# Main > Technical Support and Notices >  What should we do about rep PART TWO !

## Redrobes

So in the last thread I asked you all about whether you thought the rep system was worth it and if you liked it and if you thought it was working in its current form. The poll showed that by quite a large majority that the rep system needs tweaking.

As mentioned in that thread the issue is the severe rep inflation in that some members can make a new recruit jump through all of the levels in a couple of hits because there is a problem in the way the rep power that one gives is calculated.

The main thing that I have to say is that not every possible option is open to us. The forum uses a data base and I dont want to modify the data base outside of the vBulletin system because there is a likelihood that it will become messed up and not function any more.

So we have to stick with what options vBulletin gives us to change parameters to make the rep system sensible. I will now list all of the options that are available as parameters to adjust and its our job to work out what to set these to.

Initial power - a new member gets this.
For every X days being a member get +1 power. I.e. set the X parameter.
For every Y posts get +1 power. I.e. set the Y parameter.
For every Z points of current reputation get +1 power. I.e. set the Z parameter.
How many posts you have made before your rep award starts counting.
How much current rep a you have before your rep award starts counting.
Max number of rep awards you can give out in 24 hours.
How many different members you award before you can give the first more rep.
A rep power cap. I.e. the max amount you can award no matter how many +1's you have.

So thats the list to argue over.

Some people have expressed the desire that everyone gets the same rep power which is an option to consider.

For information the member with the most posts is about 11,000. The member with the highest current rep is 85,000. The longest member is about 14 years.

The new bar at the top of your rep score maxes out at 55,000 to 60,000 so this is the new full rep score. I.e. if we just go with +1 for everybody then it will take a long time and a lot of people repping to make it up to 60,000. What we need is for people to progress in a suitable time and pace to show forum activity and quality of comments and art posted. In my view somethng like a 1000 or so rep awards should be ample to get you to full. So what I am saying is that small amounts would be 10 and large amounts would be 100 - 200 or so. We will definitely need some kind of cap tho that is for certain. The exact numbers for all of the parameters are up for discussion.

So how about it. How do you want to see your rep ?

If you give me another option early enough then I can add it to the poll.

Let me try to capture some options for a poll.

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## Korash

Not sure why the last option on the poll has a start level of +30. I would put it lower, say 1 or 5. Other wise that would be my option.

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## Redrobes

If an option is close but you think needs a bit of adjustment then vote for it and comment about the adjustment and we can have a final discussion about the winning option and expressed comments regarding it. Maybe a start of +5 would be fine.

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## Greason Wolfe

Well, I voted for the one I thought seemed most reasonable. Will wait to see final results of the poll before commenting about whether or not any other tweaking of the system might be warranted.

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## Azélor

I think the first 4 options are identical. 
It's just a bigger number. Just like some RPG. Same thing but bigger numbers. 
I guess one could argue bigger numbers are more appealing.

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## ChickPea

Couple of random thoughts...

I like the idea of a fixed amount of rep, as this is the most obvious way to stop it getting even more wildly out of hand. I'd probably go for 20 or 50 points. 1 point is just too cruel for newer members. 

I feel a higher weighting should be given to amount of posts a member has. Yes, quality maps are important of course, but we're a forum ultimately, and people who take time to contribute deserve some small reward for their effort. Not bothered about the length of time one has been a member. You could have been here for a dozen years and posted 20 times. Or, you could have been here a year and posted several hundred times. The latter is more deserving of rep, imho. I suppose it's possible some people could post randomly to boost their count, but I can't see it. I know this place, and people will simply ignore anyone who doesn't make sensible posts.

So I'd suggest something like rep capped at 20 or 50 points AND you also get 20 or 50 points for every 100 posts. Don't know how that works with the poll options, so I haven't voted yet.

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## Greg

> 1 point is just too cruel for newer members.


I agree with this ChickPea, would feel like you're not getting anywhere at all.




> I feel a higher weighting should be given to amount of posts a member has.


I agree that number of posts made is potentially a greater contribution than years spent here. Anyone who contributes usually has something useful to say and I can't think of anyone who spams the site with useless content.

At the moment, I've cast my vote for "+30 to start, +1 per 60 days, +1 per 100 posts, +1 per 4000 rep cap at +100." but I've really no idea on sensible numbers to use. That sounds like it could be about right, but it's hard to tell.

Theoretically if you didn't post, it would take a lurker ~12 years to max their rep power out which is a long time, but equally should they have equal rep power? I'm not sure of the best solution to that, but perhaps that's just a niche problem to overlook since they might never become an active member (just don't want floods of forgotten members coming back at once with full power like some army of the dead, haha!!)

Just looking at this thread of people I think everyone would theoretically be at the rep power cap given either the number posted and years a members alone, but that's because they're all key members. The +1 every 4000 pts I think is potentially harder to achieve than the others, but if you're an active member, then rep should hopefully come your way too.

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## Korash

> If an option is close but you think needs a bit of adjustment then vote for it and comment about the adjustment and we can have a final discussion about the winning option and expressed comments regarding it. Maybe a start of +5 would be fine.


LOL...I did the opposite. I wrote the comment and then voted on the option that I commented on. Regardless of how Rep is accumulated, a lower cap is required and I am glad that this is happening.

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## bkh1914

I agree with the comments about giving *contributing* members higher rep power.
Since most rep is given out for maps, a combination of number of posts and rep received is a good way to balance the two types of forum contributions.

I was questioning the rep for membership time value because some people disappear for years and then reappear.  (I was totally absent for 7 years.)
But there's no way to monitor that and it really isn't that many rep power points.

I agree with Korash about a lower starting value in the 1-5 range.

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## Redrobes

I'll just clarify that the cap is the maximum amount of rep power that anyone can give. So if there was a starting value and we allow some +1's per something then the cap takes effect when the start plus all of the +1's add up to something more than the cap whereby it is capped off at the cap value.

so having "rep capped at 20 or 50 points AND you also get 20 or 50 points for every 100 posts" doesnt make sense. You can start with 20 or 50 points and have 20 or 50 per 100 posts capped at 100 or 200 but you cant cap at 20 and have any more extras to it. The cap is the limit.

Also for Azelor, yes the numbers are bigger but we have the situation where the current rep scores are in the tens of thousands up to 85,000 range. This is just where we are at this point and it would be very hard if not impossible to alter everyones scores to put them back down to small values again. So its a matter of awarding amounts of rep commensurate with the amounts of current scores we have right now to balance it all up. If we started it all again with everyone back to zero then we could easily have +1 to +3 but if some people have 52,000 or whatever then should we have everyone awarding only +1 and taking forever to get someone up one pip on the rep bar. The whole issue is how do we balance an amount of rep that makes people go up to nice values in reasonable times.

If people think that its alright to have everyone award +1 rep and also keep some members with many tens of thousands built up before we change the rules on how much rep is awarded, then thats ok if thats what we want. But the other option is to increase the starting rep amount and cap it off at some value so that newer members stand a chance of getting up a full rep bar eventually.

Bear in mind that the maximum number of posts that anyone has ever made is 11,000. If every post that member did was followed with a rep award then they would still only have half of their pips lit up. It would take a collossal effort for members to get any new person to a full rep bar with +1 only each time.

Perhaps the question to consider is how many times should a new member have to rep someone to fill their bar. And how many times should an experienced well respected member have to rep someone to fill their bar. The two amounts can be the same or different but right now they are about 1:1000 ratio difference and that is causing a lot of issues. I can be persuaded with a 1:1 or a 1:3 or 1:10 but beyond about 1:10 it feels to me to be a bit icky. If you want a new person to rep someone 1000 times to get another to full bar then thats 55pts per award. If you wanted them to take 5000 rep awards to get them there then thats 10pts per award. If you think experienced people should have 5x the rep award power than a new member and the experienced member take 200 awards then thats about 275 pts for an experienced member and 55 for a new member.  So have a think about the numbers and vote accordingly.

Whats the starting award value, what kinds of things do you want to increase the award value by and by how much. And then whats the final cap / limit that nobody can exceed.

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## rdanhenry

I'd say +1 as soon as you pass that 5 post minimum to authenticate yourself, then add for time and activity (I'd say +1 year and +1 for every 500 posts), but for rep, is it not possible to make it logarithmic? The linear bonus for rep is what made things spiral out of control. If you got +1 at 10 rep, +2 at 100, +3 at 1,000, etc., you'd see slightly heavier rep sticks as your own rep improved, but not so much.

Would it be possible to provide a small bonus for those who had an award of some sort? +1 for a Silver Compass, +2 for a Gold Compass, +3 for an Atlas Award. Non-cumulative, and with other awards sorted as appropriate. I'd also say that contributing money or time (admin) to the Guild also deserves some extra rep-ability.




> For information the member with the most posts is about 11,000. The member with the highest current rep is 85,000. The longest member is about 14 years.


So, if this were one person, that would give +22, +4, and +14. Probably safe to assume at least a Gold Compass at that point and throw in +2. Total: +42. So, in the right ballpark, anyway. If you doubled the rep bonus, that would get to +46. Yeah, that seems better, +2 steps for rep, on the same scale.

Probably could still use some tweaking, but I think that's pretty much what I'd want to see.

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## Redrobes

Heh id give +25 for a silver compass and +50 for gold all capped at +100 if I could but I am not certain that I would be able to do this. I might try tho but it is doubtful. The compasses and awards are the things that are most prized because they are usually voted for and thus inherantly reputationally important things to have.

You have to remember these longest members, most posts and most rep values are the highest in the whole guild. Most of us mortals have been around a few years, have a few thousand rep and made perhaps a thousand posts. We ought to have the top 50 or so in each of those categories capping out the max rep power.

We cant do the logarithmic scale. We can only adjust the X, Y, Z values to make any scaling. A logarithmic scale for the current rep score would indeed be a great thing.


EDIT: Actually looking at the code I think we might be able to do a logarithmic scaled version for these values. I would need to alter the reputation code to do it rather than set the constants via the admin menu panel but if you think it would be better then I think it is possible. So we could do +K * log( reputation ) if you wanted. So in your case K would be 1 or 2 but we could have different amounts. I.e. if K was 5 then you get 5 points at 10 rep, 10 points at 100 rep, 15 points at 1000 rep, 20 points at 10000 rep and 25 points at 100,000 rep etc.


Let me just also comment about Gregs post as well




> Just looking at this thread of people I think everyone would theoretically be at the rep power cap given either the number posted and years a members alone, but that's because they're all key members. The +1 every 4000 pts I think is potentially harder to achieve than the others, but if you're an active member, then rep should hopefully come your way too.


This is what I would be looking for, Pretty much everyone who is an established member who joined a while back, made a lot of posts and got some rep under their belt and if possible won a few compasses getting the same rep power capped at the max value. Perhaps +1 per 4000 current rep is a bit low. Something like +1 per 1000 or 2000 might be better actually.

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## bkh1914

I think log(rep) is a great idea!
Unfortunately, I already voted.  :Frown:

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## Redrobes

Thats ok, if anyone voted for option 6 but would  have preferred the log(rep) option then just say so and ill tally it all up at the end. I think I prefer the log rep as well if possible though it could be that I am thinking it would only be better because we have had an issue with the current rep score power. If everyone had a cap on the max rep power that they could award then maybe it would not be a problem any more and a linear scaling would have been fine.

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## Greason Wolfe

I actually voted for option 5. In thinking about it, option 6 would probably be better, though I would go with a yearly increase rather than 60 days. Going off post count is definitely a good idea and rewards the highly active members. Also agree with others about CL/Admin members getting an extra point or two. If we are going to cap the maximum rep power, however, I would be perfectly fine without using received rep as part of the power scale. Feel similar about not using the trophies. They are a form of reputation all on their own.

Again, just my 2 cents worth.

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## Arimel

I feel kind of dumb... Just read through everything, decided to vote for the logarithmic option, and put the vote in for number 6. If the vote can be tallied the other way that would be great (if not, no problem!) and sorry for the trouble.
I think that limiting the effect that the rep has on the voting system is a much better way to do it. It will still put the emphasis of increasing the rep score on the engagement aspect, which I think is more important.

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## Yrda

I voted for 1 but after voting I instantly wasn't sure what I really want to vote for. Couldn't change it afterwards, but for me every option seems to be just fine.  :Wink:

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## Redrobes

Ok so I have closed the poll and implemented the most voted for option with some modifications. Since it was suggested that +30 start was too much I made it +10. You get log( current_rep ) * 5, (where the log is base 10), extra instead of 1/4000 and I made it +1 per 100 days instead of 60, blending in a bit of Greasons suggestion. Its capped at +100 now and admins get same as everyone else.

You need 5 posts to start repping, i.e. you need to be a full member. Once you are a member, you start with +10. If you have been here 5 years then you get +18, if you make 3000 posts then you get +30. If you have a rep score of 8765 then +19. So a member with all of that gets +58. So now the most active promotion to your rep power is number of posts made.

Its still set so that you can make 10 reps per 24hr and you need to rep 10 people before you can re-rep the same person again. There is no -ve rep unless you are a CL or admin and I would suggest we continue to never use it.

I'll change the titles so that it reflects the number of pips on the green bar. I.e. a level every 1000 up to 10000 and then another level every 4000 up to the 50,000 or so max bar rating.

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## Greason Wolfe

That all sounds good to me. Ironically, it gives me more rep power than I had, but I have been here for almost 12 years now.

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## Azélor

That gives me 107 rounded. Which I think is a little less than before but I'm not sure. 
But I guess it is normal since all of my stats are fairly high. 

I like Vogon poetry now. Big fan of his/her work.

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## Redrobes

> That all sounds good to me. Ironically, it gives me more rep power than I had, but I have been here for almost 12 years now.


Then its working ! The new normal is 50,000 rep instead of 500. And being here 12 years ought to count for something.




> That gives me 107 rounded. Which I think is a little less than before but I'm not sure. 
> But I guess it is normal since all of my stats are fairly high.


Well its capped at +100 so your maxed out.




> I like Vogon poetry now. Big fan of his/her work.


Just be careful that you don't gnaw off your own limbs and keep your intestines from coming up and choking yourself !

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## Arimel

I was just looking at the FAQ page for the guild and what it says about rep and I do not think it has been updated yet. Although it is a rather small thing that has no need to be rushed I thought I might as well let you know!

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## Redrobes

Hi Arimel, the rep system and allocation of rep power has been updated but I have probably not looked at the FAQ page and checked what it is saying about rep - so thanks for pointing that out and ill head over there in a mo and make sure that it is updated to reflect the current status.

I forget the exact formulae now but people are staring on 10pts (if they register after the change in April) and rep power is more evenly balanced based on posts, time on the guild and existing rep score. But the main thing is that rep power is limited to +100 now and the score maxes out at about 55,000 so you will get a full set of pips and each pip now has a new title / explanation.

Your current rep power is +43 and your not afraid of dementors. But ill rep you in a second and since your at 7979, I think being > 8000, you will gain a pip and a new rep title for it.

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## Arimel

Not being afraid of dementors is useful but thank you! I just had to look up what the 'beast of Caerbannog' was actually. Who knew rabbits could be so scary?

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## Redrobes

Vicious they are. Also known as the Vorpal Bunny !  :Very Happy:

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## Wingshaw

So, I just thought of something to add to this discussion: is it possible - or could it be made possible - to see the statistics of what rep has been received within a profile? I would be really curious to see which of my maps/posts have been given the most rep, and which I have given the most to. At the moment I can only see the most recent 15...

Wingshaw

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## Redrobes

The forum and profile is only able to show what this particular version of vBulletin is currently allowing or implemented. So a set of statistics is unworkable as the only indication on which items have been given rep comes from the text line from the rep giver. Now I understand that the rep was generated from a post which presumably is known but I dont think that there is any way to access them in order to generate stats. So theoretically possible but unimplemented.

All I can say is for you to look down the list of rep feedback which is given on your profile and manually scan them to see which posts you got the rep from. I am not sure if that list shows how much each rep amount was added, only a list of the feedback text lines from the members.

Edit - just checked and its actually under your 'settings' instead of your profile. And it doesn't show the amounts given but does show the thread from which is came from. So yes possible, but sadly not implemented from vBulletin.

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