Forum Rating/Reputation System

[Deer Thistle]

Hi! Long time, no talk!

I want to address an issue that is a bit troublesome in regards to the forum rating system. Sometimes it seems like people don't use it fairly to rate others' contributions, but to leave negative feedback for comments/posts that aren't really harmful. It feels like people wish to vent their disdain for another due to difference of opinions - I could list so many people who this applies to, unfortunately - or for personally disliking that individual in-world and utilizing the forum rating system as a platform to display that dislike to everyone else.

As I understood it, the feedback system is a system where others can be lauded for their KittyCatS contributions. I've seen people downrated because someone disagreed with their opinion, they didn't like their tone in a post (It's the feedback forum! Not all is going to be sunshine and kitties chasing butterflies!) and deem them trolling (Spoiler: Not everyone who has a bit of misunderstood humor and a different opinion than majority in the thread should be written off as a troll; their response is just as meaningful as any other person's), or had a prior issue with them somewhere else like KittyCatS Addicts and now want to demonstrate how much they don't like that person here by downrating them.

I've also recently seen individuals double-downrated by the same member within minutes; that's ridiculous. That's not really fair when they're a contributing member of KittyCatS whose tone may be a little different than the one you may like. In fact, I'd consider this abusing the rating system. I get that comprehending someone's tone plus an opinion differing from yours may make someone sound mean - it's the Internet after all, but that's no reason to downvote them when they're offering advice or warranted constructive criticism in a controversial topic or subforum that asks for such.

If people can't utilize downrate for something that's obviously legitimate such as being truly hurtful to another person without /anything/ constructive in their post, then I don't feel like we should have negative feedback. Perhaps in the future, KittyCatS can have only positive feedback enabled? The downrating is simply not working.

I also understood the rating system as a means to see who has contributed the most to the forums through helpful posts that can be referenced in their ratings, above and beyond the combination of forum join date and post count. I'd say nine times out of ten by glancing at the negative feedback of my fellow community members, it's really not warranted at all. It's a shame that their rating count is lowered due to these issues when they're actively contributing members of this community. Why should anyone be penalized for having a tone different than the one you are accustomed to, or an opinion different than the one you have regarding an issue, when they're still contributing all the same? Why should dislike for a person in-world affect their KittyCatS forum reputation rating?

For the sake of making everyone feel like their opinions matter no matter how they're presented and not making someone feel 'unwanted' or unwelcome on the forum, I'd suggest the removal of downrating. We should all feel entitled to be ourselves and present our opinions in our own ways without fearing repercussions because you may rub someone the wrong way through the frequent online misinterpretation. As stated before, in my opinion, downrating is just not working as intended.

Even if nothing remedies this issue, I hope that all those affected know that I appreciate reading your meaningful thoughts, no matter how different they are from my perspective or preferred tone.

Edit: Forum Rating System = Forum Reputation System. Sorry for any confusion as I forgot that the two terms are interchangeable.

[Kayla Woodrunner]

Wow, I didn't know you could vote for people.

There are a few people I want to put a positive vote for so off to figure out how to do that now.

[Deer Thistle]

It's the "reputation" part to the right of your forum name beneath your join date, you can see it above your post's body. If you click the number next to "Reputation:" it'll bring you to a page with a "Rate User" button that, when clicked, opens as a pop-up where you can leave positive, neutral, or negative feedback for any member.

I'll edit my post to clarify that reputation = rating system, totally forgot that there are two terms to represent the same forum function. And hooray for positive rating for fellow community members.

[Winter Phoenix]

I've seen very few forum users with negatives in the rep bar.

Those I have seen tend to be folks getting slammed by 'vendetta schmucks'.

I've found myself giving users positive rep marks just to erase the negative

rep marks which I've felt were unwarranted,

and often made from a position of sheer ignorance.

So I'm going to agree with D.T's assessment,

that the negative rep button needs to go.

If nothing else, its only good as a griefer tool,

And SCREW THOSE GUYS!

[Maxwell Grantly]

I agree wholeheartedly with the above post. I would love to see the ability to offer "bad reputation" to any other user be disabled (even at the cost of being unable to use the "good reputation" function too.)

[Tad Carlucci]

I used to get upset when I saw a negative vote. Then I realized they're all coming from the same username, and usually a double-vote to boot. So while I do check it, if it goes down a couple ticks because of her votes, I don't worry about it. The votes mean something if they're honest. But with people trolling the system and voting multiple negatives, the actual vote total is meaningless.

I vote for disabling the star system, reputation, etc.

The are helpful in technical forums like StackOverflow, but, here, they're not so useful and some are abusing them.

[anna Acanthus]

Quite honestly find there is a surprisingly low abuse of rep rating on this forum.

The couple that i've seen well, the posters were pretty much asking for it at times, though as i don't have my nose to these kind of details i may not be up to date.

However i do think that repeated downrating of the same person does less service to the downrater than it does to the downrated.
Once is plenty, you make your point and then move on.

Rudeness and abuse need to be sanctioned in some way other than by the occasional " PURLEEEZ lets all be nice to each other guys " interventions ()
Personally i'd never downrate but some people can get really hurt and they need some means of closure, although i doubt that most take notice of rep ratings or even see it's there.

Keep it above the belt and no one will get downratings.

[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.

[Malayaa Resident]

I like the little roses you can click on to Give Thanks to a poster for a helpful or interesting post I was unaware of the Reputation feature until now...I would think if someone is posting something way out of bounds (selling dogs maybe ha ha) then the Report to a Moderator button at bottom could be used to get rid of any troublemakers officially...

[Ryanna Enfield]

Thanks for bringing this up, Deer. I was unaware of this feature, and now that I've seen it, I agree with the OP. The negative rating/reputation portion makes me sad. I would love to see it go. I don't have any real issue with the positive aspect of the feature, but I don't know if it is possible to keep only that portion of it.