I just wanted to share my experince with DP feedback so far. Please don't take this to be whining. I think the idea is good. If someone is abusing the forum, or doing something completely stupid, they should get negative feedback. If someone posts a slew of affilitate links or ads, they get negative feedback. That way users know they might not want to listen to what this person says. On the other hand, if someone posts useful, relevant information, they should get positive feedback. We know people with lots of positive feedback have good things to say. Upon joining this forum, I got slapped almost immediately with several negative feedback points for my "porn star name" thread. I managed to have those offset by some friendly people who agreed I didn't deserve to be flogged for posting a "useless" thread in a forum cluttered with useless threads (General Discussion). See the "Post above me threads". I now just got slapped with about 10 negative feedback points for a "duplicate" post. I posted a link exchange request for my new blog in two forums. I put it in the "Link Exchange" forum, and in the "Blogging" forum. Now if you happen to be an avid reader of both forums, you might see my post twice. It was the first time I had ever posted something to two different places, and I didn't realize that was frowned upon so mightily. I now see that one of these posts has been deleted by the moderator, so I guess that's the policy. My question is this: does it really help build an open, friendly community by slapping someone who has been here for two weeks? Wouldn't it be better to PM me, or post a reply letting me know this is frowned upon? I get the feeling some people are just a little too touchy. If the goal is to create an exclusive community of a few people who know the rules, and don't say anything that might offend anyone else, then hitting new people with 10 points of negative feedback is a good thing. If, on the other hand, your goal is to create an open community of people helping other people, I'd say people need to think a little harder before hitting the big red feedback blaster button. Apologies that my only venue of ranting about this is publicly. I know most people in this community are actually nice people, who probably wouldn't do this. Most of these people, myself included, don't think to give someone positive feedback when they post 100 things and don't do anything stupid. Rant finally over. Peace and happiness to everyone.
The reputation system works exactly as designed and brings some self-moderation to the forum. I think people are just tired of so many threads about reputation is all. You assume wrong.
I think you don't understand how to handle the freedom given to you in here, you may want to join seochat if you're in need of some intimate male bonding.
gary99, I scanned your post and it's basically the same way everyone feels. It's not a perfect system but it works for the most part. I agree.
Ok, that did sound whiny, despite my best efforts. Just thought people might want to think for a second or two before pushing the big red negative button, especially when a reply or PM saying "please don't do that again" would do the trick. Do have a nice day.
The red negative button isn't any bigger than the positive one. To be honest, if a personal PM was sent to every member doing something that someone didn't approve of, there would be no time to do anything else. It's faster to use the rep button (2 seconds) than taking a couple minutes to compose a PM/email. When moderators have thousands (literally) of posts per day to sift through, the faster, the better. One red rep isn't going to hurt your account in the grand scheme of things... in fact no one even knows about it except you... and in the end, the point was made in the minimal amount of time.