IP.Board 3.2 suggestion - Reputation system per forum setting

[Maxxius]

Another setting and feature that should really be added in.

There is reputation system at this time IN ALL THE FORUMS. People rep posts, etc. BUT lets say there is a Tech forum with tech-related forums and some offtopic forums. And people can get repped for telling a joke in offtopic forum and for an in-depth and useful post on some tech-stuff. Rep point is not equal to another rep point. A member who is active in offtopic forum (and has no idea about tech stuff) and gets a lot of rep points can actually have more positive points then a real tech guru. That's not so good.

So I suggest to introduce a setting during a forum creation process where you can ENABLE OR DISABLE REPUTATION SYSTEM in that particular forum.

Forums >
Manage Forums >
Edit "My offtopic forum"

Reputation system ON / OFF

[Maxxius]

Any word from IPS? Will you ever implement that function?

[Andrej]

They don't answer to all suggestions, but they are indeed reading them all.

[Maxxius]

Yup, and not implementing :P i mean this one.

[• Jay •]

Yup, and not implementing :tongue: i mean this one.

Personally, I find it unnecessary.

While I wouldn't mind being able to set a different type of reputation (Like, +/-, or none) on a per forum basis, that would be more suited to specialized forums (such as question/answer boards - for example a well liked person might give terrible answers, and an unpopular person might give great answers) and as such might be better as a mod.

An extensive mod, granted, but a mod.

[In-House Solutions Inc.]

I too, am looking for this functionality. For us, we have an off topic section of the site that really doesn't relate. If anything, that's where people tend to just entertain themselves... with things like gaming the reputation system. Wouldn't mind turning it off in there but keeping it active for parts of the site where people are actually getting help.

[Maxxius]

Still nothing on that IPS?

[Matt]

Well, the lack of support from fellow customers means that it's not something we'd consider a high priority.

[Tanax]

Personally, I find it unnecessary.

While I wouldn't mind being able to set a different type of reputation (Like, +/-, or none) on a per forum basis, that would be more suited to specialized forums (such as question/answer boards - for example a well liked person might give terrible answers, and an unpopular person might give great answers) and as such might be better as a mod.

An extensive mod, granted, but a mod.

Well, if I posted a lot of suggestions here in the feedback forum that lots of people liked, +rep me, and then I go to the support forum and post a reply there to some new member who has a problem. They'll see me with lots of rep and think that I'm probably right.

I think that this is what the OP wants to avoid by this feature -- which I fully support.
Also perhaps a way of seeing in what sections a member have received rep. Like if I have 100 rep, you can enter my profile, click my rep count and see 80 of those are in feedback forum, 20 in pre-sales(or even which topics.. but that might be overkill).

[• Jay •]

Also perhaps a way of seeing in what sections a member have received rep. Like if I have 100 rep, you can enter my profile, click my rep count and see 80 of those are in feedback forum, 20 in pre-sales(or even which topics.. but that might be overkill).

That would be sufficient for handling the scenario you describe in your post.

[mat206]

Wow.. wish I saw this earlier. Off-topic forums are exactly the reason you'd want to ditch ratings for those forums. Honestly though, the whole reputation system inside of IPS is pretty weak and nowhere near the level you'd expect to see in a modern site.

[Aisha]

Wow.. wish I saw this earlier. Off-topic forums are exactly the reason you'd want to ditch ratings for those forums. Honestly though, the whole reputation system inside of IPS is pretty weak and nowhere near the level you'd expect to see in a modern site.

Last I checked sites like YouTube Digg and yahoo have up and down rep. What does ipb do different?

[• Jay •]

Edit: I think I misread the post.

[mat206]

http://www.bigdoor.com/

There are a couple of things you'd want to upgrade with the reputation system. For a quick look into more modern approaches look up "gamification" in google. BUT, the idea would be to create an API that allows you to define various "currencies" that users can earn rather than just simply the singular "reputation point". Currencies could be "points", "tokens", "experience" or XP, etc. Then define various transactions that will take place that modify a users currency. What would be nice here is if you can set up rules for how the currency is updated by default (increase by a static amount, increase by an amount relative to the amount of currency the person executing the transaction has, etc). Lastly you could have a type for each transaction that you can set up.. so you can define transactions as "Forum Posts", "Blogs", "User Contributions", etc. to group them together.

From there you could reproduce the current reputation system by having a default "points" currency and then defining a single forum post upvote transaction that will get triggered when a user upvotes a post. The amount of points they gain from a single upvote could have been set up as "1" point for up voting, "-1" point for down voting... or on a more complex level, scaled based off of the other users reputation so that a person with 1000 rep points contributes more reputation to the rated user than say a person with just 1 rep point.

Lastly, you can set up awards/badges for users based on the currencies they obtain. Badges could be awarded for their overall number of rep points they earn, or you could award badges by the number of points they accumulate with each transaction type. So if you had a transaction type for "blog points" and you configured the software to execute a transaction that uses that type you'd end up being able to see how many points came from blogs.

Now the truth is that it wouldn't take a lot for IPS to implement a more advanced approach where users can control the transactions because they already segment reputation votes by application in the reputation_index table. They would just have to add what currency the vote contributes to. Reputation_levels as a table could still hold the "awards" for reputation advancement, but make it possible to segment by currency and/or currency and app.

What could be really cool then is if you award a currency type (tokens) for contributing, or sell them in IP.Nexus.. then make it possible to convert tokens to cash value to purchase things from the store. Or give badges for posting x number of blog posts or getting y number of views.

ipbEconomy is the closest thing to doing this, but the implementation makes it more of a toy than something serious sites could use.

[Tanax]

That would be sufficient for handling the scenario you describe in your post.

Yes, for members who know that the feature is there.
However, for newer members it might go unseen thus creating the issue that we're trying to avoid.

[• Jay •]

Yes, for members who know that the feature is there.

However, for newer members it might go unseen thus creating the issue that we're trying to avoid.

Heaven forbid an administrator should actually make any effort to inform his members about the functionality of the site.

It doesn't matter how basic a feature is, there will be people that have to be hand held through it.

[Tanax]

Heaven forbid an administrator should actually make any effort to inform his members about the functionality of the site.

It doesn't matter how

basic

a feature is, there will be people that have to be hand held through it.

And how many people reads through that? How many people even read the rules of a site they're register on?

[• Jay •]

And how many people reads through that? How many people even read the rules of a site they're register on?

On our site, most.

Our welcome PM template points new members to the guidelines and forum tips, and we also direct members to the forum tips if they have questions that are covered by a thread posted under that tag.

The tools are there. Administrators just need to utilize them to their advantage.

[Tanax]

On our site, most.

Our welcome PM template points new members to the guidelines and forum tips, and we also direct members to the forum tips if they have questions that are covered by a thread posted under that tag.

The tools are there. Administrators just need to utilize them to their advantage.

I'm sorry but that's not how it works in reality. Maybe the majority of users on your site reads the tips but the majority of users on all sites do not. How many people reads the EULA when registering for World of Warcraft? Or on iTunes? Or when signing up on IPS, did you read through all of that? Even if you did, how many other people do you think does that?

The tools are there, sure, but the tools doesn't compensate for the fact that people are lazy and does not want to read through a lot of text just to sign up for something.

[• Jay •]

I'm sorry but that's not how it works in reality. Maybe the majority of users on your site reads the tips but the majority of users on all sites do not. How many people reads the EULA when registering for World of Warcraft? Or on iTunes? Or when signing up on IPS, did you read through all of that? Even if you did, how many other people do you think does that?

The tools are there, sure, but the tools doesn't compensate for the fact that people are lazy and does not want to read through a lot of text just to sign up for something.

And that's why administrators have these helpful little assistants called "moderators" to help point out these useful topics and links to the members too impatient to read them.

The existence of the tools isn't enough, obviously. Administrators have to be smart enough to use them.

[SubStrider]

We definitely do not want users to rep each other for offtopic sections. I know I would end up with very high votes :P

However we don't want to take away the like feature from offtopic sections because that is where they shine the most.

Considering that on IPB rep=like, I wonder where that takes me.

[Jυra]

I wouldn't use it.

[Tanax]

And that's why administrators have these helpful little assistants called "moderators" to help point out these useful topics and links to the members too impatient to read them.

The existence of the tools isn't enough, obviously. Administrators have to be smart enough to use them.

Yes, but having moderators doesn't help a newbie realize that someone who has 90 rep got 90 rep in the offtopic section unless that newbie specifically asks. Seriously, are you trying NOT to understand why this feature would be beneficial?

[• Jay •]

Seriously, are you trying NOT to understand why this feature would be beneficial?

Your hostility and figurative foot stomping is counterproductive.

[Maxxius]

Yes, but having moderators doesn't help a newbie realize that someone who has 90 rep got 90 rep in the offtopic section unless that newbie specifically asks. Seriously, are you trying NOT to understand why this feature would be beneficial?

you are so right!