Reputation / feedback system

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

I notice Peter raised a question about the new reputation marks we see beside our names. I also am uneasy about this. I think it could get in the way of how we look at each other in the community and how we look at ourselves.

I would have emailed Matthew privately about this but then got to wondering if it would be a good idea to get a sense what others think about this also.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Peter Farrington]

Dear Father

I would rather not have a reputation or be able to set mine at the lowest level possible. Can I hardcode mine to 'unworthy sinner'?

I already find that I am wondering why I am higher than some and lower than others. :-)

Peter

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Father

I would rather not have a reputation or be able to set mine at the lowest level possible. Can I hardcode mine to 'unworthy sinner'?

I already find that I am wondering why I am higher than some and lower than others. :-)

Peter

You know the old Christian gag: "hey, look who thinks they're lower in reputation than we are!"

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

This appears to be a side-effect of a upgrade/patch to the forum software that was installed today -- it's gone to a default setting to show reputation marks on posts. It should be relatively easy to disable, which I'll see to shortly.

INXC, Matthew

[Peter Farrington]

I see you've done it.

Thanks. It is interesting how wondering what others think of ourselves/myself can be subtly disturbing. On the one hand I don't post to gain anyone's favour, nor to annoy people either of course. Yet as soon as a number is attached to how valuable my posts are I became unconsciously concerned about how to 'increase my reputation'.

Thanks for the spiritual lesson anyhow. :-)

Peter

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear all,

This appears to be a side-effect of a upgrade/patch to the forum software that was installed today -- it's gone to a default setting to show reputation marks on posts. It should be relatively easy to disable, which I'll see to shortly.

INXC, Matthew

Thanks- no more reputation. :) :) :)

[Ian Leyda]

You know the old Christian gag: "hey, look who thinks they're lower in reputation than we are!"

I do love this one.

We should hold a vote on "who is the greatest sinner." Then we can find the guy who didn't get any votes and....

By the way, I was a little sad today to see that my ill reputation had remarkably improved overnight. In one day, I went from one of "questionable reputation" and a red dot to one of a "standard reputation" and a green dot.

I suppose this is a little like God's grace. But it was sort of cool being "the ruffian" for a few days.

[Scott Pierson]

Maybe the reputation point part isnt great but I do like the part about being able to click on the top of a post and leave a short comment about it. All of which can be viewed on one page by the reciever. Would it be possible to get rid of the reputation points but still by able to post the comments?:confused:

I know we could always put a post in the thread saying " good point" but that just takes up space and going through the process of sending a whole email isnt as easy as clicking the top of a post. Obviously its not a big deal either way though.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Maybe the reputation point part isnt great but I do like the part about being able to click on the top of a post and leave a short comment about it. All of which can be viewed on one page by the reciever. Would it be possible to get rid of the reputation points but still by able to post the comments?:confused:

I know we could always put a post in the thread saying " good point" but that just takes up space and going through the process of sending a whole email isnt as easy as clicking the top of a post. Obviously its not a big deal either way though.

Dear Scott, thank you for these comments. Yes, we've got rid of the part of the system software that shows reputation points on posts - I wholeheartedly agree that this isn't in the spirit of the forum. We're retaining the ability to mark a note on each post, as we've had now for some time: these give the opportunity to leave feedback on a given post that is seen only be the person who posted it (via their User Control Panel (http://www.monachos.net/forum/usercp.php)), and seems to be a very popular feature indeed. I don't think there is an issue with the fact that positive v. negative feedback in this regard is noted as such on the user's page: it gives a feel for how comments were received, but isn't made public. But of course, the thoughts of others also most welcome here. The Community is flexible!

INXC, Matthew

[Father David Moser]

I don't think there is an issue with the fact that positive v. negative feedback in this regard is noted as such on the user's page: it gives a feel for how comments were received, but isn't made public.


Perhaps offering a third option so that there is positive, neutral, negative on the feedback options with neutral providing a chance to make a comment which does not alter the "reputation" one way or the other but still retains the chance to give positive or negative as appropriate.

Fr David Moser

[Trudy]

Are you all talking about the green squares that are on the right side of our profile page? It appears they are related to how many posts we have. The higher the number of posts, the "higher esteem" rating goes?

Athanasia

PS: As usual, I answered my own question by reading the "help." Gosh, you'd think I'd go there first!!! :-)

[Peter Farrington]

Hi Athanasia

I think that they are rather related to how many 'reputation' points we have received. For instance when I read your post, if I think it really good then I can click on the image of a pair of scales at the top of your post and you get a point.

Ian had a bad reputation because he had not accumulated many points. More people had enjoyed mine so I had an esteemed reputation. I think that John Charmley had received lots more points than me and had a most highly esteemed reputation.

If you find this post helpful click on the scales and boost my reputation. :)

Best wishes

Peter

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

Just a word to the effect that we've rather thoroughly overhauled the former 'reputation' system, and constructed it into something more tailor-suited to this forum: a feedback system. The former system, which was designed 'by the industry' with an eye toward other types of popular discussion fora, in which members earn and lose reputation points that alter the permissions, etc., in the forum, the nature of the Discussion Community makes such 'reputation gaining' seem rather counter-productive and against the free and open spirit of discussion. Nonetheless, members have spoken very positively about the ability to leave feedback on specific points, which is visible only to the poster of the message.

As such, we've re-written the system to work as a Feedback feature across the forum. In terms of interface, it works very similarly to the previous reputation system: a small scales icon http://www.monachos.net/forum/images/buttons/reputation.gif appears in the upper right-hand of most posts. Clicking this icon opens a small window prompting you to leave feedback on the post, as a response to the question 'What do you think of username's post?'. You can leave your feedback simply by clicking the 'I agree' or 'I disagree' option and clicking the 'Leave Feedback' button; or you can leave a brief comment for more detailed feedback. Your feedback comments will then be saved, and viewable by the power when he or she next logs in, through the User Control Panel (http://www.monachos.net/forum/usercp.php). Feedback comments are left anonymously, so the poster won't know who's left the feedback unless you deliberately enter your name in the comment.


Full details and instructions are found in the forum FAQ. (http://www.monachos.net/forum/faq.php?faq=vb_board_usage#faq_reputation_how)

The points system associated with the previous reputation system, by which one had a reputation 'score' based on positive and negative points associated with reputation notes, has also been overhauled. There are no longer negative categories that will appear on member profiles. The new feedback system still does keep a record of positive and negative feedback left for members, but this is only used to give indication on profiles of members who have received substantial positive feedback over time, as an easy way to see, when reading a member's profile, if past posts have been especially valued.

INXC, Matthew

[Ian Leyda]

Dear all,

You can leave your feedback simply by clicking the 'I agree' or 'I disagree' option and clicking the 'Leave Feedback' button; or you can leave a brief comment for more detailed feedback. Your feedback comments will then be saved, and viewable by the power when he or she next logs in, through the User Control Panel (http://www.monachos.net/forum/usercp.php). Feedback comments are left anonymously, so the poster won't know who's left the feedback unless you deliberately enter your name in the comment.



I am not a big fan of "anonymous" comments. Voting is perhaps one thing. But I think we all should be responsible for our comments to one another.

I don't like receiving comments privately without an opportunity to respond, whether those comments are positive or negative. Anonymous comments are sometimes the worst form of monologue. If dialogue is the goal, whether private or public on a certain topic, then I think anonymous comments are a bit of a stumbling block toward that.

Peace,

Mr. Pseudonym
or
Ian

[Irene]

Please bear with me, I hope I can get my point across, I'm getting a lot of migraines at the moment so my eyes are playing up... Mathew please feel free to edit my post if necessary.

The thing that I really like about being able to give reputation to others is when a particular post really inspires you, then you can give points to that person and therefore you (I) are less tempted to post small replies to a post voicing your approval which only adds to the large number of posts that are sometimes made here at Monachos. (Yesterday I thought I'd check in and now there is a notification of how many messages since I last looked **346**!! I really don't know where to start when there are so many messages and often just mark them all read otherwise I feel too overwhelmed.)

A new member of Monachos, might search, read a post they like, look up the profile of the writer and find they are very highly respected by other Monachos members and then decide to read other posts by this person .... There are quite a few here with very wise and interesting things to say.

If you ever get a negative comment, surely on such a board it would be politely put and not offensive. If a positive comment is made sometimes it can help you realise that you are going in the right direction and your posts are not being ignored, people are reading them even if no one ever replies to a post.

Perhaps it would be good for individuals to be able to turn off the notification in their CP if they don't like getting the points, you can click on the arrow so they are not displayed straight away. Otherwise I like giving them and will keep on doing so as long as this system will allow me to. :)

In Christ
Irene

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Irene,

I'm glad to know you like the system - as do many others, from comment's that have come in. I think it's now been tinkered to a format that suits our forum nicely, and we'll certainly continue with it. :)

As to Ian's comment earlier, regarding anonymity: I might just point out that you're more than welcome to indicate yourself in your comments, if you do indeed wish to have your name known to the person for whom you're leaving feedback.

INXC, Matthew

[John Charmley]

Dear Matthew,

I see we have lost our reputations; ah well, such is life!;)


In Christ,

John

[M.C. Steenberg]

I see we have lost our reputations; ah well, such is life!

Dear John and others,

For the time being, we have disabled the Feedback system for the Community. This was in part due to a certain few (very limited) abuses, but more directly because it's been a 'feature-in-testing' since it was first introduced, and we've continued questions as to whether it's really a useful aspect to the forum. For the time being I've taken it off-line; we'll see in future about re-introducing it in some form or another.

INXC, Matthew

[Paul Cowan]

Dear Matthew:
I have the highest respect for this forum and for the advice I receive from it. May I offer an idea for the technically priviledged.


(Yesterday I thought I'd check in and now there is a notification of how many messages since I last looked **346**!! I really don't know where to start when there are so many messages and often just mark them all read otherwise I feel too overwhelmed.)



I have to agree with Irene, when I come back to view new posts, I don't know where to begin. There might be 10 threads running and 25 new posts. Is there a way to put on the screen which threads have how many new posts. I always start with the last and work my way up until I recognize something I have already read.

If I could, for example, open this thread and see that 3 new posts were made to it since I last visited, I could just go to the third post from the bottom and read down rather than reading up.

Just a user friendly thought. Thanks for listening.
Paul

[Father David Moser]

Paul,

The capability you request is already available. If you come to the "message board" page and then click on the "new posts" button you will get a list of all the threads with new posts since your last visit. Each listing has a little mail icon showing the status of the thread, then there is a "down arrow" followed by the name of the thread and the thread initiator. If you click on that "down arrow" then you will go to the first unread post in that thread (so if there are three unread posts, you go right to the third from the end) and then you can scroll right on down through the rest to the end.

I'm guessing that you are going further on to click on the right arrow that goes to the last post made and then scrolling up - but if you hit the down arrow first then you don't have to do that.

Fr David Moser

[Paul Cowan]

Thank you Father David.
I was wondering why no one had not already thought of that. I suppose I should actually take the recommended tutorial ar just thumb around a bit.

I guess it is kinda like the church. There is nothing new under the sun. Everything has already been tried by someone in the past.

Paul

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

I also wonder if you are subscribed to the active threads? If so then each new post arrives in your email inbox. There is a link in each of these posts in your email inbox which takes you to the actual post on its thread. All posts made after this already appear and can be read simply by scrolling down. After reading all the new posts on the thread you can then press the New Posts link at the top of the page and go through all the unread posts in this way.

Personally I like to use this feature as it allows one to make a choice from ones' email inbox to either go to the actual thread and read all new posts (especially if you want to reply); to only read the posts in your inbox; or to delete new posts which have accumulated in your inbox.

This allows for a quick way for dealing with a lot of accumulated and unread messages.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Paul Cowan]

Thank you Father:
Actually I spend a couple of hours a night on the main site. I delete the e-mail links as I get them throughout the day because I intend to spend so much time directly in the site at night. I don't even look at the titles. As today, I deleted 6 messages and tonight I have already spent over 45 minutes just reading all the posts.

Why pay the delivery boy when you can pay the merchant? But thank you for the suggestion.
Paul

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

I've received such a number of requests for some form of return of the Feedback system, which has recently been disabled, that I've been putting my head towards ways in which this might be done without some of the negative, or un-community-orientated, aspects of the system previously.

I am pondering re-enabling the system, with the following changes from the previous:


The feedback system will not accumulate 'reputation points' for display in any public manner; it will simply be a means for readers of a given post to indicate to the poster that they thought highly of the given message. Feedback comments will be visible in the User Control Panel, as before, but the feedback/reputation points markers in user profiles (the little green and red dots) will no longer be present.
The feedback system will not have a 'positive / negative' option: it will simply have a positive setting and a field for comment -- as the purpose of such a system is to let a poster know if you particularly enjoyed their post, without necessarily wishing to make a public post to the whole forum to this effect.
The feedback system will show members the name of the member who left feedback. Rather than the anonymous system employed previously, the Discussion Community username of the person leaving feedback will be visible to members, which is more consonant with the Community's emphasis on honesty and openness.


I am happy to receive people's comments on the above ideas, whether in the present thread or via Private Messaging.

One issue that needs to be considered: When the system is switched to cause members to see the username of those who have left feedback items, all past feedback received will similarly show the identity of the poster. As previously the policy was not to show usernames, this could potentially upset some. Do members think we should delete all past feedback system-wide, and start from scratch?

INXC, Matthew

[M.C. Steenberg]

One issue that needs to be considered: When the system is switched to cause members to see the username of those who have left feedback items, all past feedback received will similarly show the identity of the poster. As previously the policy was not to show usernames, this could potentially upset some. Do members think we should delete all past feedback system-wide, and start from scratch?

Having conferred with a few programming-minded individuals, we think we've now sorted a way around this, such that old feedback comments can be retained anonymously once we switch to the new system. Thus all previous feedback comments will remain, anonymous as before, and any new feedback left will include the commentor's name.

INXC Matthew

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

One issue that needs to be considered: When the system is switched to cause members to see the username of those who have left feedback items, all past feedback received will similarly show the identity of the poster. As previously the policy was not to show usernames, this could potentially upset some. Do members think we should delete all past feedback system-wide, and start from scratch?

Yes, I think that it would be important to start from scratch as it were. It could very well be that people who left feedback with the old system did so in a different spirit from what would occur with the new.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[John Charmley]

Having conferred with a few programming-minded individuals, we think we've now sorted a way around this, such that old feedback comments can be retained anonymously once we switch to the new system. Thus all previous feedback comments will remain, anonymous as before, and any new feedback left will include the commentor's name.

INXC Matthew

Dear Matthew,

Thank you - you and your programming chums seem to have come up with the ideal arrangement.

INXC,

John

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear friends,

By popular demand, we have enabled the new feedback system, which has been designed around member requests -- namely, to have the option to leave feedback on specific posts for the poster as before, but non-anonymously and not linked to a 'reputation' system that tallies points, positive and negative, etc.

As such, you'll see the little 'Leave feedback' icon back on posts from today. Clicking it will open the small feedback window, allowing you to leave a note of appreciation for the post to the member who posted it. Such feedback notes, when left for your, are visible in your user control panel (http://www.monachos.net/forum/usercp.php).

Please note the 'I approve' / 'I disapprove' options are no longer present: this system is intended for positive feedback messages -- i.e. notes of thanks or appreciation to a fellow member, which you wish to make without necessarily taking up space in the discussion thread itself.

INXC, Matthew

[John Charmley]

Dear Matthew,

Many thanks for this; I am sure that (for once) I would command unanimity in thanking you for all the work you put into this site, which is such a blessing to so many.

Thank you.

In Christ,


John