[matt_st3 (Strongrule)]

This top area will be updated with the various changes from the end of the year as a remember them. 
Not a ton occurred during the end of the year due to my schedule expect for very minor tweaks to visuals, differentiating a normal ban from a community ban, and the removal of the rep system. More on that in a below section.

I've broken up the year into quarters and have further split those into moderation and maintenance halves. This will be how I split up the various major tasks throughout the year, as it allows me to focus on certain aspects one at a time and still keep up with my work life. Some changes include:

Various changes to group permissions to block or unlock posting areas.
Prevent non staff from making new threads in archives.
Discord appeals integration (still fixing the perms).
Changes to the admin accounts.
A few buttons removed until fixed or tweaked.
Some small visual changes for mobile made while digging into the code in prep for dark mode.
Guidelines for forum staff.
Rep oppression.

---

This month we observed time without the rep system and what impact it had and will continue to have. While quite the load was lifted off of my time and dms, this thread will stay open as not only a comment section for fixes that still need to be made or brought to my attention but also as the discussion thread on if and how we will reimplement a reputation or response system. While I do miss the old +1/-1 system, as it could provide a lot more feedback than a simple like button, it cannot return in its previous form without some changes made. I believe there is some balance between holding individuals responsible for their use of a system and recognizing that a system can be too easily abused. Various changes can be made, but most either do nothing to solve the abuse potential or nerf the reputation system we had into oblivion. Before its removal the previous poll was extremely split on opinions over the reputation usage and any benefits it had. At the end of the day, it was removed as several issues came to a head, many of which in some way had their issues stoked by the system and particular members which burned the admin team out. While I am aware of where many people stood then, I will be using the following responses as a metric on where the community stands on reintroducing rep and what changes they (you) may want to see. Several ideas have been given but I want to take the next week to consolidate all of the ideas into a single thread (I will tag some other related threads) for the admins to review and discuss. With this, March will see some of the following updates depending on time:

Rep discussion to Implementation
Dark Mode
Fixing the alerts (?)
MYBB update

I do heavily suggest that if you want an opinion to be considered current you post it here, Admins especially included. While polls and activity are fine tools to judge by in their own regard, I would like to see some thought out discussion. Arguing or trying to "invalidate" another person's opinion will likely get your opinion thrown out (and put your donor tmod at risk). Also, requiring posting here means you can't ping me in the staff discord demanding something when you had the opportunity to discuss it and chose to remain completely silent. I will reserve my thoughts for a day or two so that others will post varying ideas before we start to narrow down a solution.

Some previous discussions
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/sho...?tid=15363
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/sho...?tid=15752

[Salty]

I'm pretty sure this was probably already mentioned before, but could there be a way that we just do not have negative rep, or does the community feel like that still would be abused? Unless I'm mistaken, the issue is more so with mass negative rep voting, so if we got rid of that option, it would be a solid answer. 


Positive reputation shows us who a lot of people agree with (yes bias is going to be involved, we're humans. We naturally are going to be more inclined to like what someone says if we're friends with them.) and we don't have to have the -1 feature to show that we disagree with something. We can easily have a response saying "I disagree with you because of X reason." 



Just my thoughts, but I'm feel that a lot of what I just said are rehashed and regurgitated statements. I feel as if it's a win-win because the web staff don't really have to monitor mass rep manipulation as much and the people who don't want to type out an agreement statement can just click the +1.

[Mother Nuru.]

So first and foremost, I'm against the old system entirely. It was a lot, even with the amount of us that actively watched for abuse of reputation on forums. We need something a little simpler and/or easier. There's not many that actively participate and handle forum things. It was a huge load on those that did watch or try to handle things, and many of us have real lives outside of dinks.
I personally have been a lot less stressed seeing forums and such simmer down. People really enjoyed starting shit on forums just for their internet points and it was kinda sad. Riling things up just for points and causing mayhem has been a continuous cycle for whatever reason here at dinks, and with rep gone, things have honestly calm down SOOOO much.
On top of that now we have people openly discussing shit on forums without fear of being "downvoted to hell" on applications, and such. That's been a huge thing I saw a difference in. I don't want people to be "afraid" to give opinions. They're needed from all sides and perspectives.

However there were some suggestions I saw that I could get on board with, though some would be hard to implement.
1. +/-  but before submitting it, reasoning had to be written(someone said via profile). This would take out a good chunk of the hassle we had between figuring out if someone was just stirring shit, grouping, etc. Though hard to implement. Russ's annoying lovable self gave a good example on this page. https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/sho...363&page=3
2. Limit the amount of reps per day? While it could potentially be annoying, this also could cut down on some of the bs we saw happen massively. Not as well as some other ideas, but limiting could be helpful. It COULD (big maybe there bc we have dumbos here) cause people to be wiser with their choices on what they downvote, or upvote.
3. BIG NO HERE >I know a ton of people suggested the reactions, but I just see that going downhill faster than plus one minus one did. Way more there for the people to grab and abuse. If you think they won't, you have too much hope unfortunately. Going on here as many years as I have in mod + ranks, you end up seeing the cycles dinks goes through over and over. This will only speed up that drama thing we saw happen time and time again previously. Except instead of every few months, it'll end up every other. No thanks. Too much stress. It might be a fun suggestion, but it is not fun on the staff side of things, and anyone that's suggested this, hasn't had to deal with a group like dinks on the staff side.
4. Refer to Reina's big brain moment here, I fully agree with her. It is a reward/punish system. It creates more chaos than it fixes. https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/sho...363&page=4 I am preferably more in favor of NO system myself, but I am aware that being a people person kind of admin(as in i prefer to speak for the people and not myself), that the majority enjoys something, so I state possibilities. But my final stance sits here with Reina.
5. Make totals private. Totals are NOT the issue, the issue is the shit heads. However this does lower the incentive to farm and cause mayhem.
6. This one I'm less in favor of, but stricter rules on rep, and what is and isnt considered manipulation, if we do implement rep back. But due to the fact that there's no actual "written rule on manipulations" people will be people. Sadly we've experienced this, and I know you're rolling your eyes at this one matt. However it's best to cover all bases, and then smack the shit out of idiots.


Full stance tl;dr form
I prefer no rep of any kind.
If we have it, use the one where you put reasons, that way it's easier for staff to go through and handle. Limit the amount per day, to aid in that, and make totals private. Rework the rules just a hair, to cover bases. Then punish the shitheads, for being shitheads.

[RussEfarmer]

i literally dont care how just add SOMETHING, this site has been a snooze fest ever since it got removed because there is no reason to make fun posts or threads anymore, its just a site you dump ban requests and staff apps now.. checking my email at work is more exciting at this point. maybe thats what the all of three ish people that moderate the forums and maybe a couple other users want, but as far as the greater community goes its a really missed feature. It was a huge surprise when it just magically disappeared with no acknowledgement, and it was only acknowledged when the discord started stirring up about it and threads got made, to which admins only responded to passive aggressively, still pretty irked about how that was handled.

strong opinion maybe, but thats how I feel about it, deal

edit: also fix the report button if moderation is such a problem?

[Jammin]

Unpopular take perhaps, but I liked the old rep system when it was properly used. I feel adding a comment requirement, combined with much stricter rules and maybe more forum staff, would be beneficial IMO. And again, I feel adding the +rep only system in the interim is a good starting point.
And I think i'd prefer to see the totals as opposed to not. It is a good tool to see whom is respected in the community for their forum engagements.

But having the old rep system gives very clear and concise feedback on various options and opinions. Maybe disable it for ban requests and the like, and moderate the rep system such that it reflects opinions. E.g., someone posting a simple Steam ID trying to be helpful shouldn't get -5 rep.

[Foxka]

give me funny internet points back!

[thunderwalrusinnthebar]

I think the old rep system was fine tbh. Yeah you had people bomb posts but at the end of the day it was an easy way to show how you felt about something somebody said.

[Deer-ly]

just remove names from the old rep system so i can't be witch hunted for -1'ing thayrs mod app

[VolfVoss]

There's been no major issues that I've seen with the rep being gone. 

I don't care if it comes back or not, but I wonder if we can limit where it would appear.  

For example, would it be possible to have +/- appear only on ban/unban requests and staff apps? That seems like the most applicable use of the rep system anyways instead of on every single post made.

[BillyBob]

the book burning continues, stop the steal, bring the rep