What happened to the +/-?

judoratt wrote:

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How dare you!!!!!

Hi Carlo,

this is my second attempt. *-==/&$$ Internet

I am sorry you feel so upset about this, it was not my intention.

Don't confuse my direct talk as a sign of being upset, I am just making a clear point but I also do not like being told that I as a member am irrelevant and my concerns a re pathetic.

Before I turned it off I had been getting PM's complaining about it's misuse. I did alter the system for a bit by making the system available only to people with a certain amount of posts. This was a short term fix and did not stop me receiving complaints.

I disagree with Hanon that this should be discussed in secret, I think it affects the whole of the forum mebership and should be dicussed in the open. To put this into perspective we need to know
How many complaints?
by how many people?
about how many instances?
and by how many abusers (confirmed)?

It is ridiculous that possibly only one troll (maybe not even a troll) can cause the system to be changed and a usefull (even if neutered) tool is scrapped, that means that they have one

I have been busy this week and didn't have time to deal with it, so the easy thing to do was turn it off until I found some time to come up with an alternative.

Fair enough.

I have now sorted out a compromise which I am running past the admin team. With any luck it will be up and running later.

I very much doubt every one will be happy with it, and I'm sure that those who want to abuse it will, but hopefully it will not cause too much concern if it is abused.

The problem with a system that does not cause concern when it is abused is usually a sign that the system is ineffective

one solid sugestion would be to have a cumulative system like the old JF where even if one troll made a -ve valuation that could be cancelled out by a +ve from someopne else.
Let's face it a one or two +ves or -ves do notr really say anything about the value of a post. If 10 people mark a post - or + then that is a good indication as to the value a noob can place on it.
It should also be possible to limit the number of -ves a poster can give in a 24 hour period or only allow valuations on active threads.


Thanks for your reply and all the hard work you are putting in for the rest of us.

atb

sodo

Jonesy wrote:

sodo wrote:
Maybe people don't think it is a pathetic little topic, especially when the members were asked and a clear majority were infavour of the system, agreement was reached and then without warning the wishes of the majority were just sh@t upon.

Why do you think that the wishes of the majority are relevant? Do you think the majority wanted Judo Sensei to sell the old JFK to a commercial company? Do you think that those who provided the unique and differentiating content of the JF (which was what made it successful) were asked - and it was not Judo Sensei who provided that? Let Carlo run this as he sees fit.......

Looks like we're back to the same old Judo Forum B.S. politics. Who's forum is this? Is it yours, does it belong to only to Carlo, or does this Judo Forum belong to the collective group of members? I really don't know. I thought it belonged to all of us as it is a collective group of individuals that make or break a particular forum. Maybe it really belongs to Carlo. I've only had one interaction with him. He asked me to remove my old avatar and I was glad to do so. He was very nice about it. One or two people complain about it and a feature that most of the users liked was taken away. Why? Why is it Bullshido and Jiu Jitsu Forums can manage themselves just fine with a rating system and we can't?

It's amazing to me how a simple minus sign can cause so much hurt and anguish. There will always be people who vote down posts. I could write a post saying, "I love Judo" and people will be there to vote it down. Receiving a bunch of minuses to my post would make me laugh as it does on other message boards.

I'm going to be blunt here. I just found out about "Francois" yesterday. What he did was disgraceful and if he's found guilty I hope the judge throws the book at him. I read the entire thread on the old forum. It seems like that was the last straw for a lot of posters and I can understand why. In my opinion the +/- issue has far less to do with the feature itself and far more to do with people who want the forum to be a certain way with a certain theme. Do the collective membership of this forum want things to be like the old forum where a certain few were de facto sensei ensuring people spoke and conducted themselves in a certain manner? Or, do we want an improvement over what was there previously? And no, that is not a criticism of JudoSensei. I felt he did a very good job of running the site. At least that was my experience. By good job I mean none of my posts were ever deleted and I never got a sense he tried to control what was said or how people posted.

A part of me wonders if this post will be deleted for bringing up a ghost of the past. If it does then I know exactly what this forum is going to be like moving forward.

We had an extensive discussion and vote about the +/- feature and it was a compromise over permanent cumulative rankings. It is disappointing to see it removed on the behalf of what I am pretty sure is only one or two members when the vast majority is in favor. Disagreeing with a "-" is not an abuse - it might just mean you are busy .
I also think it is curious that some say anonymity is to be encouraged so that you can freely express your views yet this seems not to be the case with regard to the +/-.

Gus wrote: We had an extensive discussion and vote about the +/- feature and it was a compromise over permanent cumulative rankings. It is disappointing to see it removed on the behalf of what I am pretty sure is only one or two members when the vast majority is in favor. Disagreeing with a "-" is not an abuse - it might just mean you are busy .
I think it is curious that some say anonymity is to be encouraged so that you can freely express your view yet this seems not to be the case with regard to the +/-.

I agree. I think it should be a rule here that we all have to send you official documentation regarding rank and identity plus our CV. As copies can be forged etc, I think it important that such documents be sent and returned to the membership using registered post. When we pass this rule where should we send our registered post to?

It is time to stop all this and go for total transparency. It appears THE only way forward here. Then we all know who we are and what our rank is etc.

Mike

Hanon wrote:

Gus wrote: We had an extensive discussion and vote about the +/- feature and it was a compromise over permanent cumulative rankings. It is disappointing to see it removed on the behalf of what I am pretty sure is only one or two members when the vast majority is in favor. Disagreeing with a "-" is not an abuse - it might just mean you are busy .
I think it is curious that some say anonymity is to be encouraged so that you can freely express your view yet this seems not to be the case with regard to the +/-.

I agree. I think it should be a rule here that we all have to send you official documentation regarding rank and identity plus our CV. As copies can be forged etc, I think it important that such documents be sent and returned to the membership using registered post. When we pass this rule where should we send our registered post to?

It is time to stop all this and go for total transparency. It appears THE only way forward here. Then we all know who we are and what our rank is etc.

Mike

or... allow complete anonymity , including the +/- , it just seems a wee bit inconsistent otherwise. The same arguments used to justify anonymity (freedom of thought without persecution etc) can also be used for the + / - function.

Gus wrote:

Hanon wrote:

Gus wrote: We had an extensive discussion and vote about the +/- feature and it was a compromise over permanent cumulative rankings. It is disappointing to see it removed on the behalf of what I am pretty sure is only one or two members when the vast majority is in favor. Disagreeing with a "-" is not an abuse - it might just mean you are busy .
I think it is curious that some say anonymity is to be encouraged so that you can freely express your view yet this seems not to be the case with regard to the +/-.

I agree. I think it should be a rule here that we all have to send you official documentation regarding rank and identity plus our CV. As copies can be forged etc, I think it important that such documents be sent and returned to the membership using registered post. When we pass this rule where should we send our registered post to?

It is time to stop all this and go for total transparency. It appears THE only way forward here. Then we all know who we are and what our rank is etc.

Mike

or... allow complete anonymity , including the +/- , it just seems a wee bit inconsistent otherwise. The same arguments used to justify anonymity (freedom of thought without persecution etc) can also be used for the + / - function.

The two are not the same but this has been done to death, enough already. lets do this professionally and have full transparency and disclosure. It is the only way to avoid topics of identity and rank and the paranoia that is in a judo forum. If we are too intellectually challenged to read a post and reply to the post without the use of +- and what rank we are and who we are then lets do it properly and in one swoop cut out all the nonsense. Why not?

BTW how are your studies doing?

Mike

Hanon wrote:

The two are not the same but this has been done to death, enough already. lets do this professionally and have full transparency and disclosure. It is the only way to avoid topics of identity and rank and the paranoia that is in a judo forum. If we are too intellectually challenged to read a post and reply to the post without the use of +- and what rank we are and who we are then lets do it properly and in one swoop cut out all the nonsense. Why not?

BTW how are your studies doing?

Mike

Grand grand. Anyway yes it has been discussed a lot previously - and the result of these previous discussions was a large majority vote for some sort of ranking system , if not on the profile then the posts .
One of the main arguments for allowing posters to post anonymously online is that they can express their opinion freely without fear of reprisals or with any reference to their true identity - why then should the same not apply to the + / - function ? it is after all another way of expressing your opinion albeit more concisely.
I dont really see how it can be abused as it only goes on posts not profiles - of course you can delete an offensive post - but not a red mark, however opposing the system on these grounds seems a bit daft to me - what of the odd red mark ? As Neil pointed out it also allows posters who feel too intimidated to disagree with a prominent or aggressive poster to do so without being flamed to death - this is healthy in the same way a secret ballot is healthy in elections. Besides not everyone has time to write a 3 page essay for every post ! bearing this in mind - back to work....

Gus wrote:

Hanon wrote:

The two are not the same but this has been done to death, enough already. lets do this professionally and have full transparency and disclosure. It is the only way to avoid topics of identity and rank and the paranoia that is in a judo forum. If we are too intellectually challenged to read a post and reply to the post without the use of +- and what rank we are and who we are then lets do it properly and in one swoop cut out all the nonsense. Why not?

BTW how are your studies doing?

Mike

Grand grand. Anyway yes it has been discussed a lot previously - and the result of these previous discussions was a large majority vote for some sort of ranking system , if not on the profile then the posts .


One of the main arguments for allowing posters to post anonymously online is that they can express their opinion freely without fear of reprisals or with any reference to their true identity - why then should the same not apply to the + / - function ? it is after all another way of expressing your opinion albeit less concisely.
I dont really see how it can be abused as it only goes on posts not profiles - of course you can delete an offensive post - but not a red mark, however opposing the system on these grounds seems a bit daft to me - what of the odd red mark ? As Neil pointed out it also allows posters who feel too intimidated to disagree with a prominent or aggressive poster to do so without being flamed to death - this is healthy in the same way a secret ballot is healthy in elections. Besides not everyone has time to write a 3 page essay for every post ! bearing this in mind - back to work....

Well said. +++

I think this has gone on long enough now and I think we need to get this sorted.

First I'd like to put across my thoughts on the reputation system.

I personally like the system and believe that when it is used properly, it is a good way for people (especially new people to judo) to see the value of posts.
In my view, and why this has given me such a headache, is it is open to abuse. I think those of us that were frequent visitors to the other forum remember how it got out of hand when a number of members had it in for Mr Goldman. I did not want to see that happen here.

Over the last few days I have been trying to find a way that we can have a feature like the reputation system that cannot be abused.
My first thought was to just get rid of the -'ve part of the system, but felt that even this can be abused by inflating some ones popularity.
I also spent a fair bit of time sorting out a 'Like' system as in Facebook, but this would only be a disguised version of the +/- reputation system without the -'ve .

Anyway I don't think that is what is wanted, so looking back through the thread in the feedback section and the thread we have in the Admin section (which is equally as long by the way), and taking into account all of the views expressed, a decision has been made to reinstate the Reputation system with the +'ve and -'ve.

Unfortunately there will always be Trolls and the odd Griefer that will cause trouble, but at the end of the day it is down to myself and the admin team to deal with it as quickly as possible. This may even mean turning the feature off temporarily while we are dealing with the problem. But if we need to do that, I think better communication from myself, with you guys would help.



I am going to close this thread now because I feel everything that needs saying has been said..

Now lets get back to talking about Judo.

atb,

Carlo.