Points "The Blue W" The 9/11 forum, etc

Please forgive me, as I did look around for this info and couldn't find it. I did read the updated thread about the point system, and it did not seem to contain the relevant info. I really love the vast wealth of knowledge and opinion here, but I have to say, the site can seem a bit unwieldy at times.


I read the announcement in the 9/11 forum. In this it mentions how that one particular score, denoted by the blue "w" must be so high to reply, or start a new post. But OP did not make mention of what this score actually represents, or how points are given or infracted.

If someone could please explain this to me, and the rest of it, or point me in the direction of relevant information, i would be most appreciative.

Oh, and where is the "applause" button?

How / why of flagging posts?

Thanks.

Originally posted by iwilliam

Oh, and where is the "applause" button?

You can't do it. Only Mods, Owners, etc.. can give applause.


I didn't actually read all of this, but I'm just gonna post the entire quote anyways. Taken from the thread 'What Is The WATS score?.

Originally posted by schuyler

W = (posts / 600) + (flags / 80) + (stars / 170)

Example:

W = (4074 posts / 600) + (524 flags / 80) + (7619 stars / 170)
W = 6.79 + 6.55 + 44.81
W = 58.15 rounded to 58.

The bang for the buck here is in flags which has the smallest denominator of 80. The LEAST bang for the buck is in posts which has the largest denominator of 600. Stars, with a denominator of 170, are worth a little less than half what flags are (.46). It is NOT about quantity, but about starting threads. Mere posts in this equation do not earn you much at all relative to the other two metrics. If you earn no stars or flags, your WATS score is relatively low in the scheme of things. Quantity is a factor, but it is the least relevant factor of them all.

This, by the way, is precisely what Skeptic Overlord has said about the matter in previous posts. He didn't give us the formula that I recall, but he did say that WATS was a way of rewarding thread starters in his "User provided content" theme of ATS.

Now, K = Karma

K = (stars * 15) + ((flags + applause) * 10) / posts

Example:

7619 stars * 15 = 114285
(524 flags + 92 applauses) * 10 = 6160
114285 + 6160 = 120445
120445 / 4074 posts = 29.5643103 rounded to 30

Note that here quantity can hurt you if you don't also get stars and flags. If you had 10,000 posts here instead of 4,074, your karma score would be 12 instead of 30. If you had 2,000 posts your score would be 60. In other words, pithy posts that earn stars and/or flags are worth than toss-off posts with no value.

Note that Points don't appear to count here at all. You EARN points through getting applause, posting a single post, or by people responding to your threads, and points are SUBTRACTED when you've been a bad person and get an "Extreme Content Warning" but points by themselves don't do anything to you K or W scores. ATS may use points for other things, but we don't know what they are.It seems a bit odd that one applause can earn you 500 points, but it only counts the same as a single flag for the Karma score and not at all for the WATS score.

There are actually several other threads. This↑ was just from the first one I opened. Just search for 'WATS'.

Thanks for your response. I did find my way to one of the WATS threads after I posted... of course. (Sorry, I'm not normally this noob at being a noob).

It did, however, seem as though there wasn't a consensus agreement as to the proper weights certain actions carried. Maybe I didn't read far enough into the thread (though I did read for a while.)

Thank you.

9/11 lol...