Likes or Karma or Reputation and Self-Moderation. What do you think?

This is something I have considered - a certain number of negative reputaion hits on a post would force it to be moderated. It is, of course, open to abuse by a group of members ganging up to force someones posts out of view, but hopefully that would be rare.

 

The problem of ganging up could also be alleviated, when the reputation points are a commodity. When the points have to be earned first, there is much less a likelyhood the users will use them abusively.

Scott

 

But why add negativity into a system at all? Can there really be any virtue in a system that allows negative vibes? Regardless that it may, probably will, be open to abuse, what exactly does negative rep/karma/my little pony points achieve? Isn't it better to promote a system that focuses only on positive attitudes?

I don't know for sure which is why I pose the question, but in my experience systems that contain negative factors only ever seem to promote disharmony. Conversely systems that focus on the positive tend to encourage positive engagement within a community.

Luke Foreman's Post Ratings addon takes a good approach as it allows different ways to express your feelings towards a post. It could be used negatively but most of the forums that use it seem only to use positive settings.

 

• When we embark into a world where all kids get a trophy even in last place, we end up with our school system today and children not prepared for the real world.
  
• When we shelter people from any negative aspects real life has to offer and only shower them with positive, they never learn right from wrong.

So, in short, Having a system that allows members to not only receive Likes (Trophy's) when they do things good, they now also get poked and or scolded by their peers when they do something Bad. It's a peer to peer teaching tool for real life situations. We want our members to learn right from wrong and to stop breaking the rules without us having to Ban them once they think they can get away with it and go overboard. Having a system that allows both positive & negative reactions to their posts provides a mild teaching tool that helps them correct them self before they get to bad and stray down the wrong path.

Granted, as pointed out before, EVERY system "WILL" be abused. It's not a question of "If", its a question of "When". So rather than just not using any systems anymore, we should embrace the tools for the good they can do and work on the abuse as we go. Even if we can only help 1 out of 5 people change their course and stop spamming, scamming, etc. with such an automated / interactive system that otherwise wouldn't have, that's progress.

Eric Lyon

 

I agree. The reputation is what people care about the most anywhere they go. You can set it up separately for both the forum itself and then for the members. Like you said, it helps stop the spamming to get back in good graces.

 

Those are warranted questions. I like Eric's answer.

I just think the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages. People can learn faster, when they are crossing lines. And, you'll definitely have those kind of people. If they aren't learning, you would at least have some community self-moderation, which means warning or banning people isn't just a judgement call on your part as an admin. You'll see a number of the community members are backing you up too. That strengthens your ability to moderate, which is IMHO, the only real chore a forum leader has.

I also like Luke's rating add-on. It is just missing comments.

Scott

 

I agree, Eric has made some good points. I think perhaps a good system would be one that was fully configurable in that area. I also agree with you regarding Luke's add-on missing comments. It's certainly something I'd like to see added.

 

Reputation/Karma is a bad idea for websites, but post liking is good.

 

To me, Facebook like button is an external source that does not necessarily can measure my forum (or websites) activity because not everybody has a Facebook account or not everybody takes the time to like all the pages and threads the they may really like.

However I understand the importance of this social networking site along with Twitter, Google Plus and Pinterest that are actually the stronger in sociability, so my solution is as simple as adding these buttons, but still having an internal (and local) reputation/karma/rating system.

This way who has not a Facebook account can still participate, or those wanting to quickly leave feedback can do it without having to sign in into Facebook or other social website, bearing in mind that sometimes members are not connected from their computers but from a hot spot or a friend's computer.

 

I use reputation and likes on my community. A lot of our users seem to enjoy these features.

 

On a related interesting matter:
Coinchat Is A Chatroom Where Talking Sense Earns You Bitcoin
Basically they have replaced reputation points with bitcoins.

 

I think replacing award / recognition values with a Currency that can be converted to cash is even more subjective to manipulation of the system, Don't you? lol ..... It definitely gives people more reason to try and manipulate it.

 

Yeah, no real money for reputation. That should be considered a forum commandment never
to be broken.

Scott

 

The more important reputation points are, the more reason for manipulation there is. Such certainly makes a rep system more problematic. Yet, I find the concept interesting. I would not likely use the idea on my sites though.

 

Unless you can't prevent cliques from abusing the system, then its worth it in the long run. Members love having shiny bars and having something to show off. The reputation bars give them that lenance.