Should the site have "give reputation to players"?

[Winston Hughes]

EXCUSE ME?

There are thousands of very good posts in OT that are positive contributions to this site. Thanks for insulting a lot of fellow forum members, some of whom are still actively playing Civ and participating in the Civ areas of the site.

He was being hyperbolic, but there is a point in there: the overwhelming majority of what takes place in OT is people arguing opinions on extremely contentious matters. Pretty much whatever you say in such conditions is only going to be regarded as a good contribution by people who already agree with you, and from whom an unexpanded indication of agreement or appreciation has no value. Where many such indications are forthcoming, all you're going to get is the aforementioned 'circlejerk'.

By contrast, where the main purpose of a forum or thread is to give and receive advice, there will often be times when a comment like "yeah, I've also had success with that", or "thanks, that totally solved my problem" does provide additional information to the reader. When a few of those comments appear, and nobody steps up to disagree, you can be fairly confident that what has been suggested is worth a try.

 

[Bootstoots]

I was thinking of posts more outside of OT, like good explanations of how to mod things, or someone posting some sort of guide. Im not sure if a post in OT could ever be labelled a "good contribution".

He was being hyperbolic, but there is a point in there: the overwhelming majority of what takes place in OT is people arguing opinions on extremely contentious matters. Pretty much whatever you say in such conditions is only going to be regarded as a good contribution by people who already agree with you, and from whom an unexpanded indication of agreement or appreciation has no value. Where many such indications are forthcoming, all you're going to get is the aforementioned 'circlejerk'.

By contrast, where the main purpose of a forum or thread is to give and receive advice, there will often be times when a comment like "yeah, I've also had success with that", or "thanks, that totally solved my problem" does provide additional information to the reader. When a few of those comments appear, and nobody steps up to disagree, you can be fairly confident that what has been suggested is worth a try.

I've found OT to be a pretty worthwhile discussion forum, as such things go on the internet. If you wander into a thread on an obviously contentious topic (e.g. feminism and internet misogyny, Israel/Palestine, Ukraine/Russia, or the perennial arguments about racism, religion, American politics, etc), you're likely to run into that sort of argument where there are two clearly defined sides who trade insults at each other and very little opinion-changing happens. Circlejerks can happen but usually don't last long because it's the disagreement that's more interesting. We try to moderate threads on contentious issues to at least keep a semi-civil level of discourse, to the extent it's possible for us to do so.

But go looking around in the (better) "Ask a..." threads, or the money thread, or some of the threads about politics and current events that don't devolve simplistic two-side arguments, or threads about specific countries and regions, and so forth, there's a lot to learn and be exposed to. I've learned far more from the money thread than I learned from Econ 101, as an example. We've got a pretty remarkable diversity of posters in terms of opinions and geographic locations. Obviously it's a bit slanted towards Anglophone countries and American-type liberals, but there are also a large number of people from all over Europe, including Eastern Europe, and a few Latin Americans and Asians in there too, and the range of ideologies goes from reactionary to communist, with just about everything else you can imagine. About the only thing we're lacking at the moment is women, a certain Albertan cat lady excepted.

I definitely agree, though, that a reputation system would be a really bad idea in OT.

 

[Winston Hughes]

I've found OT to be a pretty worthwhile discussion forum, as such things go on the internet. If you wander into a thread on an obviously contentious topic (e.g. feminism and internet misogyny, Israel/Palestine, Ukraine/Russia, or the perennial arguments about racism, religion, American politics, etc), you're likely to run into that sort of argument where there are two clearly defined sides who trade insults at each other and very little opinion-changing happens.

Coincidentally, I was just saying in the current 'internet misogyny' thread that OT is one of the few places I know of where it is possible to have a decent discussion about those contentious issues. Effective moderation is a major reason for that, but I suspect that the lack of any post-rating system is helpful too, since there's less incentive to whale on the weakest examples of an unpopular position (which are often little more than controversy-bait) for the sake of easy 'likes'.

 

[Mutineer]

I tend to agree that adding likes will discourage dissident vie points.

In beginning of Civ4 I invented specialists or food economy (simply because I hate to play conventional view). My posts were ignores and it took a few succession (no cottages) games to demonstrate validity of play-style. Polite culture of board let me continue posts even with lot of people disagree. Any kind of voting system Would have put my idea into trash bracket before people realize it is actually work.

 

[Zack]

I tend to agree that adding likes will discourage dissident vie points.

In beginning of Civ4 I invented specialists or food economy (simply because I hate to play conventional view). My posts were ignores and it took a few succession (no cottages) games to demonstrate validity of play-style. Polite culture of board let me continue posts even with lot of people disagree. Any kind of voting system Would have put my idea into trash bracket before people realize it is actually work.

How, if the voting system has no ability to downvote?

 

[ori]

"this is a great strategy you should try it" - zero likes
"this strategy will never work" - 150 likes

could conceivably be a way to discourage such posts (personally I do not think that that would necessarily be the case, but its not implausible in my view).

 

[Zack]

"this is a great strategy you should try it" - zero likes
"this strategy will never work" - 150 likes

could conceivably be a way to discourage such posts (personally I do not think that that would necessarily be the case, but its not implausible in my view).

How is that any worse than a stream of posts saying "this strategy will never work," though?

 

[ori]

its not worse than that - though its much more likely to get 150 likes than to get 15 posts saying this, clicking on a like button is going to be done more readily than actual posting it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

"This strategy will never work" is a worthless post, though, unless the poster gives a reason why the strategy won't work.

A few posts giving reasons are worth more (in my opinion) than one post that doesn't include a reason but which may be endorsed by 150 people.

 

[ori]

You are right of course (those were of course just quick examples, not fleshed out posts) - also I forgot something (and even more important with regards to the discussion forum that we strive to be): its possible to engage in discussion with other posters - with drive by likes its a lot more difficult. So reasoned posts for or against a position are both more valuable in their own right, as you point out, and facilitate discussion about them much more than just having a number of likes associated with one post or another.

That said I am not sure this needs to discount the possibility of adding such a feature, its just not necessarily only beneficial.

 

[Zack]

"This strategy will never work" is a worthless post, though, unless the poster gives a reason why the strategy won't work.

A few posts giving reasons are worth more (in my opinion) than one post that doesn't include a reason but which may be endorsed by 150 people.

Who says posts giving reasons won't be endorsed by 150 people, and posts that don't will?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm not sure what you're saying. I'm going to assume we're hypothetically talking about a possible solution (strategy) someone posted about a Civ game on a forum that has a "like" system enabled. Here's me, who's out of practice at playing Civ or possibly has never played the version under discussion, reading the thread:

Person A posts a strategy to deal with a situation.

Persons B posts "That strategy will never work." There are no reasons given, just that bare sentence. I notice there are 150 "likes" associated with the post. I wonder why they say the strategy will never work, and am frustrated, because knowing why would help me to be a better player.

Persons C-F post "That strategy will never work because ______" (what follows is/are reason why the strategy won't work and perhaps they offer alternate suggestions). I notice there are few "likes" associated with the posts.

Which posts are more useful to me? Those that include the reasons, because they give me more information and help me learn. The popular answer is not necessarily the best answer.

Of course, if 150 people "liked" the posts that give reasons, that would be great. But when it comes down to "popular" answers or opinions, I prefer those that give more pertinent information, explanations, and I'll make up my own mind which I "like".

 

[Zack]

I was asking why you assume the crappy post is the one with all the likes. There's no way of knowing, I think it's a poor basis to build an argument on.

 

[Mutineer]

To answer there was a loots of posts saying that my strategy would not work because.... It did look reasonable, but was not correct. It is very hard to overcome general opinion of board.

It was stressful even here. It is my nature to try to find different way to do thinks and in for example Crusader King 2 I was not been able to post anything different.

I was laugh of, make fun of, my English was insulted,.. etc.., I simply left boards and game.

I really do not want to deal with that in game place, I have enough of that at work..

In my experience if there no groundwork for civil discussion different opinion will not be able to exist and if some can ostracism some one with rules of board they will.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I was asking why you assume the crappy post is the one with all the likes. There's no way of knowing, I think it's a poor basis to build an argument on.

I didn't assume the crappy post had all the 'likes.' I said the post without a reason was less useful than the post that does include a reason, regardless of which has more 'likes.'

 

[azzaman333]

I didn't assume the crappy post had all the 'likes.' I said the post without a reason was less useful than the post that does include a reason, regardless of which has more 'likes.'

Why would the post without reasoning get more likes than the post with reasoning? My experience is that people will generally respect a well reasoned post and ignore the poorly or non reasoned posts.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

That seems reasonable, but people are not always reasonable.

 

[azzaman333]

Better not allow people to post then, in case they say something unreasonable.

 

[Hygro]

It would be cool if you could give reputation points to posts but it'd also be cool if the amount of reputation someone had was not visible to other folks.

 

[Zack]

It would be cool if you could give reputation points to posts but it'd also be cool if the amount of reputation someone had was not visible to other folks.

Gee, I sure wish there was a way to show my appreciation of and agreement with Hygro's post without unnecessarily cluttering the thread with a post that essentially boils down to "this".