appreciate it.

 

I am a philosopher and know almost nothing about science, so I can not tell you if your words are valid or even helpful, but if you are trying to help people, it may be necessary for you to consider the differing motivations of the people you are dealing with, and have some patience with them. The people who truly want and need your input will be appreciative.

 

I have been to a lot of forums and find that the most popular forums have a "rep" system. It is my thought that people like being able to push those little buttons--makes us feel important. So I think this system is here to stay. Is it fair? No. Is it always based on intelligent civil answers? No. While reading in the Religion forum, I became very aggravated with some of the posters who seemed to need to bash religion. This is a routine past-time for science forums, but they were getting carried away implying that religion was the root of all evil. So I noted that according to archeologists, religion has been around for almost 40,000 years, but in less that 1,000 years, science has managed to create weapons of mass destruction and pollute the entire planet. My statement was intelligent, true, and civil, but it still got a down vote. So no the system is not always used the way people claim it is used, but it is here to stay. (They did let up on religion after that.) I am not a religious person, but I also try not to be biased. Everyone knows that science is a child of philosophy, but I think they forget that religion was the first born.

 

I don't really know about the "rep" system in the Science forum, but science people seem to be happy with it, so it must be working. If I could remove the negative rep in the Religion forum I would, because people tend to be too emotional there. And I would remove the system entirely from Speculations because it encourages a "pack" mentality and discourages speculation. But I don't know if these changes are even possible as I don't know how the system works.

 

Just thoughts to consider. We can't please everybody.

 

G

[ajb]

The rep system is not perfect, however I do see that crackpots run up negative rep very quickly. This I hope would give some indication of quality of the posts by the said individual to people who are not in a position to judge the posts.

 

If you are polite, give clear answers that fall within accepted science and attempt to address all questions posed to you, then you will tend to accumulate positive rep. I think it is that simple.

[hypervalent_iodine]

!

Moderator Note

Since TrappedLight is the same person as Aethelwulf and since Aethelwulf already has a thread on this, I'm closing this topic.

[CaptainPanic]

Although we are a scienceforum, we are also a community. And you basically get reputation for good scientific contributions, and/or for being a nice member of our community. So, yes, it is probably true that a part of the reputation system is a 'popularity contest'. And no, I do not see any problems with that.

 

[edit] Hmm... posting after a thread was closed... Mod powers rule.