Post Ratings

[Interrupt]

What do you all think about some form of post rating especially in the PC department? Or at least "helpful" or "not helpful" marks?

In the user profile maybe there can be a section saying Feedback Score based on helpful ticks (I'm figuring not "not helpful" ticks as that might be sad/depressing/discriminatory, etc). Or maybe opt for both? I don't actually know for sure. But it may be a neat way of determining who is doing really well in the "helping others" category.

Let me explain why I think this is a good idea...

First off some of the members on TechIMO - the regulars it seems - really do help out people, lots of people. Maybe this could give them a form of "pat on the back." At the moment a lot of new people (myself included when I had first come to the site) had only an individual's post count to go on (that is, trust someone with 3,000 posts as opposed to 2 posts). It didn't matter if the person with 2 posts was actually more helpful than the one with 3,000, the natural inclination (I feel anyway) is to appreciate someone with a fancy title or higher post count. Is it wrong to think that? Of course! But it happens when you're new!

If this is a stupid idea maybe "teams" or "groups" can be formed. Like "Hardware Experts," or "Video Card Guys," again I'm not really sure. If you hate my suggestion all together feel free to call me an idiot.

All I know for sure is that maybe some form of further distinction may help "reward" the helpful folk on the site. I have a list of people that I really think are super helpful on TIMO, for example, and I'd love to see them rewarded in some way even if they themselves are too modest! The truth is everyone likes feeling special. Take me for example: I'm special but just in the mental kind of way, a little insane, but I take pleasure being "special" and you should too!

A vote in the way of "helpful" or "not helpful" seem to be the way to go.

[Steve R Jones]

vBulletin has both a thread rating and a user rating system. Both are useless/worthless in my opinion.

I can show you some really stupid people who has started 5000 threads asking for help.... So that rules out post counts as a guideline..

The new people coming here don't care who gives help or how long they've been here etc...

EDIT: Here's an example... on a new person that wouldn't care who helped them

Hi experts .
I had start up problem with my lenovo laptop ,
Please explain me how to rectify my laptop start up problem.


Thanks in advance ,

[Taxmancometh]

I thought it would be a good idea to have a place under your user name that shows if you've been helpful or not. I've seen this at work in other forums. By now I should have a bunch of helpful ratings so now it's a little too late.

[Interrupt]

Oh, Steve I suppose that may be true. I don't know. It really depends if they plan on staying or not, you don't think so? Maybe that was just my experience. Constantly being the type to read reviews online on different products I'm also the type to make sure that the person speaking to me is knowledgeable (or if others find them as knowledgeable).

For example when Shyguy was helping me I took the liberty to search through some of his posts to ensure that he had discussed graphics cards in the past to some degree of detail. Obviously he has (and then some!). So, in conjunction with his very knowledgeable posts, I was able to determine he knew what he was talking about. Had I simply had an easier way of telling such would have been cool.

Again I do trust you as you seem to have a lot more forum experience than I do. Just giving some examples of how me - and in my state of mind - how I work through posts.

Taxman. You?! HELPFUL? XD Ok no I'm just kidding. You are actually very helpful. And yeah, man, that's exactly what I mean. Right under the name. But it would be kind of unfair to folk who are helpful and have been here a while.

[Steve R Jones]

The User Reputation function also allows people to do negatives

There used to be a bug where if a person got enough negatives that they would get auto banned....That included moderators

Another example: 27 people could give you a thumbs up for this thread.... Two years from now what would those points really mean?

Then there's the part about a new member like yourself and an old fart like me. Do I get an extra 5000 points

And yes - you were wise to verify information given to you and or to verify the source.. There is no real good easy way to make the verification bullet proof.

[Steve R Jones]

Mark - thought you might get a kick out of this pic... When doing Reputation points you can also leave a comment... The attached is from a site I took over as Administrator and was having troubles making friends

It's also the site where every thought they could do enough negative points to ban me

The second pic is after giving myself 10,000 extra points just in case..

[Interrupt]

That's an awesome system right there!! I guess you're right though in that at the end of the day it really doesn't mean very much. Especially when people can just spam/negative vote you like that.

We may just want it here for the comedy factor alone! XD

[Taxmancometh]

Taxman. You?! HELPFUL? XD

Hardy har har

[GroundZero3]

Meh I dont care if someone finds my post useful or not, they can take what I say with a grain of salt.

Ive seen other sites with the reputation bars, and I never went off by them. Plus im sure Tax would have tried to give me some negative points when I was busting his balls about the pirated game software back in the BF3 thread

[Taxmancometh]

You know me too damn well! Just too damn well!

[GroundZero3]

<3