Weird, I was trying to give some cred to someone on the forum, and I got a message with something like "You must spread some reputation before giving it to person X."

I couldn't figure out why, because I figured the act of giving someone "reputation" is doing what the message box asked.

Then I figured it out...

I guess the last time I gave some reputation, it was that very same person. I find it weird that the forum rules doesn't allow for someone to give the same person reputation two times in a row. It kind of penalized the guy who gave two great posts in a row.

 

it goes back to a few years ago when guys were having "rep parties" to drive up their rep numbers. back then you could see how many points people had.
before the parties started, i was in the top 10 on rep points. within a month of the "parties" i went down to around position 150. and at the time, all those 150 people had less than 1/10 of the points i had.
so to stop the "parties", we eliminated the ability to see how many points other people had, and then put in a few rules, limit to 10 or so reps per 24 hour period, and you had to rep at least 25 other people i think it is before you could rep the same person again.

 

I can understand that, but that last part, that should be more like a 5 than a 25, IMO of course. Because I know for myself I spend very little time in the other forums compared to the IDI forum here and there is not 25+ active people giving advice in this forum. So I try to spread reps around when I see good advice, but it's usually the same people giving the advice so I can't give it to them on other posts/issues like genscripter said.

 

I agree. this forum is too insular to have a 25 person limit. I think that 25-person-policy will just mean moderate-to-mediocre advice will be promoted, just to satisfy the limit.

 

We could start repping people that ask why their truck won't start when it's cold.

 

I agree, i dont give it out often, but it irritates me when i cant rep someone when they deserve it. 5 sounds more reasonable. I wouldnt be oppose to a like / thank button either. Honestly, i dont think i can rep any of you guys.

 

I agree on the 5 person instead of 25, I don't have much to contribute but have tried to give out rep whenever any of you knowledgeable people have provided some good info, but I haven't been able to find 25 different people I guess lol

 

well,there are other forums with a lot more participants than just the IDI forum people.

those places just ain't as good as the IDI forum.

 

Yea but we'd rather hang out here lol, I guess I could participate in the other sections if I would get my projects together lol

 

I got a rep for that.

 

How bout repping for how many quarts of oil when I have a superdooty filter?

 

Back on topic, when can we seriously have the reputation policy changed? This 25-person minimum is annoying.

 

I pretty much quit trying to rep anybody because of the 25 person message every time I tried. I guess I could start reping for every funny comment or clever line in a signature, but I don't think that's the purpose for it. Isn't it supposed to be for when you give good sound advice? Maybe it would be more effective if you were only allowed to rep one person each day or something. I try not to be too concerned with this type of thing, but it is a good feeling when I have received positive rep in the past for helping someone out and feel more likely to continue to do so.
I am also torn with the loss of ability to give negative reps. I've seen some horrible advice and misinformation from people. A little warning for people asking for advice could be helpful. Then again I wouldn't feel like it's my place to say anything to hurt someone's feelings.

 

^^^^^ +1; it is helpful to finally see the rep rules in black and white, but 25 for the "spreading" rule is exceedingly high for a community this size. Like in a different ball park. I never would have guessed it would be that high. Five sounds like a reasonable number; possibly even three. I wonder if it's possible to program it so that you could rep the same person twice in a row, but not more than twice before "spreading" your reps to 3-5 others. As said, there are times when a particular member comes up with multiple rep-worthy contributions in fairly short order.

We could start by repping everyone who has a suggestion about how to improve the rep process......

 

I tired to rep you for that, but it wouldn't let me.