Leo Gura

Discussion: The End Of Reputation & Rank?

264 posts in this topic

I see lots of egos running around wild on this forum, myself not excluded.

Part of the problem is that the forum fuels this. All online platforms do. It's just the nature of the beast. But for us it's particularly distracting.

So to reduce that, the idea came to mind to remove all reputation points and ranks. What this would mean is:

  • No more titles like Common Chimp, Great Ape, etc.
  • No more reputation points by your username
  • No more Thumbs Up button!
  • No more Thumbs Up scores on individual posts

Basically, all members would be equal. All posts and responses would just ride on the weight of their logic. This change would strip out all the social proof which now exists. This would be a pretty significant change, so I wanted to see how you guys feel about that.

With this, there would be no way to tell which member is more reputable than another, or which thread is highly liked or respected. The biggest downside would that the best content, and the most trustworthy members, would be harder to spot. The biggest upside would be that we stop wasting time looking at who thumbed-up what. And it would force people to actually read the content of a post before pre-judging it. And I would like to get rid of my rank/reputation.

It would still be possible to see how many total posts a user made. That stat is not going away.

I am still undecided about this.

Yea or nay?

Speak now or forever hold your peace.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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@NJM50 Yes, I think that's possible, but the chief sin is the social proof which accrues via the Thumbs Up on individual posts.

The idea is: It might be refreshing to read a thread with just pure text, no likes of any kind distracting you. No thought of checking who liked what. No thought about deciding which posts to like. You'd just read the text and judge for yourself, rather than relying on social proof, which is rather lazy.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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@Leo Gura I think it's a good idea to remove the thumbs up stuff since there will be less bias of what is a 'good' post and a less informative post.

Although seeing that some people have participated longer on the forum can be quite nice. Maybe implement a function that will give you titles based on the how long you have been active on the forum.


In the depths of winter,
I finally learned that within me 
there lay an invincible summer.

- Albert Camus

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@Max_V The member's post count stat (basically the only one which would be left), would reflect how long the member has been active on the forum pretty accurately. It's hard to fake that number.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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@Leo Gura Mhh that's true.

Titles can also be something that you identify with, but ey, which positive attribute doesn't the ego identify with? :P

The challenge is to be able to see who as experience without instantly creating a bias if they are 'higher' or 'lower' than you.


In the depths of winter,
I finally learned that within me 
there lay an invincible summer.

- Albert Camus

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Yes get rid of it, it takes the Facebook element out of it. 

The total post count as well if you ask me. 

The only thing is that you might have to disable the option to change usernames as well. Otherwise people will often change their username and seemingly disappear, and it will be very hard to keep track of who's who. 

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Oh my God YES PLEASE! :D

14 minutes ago, Max_V said:

Maybe implement a function that will give you titles based on the how long you have been active on the forum.

In my case, I have been active since the beginning, but I haven't posted much. So my post count wouldn't reflect how long I've been active, just how much I've been posting. Therefore I rather like the idea of post count and separate titles based on how long people have been active. So you could see whether someone made one hundred posts in a month or in a year. But I guess if you want to get rid of all rank and status, that would be just more rank and status...

In any case, I support the idea. Been secretly wishing for it to happen, as I find myself distracted from the actual posts to check whether it has been voted up or down and by how many people.

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Yea.

And well, the ego doesn't like this idea. And I think that says a lot...

Edited by Edvard

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@Leo Gura Yes I think this would be a good idea. It would definitely encourage people to make their own judgements. Maybe we could have a trial period with these changes for a few weeks, or a month, and then make a final decision after that.
 

Edit: After thinking about this a bit more here is what I think would be ideal:

I don't pay much attention to the chimp titles so for me whether they are removed or not is not too much of an issue.

What I would say is to just completely remove the reputation points and the number of posts under the user image. 

But keep the thumbs up under each comment. Being praised for writing a good comment is not such a bad thing I don't think. 

Edited by Space

"Find what you love and let it kill you." - Charles Bukowski

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Upvote count should stay, often it's a good representation of quality post. 
If someone pays too much attetion to reputation points it's rather their fault and something they sould work on than systems itself.
Although I admit name tittles are pretty useless.

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1 minute ago, wavydude said:

If someone pays too much attetion to reputation points it's rather their fault and something they sould work on than systems itself.

Yes, but if in practice 90% of people have this problem, then it's a huge distraction.

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Also it should make for better discussion. More reactions on post. 

It's quite lazy to just leave a thumps up or not just to show your approval or disapproval. 

Edited by SFRL

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22 minutes ago, SFRL said:

The only thing is that you might have to disable the option to change usernames as well. Otherwise people will often change their username and seemingly disappear, and it will be very hard to keep track of who's who. 

Changing usernames has been disabled for over a year. Username changes are definitely not allowed. (Way abused feature).

17 minutes ago, wavydude said:

Although I admit name tittles are pretty useless.

Of course you would say that, you're merely a Babbling Baboon :P


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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Also it would make for more natural free-flowing conversations. Sometimes it should be possible to just reply with a simple "yes" or "no" or some other short reply. That is not going to get a thumbs up of course. But it is part of a normal conversation technique. 

Now it's like: "Well let's make this a long response that appears very smart because otherwise I won't get any likes". 

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5 minutes ago, SFRL said:

"Well let's make this a long response that appears very smart because otherwise I won't get any likes". 

@SFRL hahaha, hit the nail right on the head


In the depths of winter,
I finally learned that within me 
there lay an invincible summer.

- Albert Camus

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And of course it would welcome more perspectives. People can go against the grain.

Now people are discouraged to say things that go against the common forum culture/consensus or they won't be getting any likes. 

That doesn't make a comment true or untrue though. 

Edited by SFRL

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@Leo Gura   I find it extremely useful to see what posts you give a thumbs up to, its usually stuff that is insightful.

Same with other members.

Maybe you can leave the thumbs up option open but it doesnt give reputation or anything, and it doenst show up on the thread, but you can still go on someones profile and see what they thumbed up.

Best of both worlds  :P 

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Ranks and points are distraction you can use your own critical thinking to see if advice is for you or not and not follow it blindly


Who teaches us whats real and how to laugh at lies? Who decides why we live and what we'll die to defend?Who chain us? And who holds the Key that can set us free? 

It's you.

You have all the weapons you need 

Now fight.

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All the ranking is unnecessary but make changes one at a time

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That sounds great, I was contemplating putting a 'don't upvote me' in my sig.

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