ATS Points & Star System Overhaul

reply to post by StellarX

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No Probs mate,

I thought I'd explain my points situation in case you were referring to me, that's all. As I mentioned, i thought you may not be. Yes it makes sense in context now.

Thanks mate

IRM

Exactly the reason why a 'red star' may avert people who say such things. if you read my initial post, I outline that exact thing. I think you have your wires crossed


No one is perfect, no offense to the 3 Amigos. Everything is subject to change, improvement and evolution. It is simply ATS's way of conducting a web forum. This is not universal.



How can you even begin to guess my psychology. You are wrong in every account. I would not leave or over react. I do not claim to be all knowing and all seeing and I understand in the real world, we all see things differently. I willingly accept that fact and am very comfortable with it. Remember it's me who suggested red stars which means I'm happy to abide by them. I am not exempt.

Perhaps you are referring to how you would react in such a situation? I'm just guessing.



For that last remark, I humbly thank you Andrew E. Wiggin


IRM

Thank you for your wise contribution berenike. That is a great idea that I feel does not compromise the way that the 3 Amigos wish the forum to be run. It's merely an easily implemented extension of current practices and policies.

Well thought out!

IRM

[edit on 2-8-2008 by verylowfrequency]

reply to post by verylowfrequency

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VLF,

My Man...

You must understand that unless people know you personally, how are they to tell you are joking. Perhaps with some of those electrodes you were referring to? Give some leeway to StellarX. To be honest it seemed to me that you were completely serious too!

Anyway, enough of the levity if that was your intention. I intended this to be a serious discussion. And if you were indeed joking, why not tell us what you really believe? Otherwise one can only assume that your previous post was a waste of space and other peoples time.

I await your true feelings on the topic backed up with the reasons why.

IRM

[edit on 2-8-2008 by verylowfrequency]

I'm such a big meanie! Lol.... Maybe this just isn't the right type of forum for you?



No thanks; the worse i would ask for is the opportunity to sit you down and make you read the sources i would normally present in defense of one argument/view or another. It may make sense to teach things with small brains with the application of pain but to do so with human beings is mostly a open admission that you have no legal or humanitarian leg to stand on.



Maybe you should as apparently both of us were ....



Then i suggest you find a forum where such behaviour might gain more appreciation?



At least your paranoid so maybe we have a place for you here after all; that is in a few years time when your 'feelings' don't get quite so easily.



A 'embedded' joke no less? Wow.....



And your third guess would be? I may admit to some of the latter but the former isn't much of a problem as you might realise from reading some of my posts!



Very unlikely...



Which is ALL i do around here! Sure i think i can claim some success in warding off some type of commentary but at what cost does that come when there is so much endless repetition to address the same old nonsense?



So make different types of 'points' such as actual posting, thread creation, multi media production, tinwiki or whatever else and attach a point cost for various levels of 'disagreement' for the various types of points earned. In this way it should be possible for contributors to decide for themselves if they wish to offer positive reinforcement by staring the flag at no cost or negative reinforcement with a point cost attached.



While it's fine to trust administrative issues to a few who prove themselves impartial/partial to a given cause that's not democracy and not what you want if you want to form a true opinion of popular sentiment. Currently 'truth' is determined largely by who is present in a discussion and given the rate at which good information is buried by completely asinine threads it's as good as a full time job to 'defend' your view. That is not the way it should be as truth should not be determined by whoever has the most time to spend in it's defense.



The average troll have absolutely no stamina and the rest of the people you disagree with you can normally at the very least use as sound boards or reason to do additional research. The worse thing you can do is to restrict the potential for negative sanction in the hopes that the trolls who create countless threads wont somehow find a way to abuse this system as well. If the owners/admins can't deal with the varmin why not allow the townsfolk the protect themselves? I for one know how to use my pitchfork and i am sure i am not alone.



It is? So you can at no cost or risk to yourself give incentive to slackers such as yourself? Slackers of the world unite? Wouldn't it make more sense to keep most nonsense from ever getting posted thus allowing the information that remains to be judged? I know i would , if i could, rather disagree with what i find disagreeable, than to do the slacker thing and just flag/star it, but since there isn't enough hours in a regular day to wade trough the volume of nonsense that is produced here every day. I believe that there should be a way for me to use my past 'credits' to 'reward' the completely outrageous crap i sometimes run into without going to UFO/alien related threads.



Sure you do and as you may have noticed i really value your opinion.

Stellar

[edit on 1-8-2008 by StellarX]

[edit on 2-8-2008 by verylowfrequency]

NO to negative-stars

Way too much potential for abuse. The debunking teams will ensure that the good researchers putting out good evidence get lots of negative stars, while debunkers and nay-sayers get lots of positive stars.

As for points, I've never really cared about how much points I have, but some changes to how points are awarded would still be nice to see. As it is now, trolls can rack up loads of points just by starting lots of controversial threads that get lots of replies - even if their threads are really crap.

Why not instead award points for starting threads, award points for every Flag a thread receives, and award points for every Star a post receives? That way, people are rewarded for the quality of their content, not the quantity....

I'd much rather see the ability to add unlimited numbers of users to my ignore list. There's at least 50 people I'd like to add to it at this point.

-Euclid

I think the system is fine the way it is.

reply to post by InfaRedMan

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Exactly the point. I agree with you totally. Everything Skeptic Overlord said would make for an "excellent" system on paper. It just fails to account for one thing. Human nature. There are always going to be those who crave the recognition factor of higher point scores, and go out of their way to work the system to get them. They start threads of specious nature, with the only apparent goal being to generate replies. The idea that all the readers are going to restrain themselves from replying is just wishful thinking. Should we restrain ourselves? Yes. Does it work that way in practice? From the evidence I've seen, a resounding no.

Negative stars would be abused IMHO.

Points system is fine as it is, I preferred its predecessor but I am a minority in that school of thought.

Sadly, you are right. And I confess that I haven't always been able to restrain from posting in those kinds of threads.
Just yesterday I fed a troll. Served it a three course meal, actually. I am ashamed.

I say if it aint broke then don't fix it,this site seems to be running just fine under the current conditions,if we were to use everyones opinion would be a set of rules that would rival a dictionary

I think we should have a flag button for "questionable content".

When someone posts something up, especially political information, that isn't backed up by a verifiable source, the questionable content flag can be hit, and a mod can review it.

Too many times a blog will be posted with questionable material, but it is allowed to stay because it isn't necessarily breaking rules. At the same time, this questionable content sits there and people come by read it, accept it, close the thread, and never verify it.

If a post/thread can be flagged for questionable content, this would allow readers to know that they need to take it with a grain of salt.

I'm confused cany anyone explain why my points are in the minus?

Thanks.

I like the red star Idea but I would like it better if the Anonymous / non-member posters were locked out of having this priveledge, otherwise it could have a trollish, negative impact on good posts.

Just a thought.


[edit on 11-1-2008 by intelgurl]