CyberFreak
Legendary Typer
Hi all
Unfortunately when it comes to adding new features here, one main thing we have to take into account is "Will it be abused?". In terms of the reputation mod, it has been abused by countless members over the years. Although it is not something we really want to do, we are going to have to stop users giving out negative rep. Unfortunately, we are in a situation where we are having to deal with alot of problems daily originating from negative reputation. We have to deal with users giving out negative rep for no reason, we have to deal with some users using it as a way to insult other members or using it as a way to punish any users that disagrees with them. It has caused conflicts between users which has gone onto the forum aswell in the past. We have tried by restricting users who abuse the system but alot of abuse goes unnoticed and the amount of users that use it for revenge rep or insults is from such a broad number of users with new names coming up all the time. It is not practical for us to keep dealing with all these problems, contacting users to find out their reasons for giving the rep, viewing the topic where the rep was given from and working out if it was deserved or not. Sometimes people send us screenshots of PM's, posts and i have even been even sent stuff from other forums to back up their claims that the negative rep was unfair. We do have alot of better things to be doing. In alot of cases, it is down to some users thinking any negative rep they get is abuse. It puts us in a bad situation when a user comes to us about an apparent unfair rep point when we feel it is deserved. We also have some users sending the same abuse reports to multiple admins which additionally causes problems as we have to work out if it has already been dealt with and we can have to or 3 of us looking into it. We also then have to deal with users that are not best pleased with being restricted and will argue with us.
This is not saying it will not ever come back. We are trying to think of a way in which we can allow some users to give rep but we think allowing it to be given out as openly as it has been is not an option and causes alot of extra workload on us which could be time better spent elsewhere. If it does come back then it will be on a very limited scale.
The concept now of the reputation system is still much the same. The higher their "Rep" number is, the more they can be trusted. The lower it is and the closer it is to 0, the more cautious you should be when dealing with the user.
We hope that you understand the reasons why we have done this.
Unfortunately when it comes to adding new features here, one main thing we have to take into account is "Will it be abused?". In terms of the reputation mod, it has been abused by countless members over the years. Although it is not something we really want to do, we are going to have to stop users giving out negative rep. Unfortunately, we are in a situation where we are having to deal with alot of problems daily originating from negative reputation. We have to deal with users giving out negative rep for no reason, we have to deal with some users using it as a way to insult other members or using it as a way to punish any users that disagrees with them. It has caused conflicts between users which has gone onto the forum aswell in the past. We have tried by restricting users who abuse the system but alot of abuse goes unnoticed and the amount of users that use it for revenge rep or insults is from such a broad number of users with new names coming up all the time. It is not practical for us to keep dealing with all these problems, contacting users to find out their reasons for giving the rep, viewing the topic where the rep was given from and working out if it was deserved or not. Sometimes people send us screenshots of PM's, posts and i have even been even sent stuff from other forums to back up their claims that the negative rep was unfair. We do have alot of better things to be doing. In alot of cases, it is down to some users thinking any negative rep they get is abuse. It puts us in a bad situation when a user comes to us about an apparent unfair rep point when we feel it is deserved. We also have some users sending the same abuse reports to multiple admins which additionally causes problems as we have to work out if it has already been dealt with and we can have to or 3 of us looking into it. We also then have to deal with users that are not best pleased with being restricted and will argue with us.
This is not saying it will not ever come back. We are trying to think of a way in which we can allow some users to give rep but we think allowing it to be given out as openly as it has been is not an option and causes alot of extra workload on us which could be time better spent elsewhere. If it does come back then it will be on a very limited scale.
The concept now of the reputation system is still much the same. The higher their "Rep" number is, the more they can be trusted. The lower it is and the closer it is to 0, the more cautious you should be when dealing with the user.
We hope that you understand the reasons why we have done this.
