# Member Rating System



## MemeTransport (Sep 28, 2001)

I frequent several Macintosh/Geek boards and I am struck by the similarity of their member rating systems. They pretty much all rate a member by counting up the number of posts they have made. If you make thousands of posts you get lots of stars or a special tag.

This has struck me as odd since this type of system rewards users for posting and posting and.... It does not acknowledge insight, good information, expertise, helpfulness or humour. It does not punish people for truckloads of useless posts, flamewars, me-tooism, bad information, bad attitude, or cluelessness.

I'll admit that I don't know how flexible the board design is with vBulletin but I'd like to suggest a different system of Member Rating.

I should admit my biases are towards the Scoop BBS as used and developed by www.kuro5hin.org. If you haven't been there it is worth a look.

The proposal would require the BBS to:

 allow ratings of individual posts.
 track those ratings on a per member basis
 track the number of posts made by members
I'd like New Members to be designated as such from 0 to ~50 posts. After that I'd like peoples' ratings to be based on an average of their message ratings. Perhaps based on only their last 50-100 messages to better reflect recent message ratings.

If your message rating average was 4.3 you would receive 4 stars (or dots or whatever). It would be nice if people could sort messages based on message ratings as well as member ratings. I think this would help control flame wars and encourage thoughtful posts.

What do you think? Is this possible with the current BBS and if so is it desireable? Do you have a different system you would prefer to see?


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## AdmiralAK (Sep 28, 2001)

Most boards probably use the same kind of software which is the reason for rankings with regards to number of postings.

I agree with you but in order to get people decent rankings even if the software were capable for it, it would require people to leave positive, negative or neutral freedback (like they have on ebay for example) and people in general dont like to take the time to do that with a couple of people, much less for more than a thousand members that exist on this board...

I am sure things could be worked out eventually.  As far as we've seen this board (and peripheral support structures for it) are works in progress.  Give it some time


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## Red Phoenix (Sep 28, 2001)

I guess I've always considered the posts count as more of a novelty, than a ranking. I had been reading posts here since early in the Public Beta days, but never felt a need to post anything (and hence, any need to register) until six months ago. I'm worried that if any "real" rating system were set up, it might get too political. It's kind of hard to imagine much in the way of internal politics here, but it could happen. It even happens at VersionTracker.


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## Matrix Agent (Sep 28, 2001)

If we did rank by post #, Admiral would be surpreme commander of the world. Thats the biggest reason for not having rank by post # on this forum.  Of course, I dont have any problem being "Number Two"!

I think a thread rating system is a lot better, that way instead of avoiding a certain user, I can just avoid crapy flaming threads altogether.


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## AdmiralAK (Sep 29, 2001)

LOL 
Dont make me flame you 
lol @ supreme commander ... shouldnt it be supreme Admiral  hehe ..

Anyway if we do get such a rating system people should be encouraged to elave positive comments not just bad ones (people are more inclined to leave a commanet if it is bad lol)


Admiral


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## MemeTransport (Sep 29, 2001)

Hmmm....you're probably right that thread ratings are better on this board. The number of active users seems to be relatively small which could create a "runaway" system (a few people could over-influence other peoples' ratings).

I do still prefer a user based system on large boards. I'm afraid that I still miss the "kill" command of Usenet days (does that make me elitist?).


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## Red Phoenix (Sep 29, 2001)

You mean kill files? If so, you can block people through the Macosx.com control panel. Pretty much the equivalent, although on this web board, it still tells you that the person posted (and you can even click to read it). Not that I block anyone, of course...


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## MemeTransport (Sep 30, 2001)

> _Originally posted by Red Phoenix _
> *You mean kill files? If so, you can block people through the Macosx.com control panel. Pretty much the equivalent, although on this web board, it still tells you that the person posted (and you can even click to read it). Not that I block anyone, of course... *



That's it. I don't mean to imply anything about this board but some of the other ones I go to...  are pretty bad. I still go because the signal that is there is still worth it.


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## Trip (Sep 30, 2001)

I don't think ranking of anykind should be allowed. We are all equal here...right down to the Volunteers. There is no such thing as a newbie here. Stars and other "specialties" would just increase flaming or spamming...people will begin to think themselves "godlike" or something. I've seen it happen before, it's no good.


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## AdmiralAK (Sep 30, 2001)

I agree with trip 
No need for superiority (like on those IRC channels lol...operators think they are god )


Admiral


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## scott (Sep 30, 2001)

I kind of see a fluctuation of posts directly related to the current version of OSX. i.e. During the bootleg 10.0.1,.2 upgrades I was a post psycho, up until the official 10.0.3, .4. Sonce then, I know I am not a guru and I wasn;t seeking any help in making my system what I want. When 10.1 blesses my system, I will once again delve into the more serious postings.

My point is, my ratings would fluctuate GREATLY depending on the activity on the OSX world, so a rating system based on the intellegence of my posts might go from "Wow, he can Cus" to "What a loser, he can't even get MySQL and PHP running, he belongs in the Cus forum - dork"


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## anerki (Oct 2, 2001)

Wouldn't it be too difficult to set up a rating system on a "technical" forum? Most of the posts should get high ratings because most of the posts are well thought and true ... What would be the difference? Instead of all people being equal (like now) there would be a big difference:

1) The people who know a lot about Mac, the 'Power Users' with high ratings
2) The readers and occasional posters that just post comment with low ratings
3) The newbies with no rating.

I don't think a rating system would be bad but you can't just put any rating here, ratings for expertise and excellence in answering the question would be useless, there are just too many people with the right answers (sorry if I call people without answers 'lesser'  )

Anyway, I think you should give ratings like
-1 : Offtopic
-1 : Flame
0 : Repeat of earlier post
1 : A normal post
2 -> 4 : Interesting
2 -> 4 : Funny
5 : Combination of Interesting and Funny ...

Something like Slashdot with other words 

Greetz,
.anerki


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## themacko (Oct 2, 2001)

Well since this site is currently (and will most likely continue to be) focused around the forums, the vBulletin software would have to be hacked in order to specifically handle that.  It can be done, but it would take someone with a pretty good knowledge of PHP, mySQL and vBulletin to do it.


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## AdmiralAK (Oct 2, 2001)

lets just forget about ratings 

This is an order:
EVERYONE,  BE YOURSELVES!


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