Megabyte
05-15-2005, 02:43 AM
If this information is available in any other noob threads, my apologies. I'm bored, and felt like making something like this.
(edit: If there's any redundancies with the new add-on or any changes I made, let me know)
The TAO boards utilizes a reputation system. This allows the people who use these boards to "rate" what they think of the posts of the other users.
"What is my rep?"
Your reputation, or rep, is a compilation of what all the other players in the boards think of your posts. This is represented under your name by a box system, and more precisely in your "User CP" section at the top.
"How can I tell what my rep is?"
The basic system runs in a green (good) or red (bad) rep. Every time you like/dislike the post of another user, and want to show your appreciation, you hit the "rep" button under their avatar on that post, and click the appropriate option. You may also provide a small explanation or random thing with this rep.
When checking your own rep, the simple means is to look under your avatar on your posts and see the boxes. Everybody starts at the boards with 1 green box. As you post, and people rep you based on your posts, this will change.
The more precise means is to look into your "User CP" section. This provides a numeral display for your reputation standing. The higher this number, the more rep you have. For every 100 points, you receive an additional green box under your avatar to show how much people like what you have to say.*
If your posts are unpopular by the members of the TAO community, your rep number will go down. Eventually, if that trend continues, your rep box will turn red, reflecting the dislike the users here have for what you have to say.
"What does my rep do?"
In all reality...not much. You get a little saying when you point the mouse over your rep boxes, but thats about it. There is no tangible benefit to having a high rep, nor a penalty for a low one.
HOWEVER, its important to realize that people will tend to ignore, or disregard what you have to say if your rep consistently goes downhill and stays red. As the rep system represents what the players here think of what you have to say, you might consider adjusting what you post (or how you post it) to stop the negative reps.
I am not encouraging or saying that your should only post what other people like and want to read (blah blah blah conform and all that for you that like to rebel), but that since the idea behind these forums is to share your thoughts and ideas, if nobody likes or wants to read what you have to post, why are you here?
"What are reasons to rep other people?"
You can rep other people for any reason you want to really. There is not set standard that says your must rep people for such and such reason (be it good or bad). Over time, it is ideal if you come up with your own ideas for this which represent your values of what should, and should not, be posted on the TAO boards.
Other Reputation notes:
1. You cannot rep the same person repeatedly for the same post. Only once.
2. You must spread reputation to various people before repping the same person again (one of the most commonly quoted lines on the boards these days I might add). This is prevent people from abusing the rep system by boosting or lowering specific people's reps in manner's other than the system's intent (which is kinda silly since, as stated above, the rep system has no benefit/penalty)
3. There is a variance to how much the rep's from people affect your numeral score. In other words, how much TheBurning's reps will change your score is different than how much TheFreezing's reps will change your score.
The amount of points you can affect another person's rep score for (be it positive, or negative), is based on a mildly complicated system that I won't go into detail about. If a mod or other use wishes to share it, they may. Suffice to say that people who've spent more time and posted more often will find their rep carries more weight.
4. Your reps are NOT anonymous. All gold members can see who they were repped by, and there are systems which allow even those who don't see the names of the people who repped them to figure it out. This should be an encouragement for you to rep people (be they for good or bad) for reasons that have at least SOME sort of legitimacy.
5. There are rules to what your rep can contain in its message. These are along the same guidelines for tolerable behavior in the game and in your posts. Basic jist of it is to no use vulgar/racist language, or be overly insulting. Keep the boards and your reps PG-13 as the saying goes. For more info on what is considered acceptable behavior and guidlines, check out the various stickies in the Newbie section of the forums.
Hopefully, this explains the basics of the rep system to those of you who are new and unfamiliar with it.
The Blue Rep:
In the Rep system, all rep is not rated equally. Its a weighted system where people who are more established can not only rep for more pts (be it positive or negative) but can also affect people at different levels in the rep system.
Blue rep is a rep from a person who is too low to affect your own reputation rating. Whether is was intended to be positive or negative, it has no effect on you. While this may seem unfair to newer people, it serves many purposes and is more realistic to how your own rep standing is within the community.
For example:
An established person neg reps a new to the community for foul language in their post. The new person, behaving in a childish manner, negs them back as "revenge". The new person would have little rep to their name here in the community, as a sign of how their opinion stands amongst the rest of the community. Because of this, their neg rep back at the established person would not lower his rating, while his original neg rep would affect the new person's.
This is just a case example meant to demonstrate how the Blue rep works. It helps prevent abuse of the rep system (you can't create a dozen new forum accounts and neg rep an established person here repeatedly to lower their rating for example) and it helps show where you stand within the community. After all, someone who is well thought of, and who's posts people take note of, wouldn't exactly be affected too much if someone who was new to the community didn't like what he had to say. While if established people have problems with a new person, that person's standing in the opinion of the community will obviously go down.
Note: This doesn't mean that your rep is necessarily what people think of you. However, it should be a sign that if you find your rep going down consistently for certain behaviors, that the community as a whole doesn't appreciate it and you should stop.
To see the community members with the highest reputation numbers, go *HERE* (http://www.tacticsarena.com/forum/memberlist.php?postslower=0&postsupper=0&ausername=&homepage=&icq=&aim=&yahoo=&msn=&joindateafter=&joindatebefore=&lastpostafter=&lastpostbefore=&order=DESC&sort=reputation&pp=30<r=)
Also, due to common knowledge it's become, here's the system to find out how many points you're reps are worth..
1pt per year on the TAO boards
1pt per 100 points of reputation
1pt per 1000 posts on the boards
More info on Blue Reps...
Some kudos to El Cid who noticed it and commented on it to me first. Apparently you must hit 50 posts for any of your reps to count at all. From 1-49, all your reps are blue, no matter what your rep level is. I'm sure for most of you spammers, this isn't an issue. But nice to see there's some means of keeping new accounts from just repping away the moment they're created.
* = This is only true up to a point. At a bit over 1000 rep, I only have 8 green boxes, which means that at some point it takes more points to equal a gain another box. This also throw's into question the system on which people's reps are worth. Is it based on the number of boxes amongst other factors, or your numerical ranking. I'll edit in the info once I know more.
(edit: If there's any redundancies with the new add-on or any changes I made, let me know)
The TAO boards utilizes a reputation system. This allows the people who use these boards to "rate" what they think of the posts of the other users.
"What is my rep?"
Your reputation, or rep, is a compilation of what all the other players in the boards think of your posts. This is represented under your name by a box system, and more precisely in your "User CP" section at the top.
"How can I tell what my rep is?"
The basic system runs in a green (good) or red (bad) rep. Every time you like/dislike the post of another user, and want to show your appreciation, you hit the "rep" button under their avatar on that post, and click the appropriate option. You may also provide a small explanation or random thing with this rep.
When checking your own rep, the simple means is to look under your avatar on your posts and see the boxes. Everybody starts at the boards with 1 green box. As you post, and people rep you based on your posts, this will change.
The more precise means is to look into your "User CP" section. This provides a numeral display for your reputation standing. The higher this number, the more rep you have. For every 100 points, you receive an additional green box under your avatar to show how much people like what you have to say.*
If your posts are unpopular by the members of the TAO community, your rep number will go down. Eventually, if that trend continues, your rep box will turn red, reflecting the dislike the users here have for what you have to say.
"What does my rep do?"
In all reality...not much. You get a little saying when you point the mouse over your rep boxes, but thats about it. There is no tangible benefit to having a high rep, nor a penalty for a low one.
HOWEVER, its important to realize that people will tend to ignore, or disregard what you have to say if your rep consistently goes downhill and stays red. As the rep system represents what the players here think of what you have to say, you might consider adjusting what you post (or how you post it) to stop the negative reps.
I am not encouraging or saying that your should only post what other people like and want to read (blah blah blah conform and all that for you that like to rebel), but that since the idea behind these forums is to share your thoughts and ideas, if nobody likes or wants to read what you have to post, why are you here?
"What are reasons to rep other people?"
You can rep other people for any reason you want to really. There is not set standard that says your must rep people for such and such reason (be it good or bad). Over time, it is ideal if you come up with your own ideas for this which represent your values of what should, and should not, be posted on the TAO boards.
Other Reputation notes:
1. You cannot rep the same person repeatedly for the same post. Only once.
2. You must spread reputation to various people before repping the same person again (one of the most commonly quoted lines on the boards these days I might add). This is prevent people from abusing the rep system by boosting or lowering specific people's reps in manner's other than the system's intent (which is kinda silly since, as stated above, the rep system has no benefit/penalty)
3. There is a variance to how much the rep's from people affect your numeral score. In other words, how much TheBurning's reps will change your score is different than how much TheFreezing's reps will change your score.
The amount of points you can affect another person's rep score for (be it positive, or negative), is based on a mildly complicated system that I won't go into detail about. If a mod or other use wishes to share it, they may. Suffice to say that people who've spent more time and posted more often will find their rep carries more weight.
4. Your reps are NOT anonymous. All gold members can see who they were repped by, and there are systems which allow even those who don't see the names of the people who repped them to figure it out. This should be an encouragement for you to rep people (be they for good or bad) for reasons that have at least SOME sort of legitimacy.
5. There are rules to what your rep can contain in its message. These are along the same guidelines for tolerable behavior in the game and in your posts. Basic jist of it is to no use vulgar/racist language, or be overly insulting. Keep the boards and your reps PG-13 as the saying goes. For more info on what is considered acceptable behavior and guidlines, check out the various stickies in the Newbie section of the forums.
Hopefully, this explains the basics of the rep system to those of you who are new and unfamiliar with it.
The Blue Rep:
In the Rep system, all rep is not rated equally. Its a weighted system where people who are more established can not only rep for more pts (be it positive or negative) but can also affect people at different levels in the rep system.
Blue rep is a rep from a person who is too low to affect your own reputation rating. Whether is was intended to be positive or negative, it has no effect on you. While this may seem unfair to newer people, it serves many purposes and is more realistic to how your own rep standing is within the community.
For example:
An established person neg reps a new to the community for foul language in their post. The new person, behaving in a childish manner, negs them back as "revenge". The new person would have little rep to their name here in the community, as a sign of how their opinion stands amongst the rest of the community. Because of this, their neg rep back at the established person would not lower his rating, while his original neg rep would affect the new person's.
This is just a case example meant to demonstrate how the Blue rep works. It helps prevent abuse of the rep system (you can't create a dozen new forum accounts and neg rep an established person here repeatedly to lower their rating for example) and it helps show where you stand within the community. After all, someone who is well thought of, and who's posts people take note of, wouldn't exactly be affected too much if someone who was new to the community didn't like what he had to say. While if established people have problems with a new person, that person's standing in the opinion of the community will obviously go down.
Note: This doesn't mean that your rep is necessarily what people think of you. However, it should be a sign that if you find your rep going down consistently for certain behaviors, that the community as a whole doesn't appreciate it and you should stop.
To see the community members with the highest reputation numbers, go *HERE* (http://www.tacticsarena.com/forum/memberlist.php?postslower=0&postsupper=0&ausername=&homepage=&icq=&aim=&yahoo=&msn=&joindateafter=&joindatebefore=&lastpostafter=&lastpostbefore=&order=DESC&sort=reputation&pp=30<r=)
Also, due to common knowledge it's become, here's the system to find out how many points you're reps are worth..
1pt per year on the TAO boards
1pt per 100 points of reputation
1pt per 1000 posts on the boards
More info on Blue Reps...
Some kudos to El Cid who noticed it and commented on it to me first. Apparently you must hit 50 posts for any of your reps to count at all. From 1-49, all your reps are blue, no matter what your rep level is. I'm sure for most of you spammers, this isn't an issue. But nice to see there's some means of keeping new accounts from just repping away the moment they're created.
* = This is only true up to a point. At a bit over 1000 rep, I only have 8 green boxes, which means that at some point it takes more points to equal a gain another box. This also throw's into question the system on which people's reps are worth. Is it based on the number of boxes amongst other factors, or your numerical ranking. I'll edit in the info once I know more.