Forum Rating/Reputation System

[Deer Thistle]

I feel like despite the fact that the number of people who receive negative ratings to those who receive positive ratings is low, it's still happening. The more active you are, the more likely you are to rub someone the wrong way at some point and get a possibly unwarranted negative rating. Anyone who takes the time to contribute to this community and add to the pool of information for others to view shouldn't feel at risk.

Before, our forum had the rating star system for every thread and we watched people anonymously downrate threads to oblivion over disliking a topic or a person. I have an old screenshot on my laptop of the market section of the forum where every thread has 1-star except for one individual's sales thread. This issue is less frequent with the forum member rating system because less are willing to downrate someone without the comforting anonymity that we had with the thread star rating system, but it's still there and it still happens.

Even if someone feels like a negative rating is warranted, is it really anyone's place to give another member permanent negative reputation? No matter how 100% certain someone may be that another was being rude/mean/etc, especially in heated topics, there's a chance it was misunderstood. Why should that person's reputation have a negative testimony for the rest of their stay on the KittyCatS forum? And if they truly, 100% were rude/mean/etc, I think everyone has a right to move forward from that and not have that negative reminder tied in with their forum account forever.

As stated before, so much is misinterpreted online, from humor that gets dubbed as "trolling" because it's not your type of humor - especially sarcasm which is many peoples' preferred humor, to an opinion that comes off as mean because of the tone used (I see this a lot more with our wonderful male posters), to a translator making someone's post sound harsh or condescending due to Google translate when in reality all that person wanted to do was try and participate with the rest of us.

I've seen some negative reputation testimonies typed like the person was rating an eBay member/transaction: "Don't read this person's posts!!!!! I started ignoring them in-world and now I'll ignore them here!!!!! Highly advised!!!" when it has nothing to do with the individual's forum posts at all. Or like Tad said, double downrating within a two minute timeframe, that's just ridiculous and abusing the system. He was double-downrated by the same person for a forum topic in the feedback section titled "Marketplace Support" with a suggestion for KittyCatS to overcome their stance on not selling food/milk/etc on the marketplace and possibly allow for it in the future..seriously?

I will reiterate this was in the feedback section, where suggestions of every spectrum can be presented to the KittyCatS team to evaluate. Not all suggestions are going to be cute breed suggestions with plenty of smileys and hearts in the original post, and not everyone posts in a super saccharine way to avoid possible misinterpretation either. Nonetheless, does a thread like that really deserve a downrating, or two? Of course not everyone is going to like the way another person types, affecting the 'tone' in which they're portrayed in that person's mind, or they may not agree with the opinion or suggestion. None of these aspects are reasons to permanently warrant a negative rating on a member's reputation no matter how many people try to negate it with positives later on.

I'd be totally okay with removing the rating system entirely. It's rewarding to receive praise but if this system also opens the door for others to feel unwelcome or unwanted through negative reputation, or feel afraid to post due to potential repercussions, then it needs to go. If KittyCatS wouldn't agree to remove the system altogether, then the downrating system needs to be the one considered; it's not working as intended.