vBulletin rep system vs thanks hack!

Which do you think is the best of the two and give your reasoning too

Personally I prefer the VB reputation system as it doesnt require any mods and will always be available (hopefully) for all versions to come. With the Post Thank You hack I believe that some day it may no longer be around and that would mean many forums reverting to the default rep system which would also mean all users have no reputation assuming the hack was ran from the beginning and no rep points were given when thanking someone.

I can see the rep system in the future being better integrated within the postbit, possibly like the thanks hack.

 

I like both the Post Thanks hack and the Helpful Answers mod (which is what we use here).

Both make it so much easier to give reputation which has two benefits:

1. Users are more likely to give reputation because it is less of a hassle to make one click rather than click the scale, add a comment, choose a positive/negative rating, and click submit.
2. Users who aren't familiar with the vBulletin reputation system have no idea what the reputation scale icon is, or what reputation is. Having a "Thanks" button or "Did you find this post helpful" rating makes it more prominent and appealing to inexperienced users. This leads to more people who actually use the reputation system... and the more, the merrier.

 

After reading that it makes me think it should be the default rep system

 

I really think it should. There are several (I think... but, at least one) thread(s) on vBulletin.com suggesting a Digg.com-like thumbs-up or thumbs-down system. Or something like what IPB 3 does.

It's just way too "difficult" in the current setup.

 

Not to mention that ghastly scales icon

I see the whole crap accessibility of it. The less clicks the better seems to apply to almost everything online.

 

I prefer the default rep system. One less mod installed, less graphics on the forum to load.

 

The reputation system and "thanks" hack are much, much different, and can (should) be used together.

I use the thanks hack to allow indidivuals to thank someone for a post. It really is that simple.

The reputation system has a muchmore in depth use. You can add to, take from, a user's reputation, on a per post basis if needed.

As well, I use a post/thread ranking hack. Why? Sometimes you want to look @ threads that are ranked in a specific way, such as contests, etc.

 

You can do this with the Helpful Posts (positive/negative rating) modification as well.

 

True, that does expand the reputation a bit

 

Also, a particular user can be promoted to or demoted from a usergroup based on the reputation alone. I haven't seen many Forums using this feature, though.

 

Rep system should come with the thanks hack or anything that can combine them
together. Isnt thats whats said above? On most forums, i dont even see the use
of the rep system, or a thanks, when they have the both of them. But yeah,
they just reply and say thanks, works great! Without hitting the thanks button
nor the rep button.

 

The problems I had - people abuse the vbulletin reputation system. Some of my members were leaving rude comments along with the negative reputation.

So I disabled the reputation system and installed the "Thanks" modification.

 

I use the helpful posts addon similar to this site in conjunction with the online rep system.

 

You can turn off negative reputation per usergroup.

 

Isn't the purpose of the thanks mod just to cut down on the amount of useless posts? Do you know if by using the thanks mod the board sends out an "updated" email to those that have subscribed to the thread? If not, this mod would be worth its weight in gold since I HATE getting an update message just to go in and find out that somebody said "that's a good point."

I like the "helpful" mod that we have here in AA because it really is asking a more useful question. Instead of people just saying "that was a good post" the user is determining if the content actually answered a question.

 

Does the helpful posts hack track this by user, such as "User has rated X posts helpful, and been rated helpful X times"?

I have to admit that I looked at that, just wasn't convinced it was what I was looking for?

 

Only the latter.
User profile -> Statistics tab -> "Helpful Postings"

There's also this feature: Most Helpful Answers -- AdminAddict Forum

 

I'm assuming it also records who's rated the answer somewhere too in the database.

Will have to take a look at this, if it can get rid of the thanks and "post ranking" hacks, combining them into one.

 

You can search/view ratings in the AdminCP:

 

We have just installed this too, it is rather good