Reputation Anonymity

Hi Matthew and everyone.........I am sorry to pull back up an "old" thread, but I just wanted to add that I now think when you get a grey square next to the thread that a person is giving/taking rep points for your comment on, it must mean that the person who is giving/taking the points does not have any rep points themselves to give/take! hahhaha I don't know if that all made any sense..but I tried! I think this because I got a grey square about a post I made, and in the comment area the person said "you rock" Hahaha now I am not young and hip, but I do know that to "rock" is usually a good thing! My points in the control panel did not increase, therefore I believe the person who bestowed such a compliment just hasn't been awarded any points to give or take.

Hahahahhaha me?? IIII "rock" ??? hahah That cracks me up!! I love it! But here again..I wish they had left their nick.....

Did the mods ever get back to you on any of this Matthew?? Just wondering.......

I'd like to add to this thread based on what has happened to me recently.

I had posted a thread where I was just expressing myself about a past relationship in the singles forum, and a lot of angry and bitter women took offense that I basically said I wouldn't date a girl unless she was beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. I guess they took it for being cocky, but it was never meant to be that way.

Anyway, I received quite a bit of negative rep points and comments, and it really bothered me with some of the things people had said in them. It is anonymous, and I believe some of the comments were not conductive to a christian website. They were really harsh, mean spirited, and spiteful, and I don't think a real christian would really have said that to one of their brothers in Christ.

That being said, I'm fine with criticism, but I believe everyone should at least have enough respect for the person they give it to, as well as themselves, to give their name within the comment. None of those harsh critical rep comments had any names whatsoever, but they sure did have some spiteful things to say about me expressing my thoughts, emotions, and feelings. It completely put me off as a poster to think that I would express myself and someone would take it so negatively in such a manner, and yet it wasn't just one person that did it.

In another thread, I was given a negative rep point/comment because they said I used very "distasteful ugly language and I was an ignorant person" for saying something that was completely not a bad word, nor was it even meant to be in the context of the post. I believe that person was not a native english speaker, because they clearly misinterpreted the wording... which I couldn't really find anything that was bad... but the point remains. It was anonymous, and they had no respect for me enough to give their name within it.

I'm fine with criticism, but not with overly harsh, spiteful, mean-spirited, ignorant, and classless comments within the negative rep comments. I'm also not fine with them all being anonymous, which shows a complete lack of respect on their parts toward me.

That being said, almost everyone that has given me positive rep points/comments, they have all given their names within the comment section. Almost ALL of them have done that. NONE of the negative rep comments had given their name or any clue as to who they were.

I'd really appreciate it if you either remove the rep points, or you make it so that it is not anonymous any longer. All it does is promote harsh and distasteful comments and allow the ignorant party to remain anonymous. That promotes abuse, which is definitely not conductive to a christian website such as this. I strongly urge you do something about it, because frankly, I cannot really understand the mindset of keeping it anonymous whatsoever. What did you all expect would happen when you made it that way? I don't understand. People with positive feedback always give their name, while people with very negative feedback do not.

If you want regular forum goers like me to completely stop posting based on these overly ignorant and harsh "anonymous" negative rep comments, then please keep it the way it is. If you want actual transparency within the system, then at least make it so you can see who the poster was, because I find it wrong to be able to abuse a forum goer with distasteful language, feedback, and spitefulness with anonymitity. I understand that perhaps, you were hoping to avoid abuse from the receiver of these comments toward the negative rep posters, but it is working in the opposite form.

If you made it transparent so that everyone could see who gave you the positive/negative feedback, then I believe it would stop these very bitter and angry people from posting such harsh things within their safe haven of anonymidity. Overtly harsh comments would cease to happen, and the abuse would be solved. I have NEVER received such harsh things in any actual POST in the forums, where everyone can see what was written and who the author was, and yet in the anonymous form, it runs rampant.

Please change the system, or risk losing a lot of your current forum members.

Thanks, and God bless

DABEARS85

I'd really like to see why the mods seem to ignore this thread in all its entirety. This seems to be a big issue with quite a few people, but the mods have completely ignored it. It seems almost cowardice on their parts to not address obvious flaws in the system. They are quick to edit posts they find to be 'abrasive', but they competely ignore real and honest complains from forum members in the SUGGESTION sub forum? That makes little to no sense whatsoever. Where is the transparency? Where are the mods? Why are they not even defending their position if they refuse to change things?

I believe at least one mod should address this thread with even a small comment as to why things can or cannot be changed. I'd like to hear at least one mod post their thoughts, instead of looking oblivious and unconcerned with real problems us members have.

[Admin annotation: The following sentence contains false and misleading information, as of this time.] I find it quite unreasonable for the mods of these forums to request and accept donations from its members , and yet refuse to fix or even address an obvious flaw in their system when the members have real and honest complaints about it. [Truth: Moderators are volunteers and they don't "request and accept donations" as alleged here. On the contrary moderators give give give (time and even their own money), and what is actually "quite unreasonable" is to make demands on these volunteers. Note: anyone who is actively supporting the site may contact Admin privately with any queries.] What incentive do I have to donate when I get abused by members in anonymous form simply for posting my thoughts and feelings? Nothing I had ever said was negative, wrong, or abusive of the system, so why did they get to abuse me for simply being bitter?

If I had said anything close to what some of these people have said to me in their anonymous rep comments, then I would have been banned long ago. I hope to see at least one mod address this topic out of good faith for its members, assuming they want donations from any of us "complainers" in the future.

Chris

Dabears85

Dabear: Please don't make threats or whatever regarding donations unless you are CC supporter, and in that case please do it nicely in private CC mail to me. Also at this time moderators other than me are volunteers, so please don't be demanding to them.

Matthew and everyone: I'll post a poll and let all CC users decide what to do with the reputation system. It will be posted in the Announcements forum.

It should also be noted that in the past Mods have responded to questions on this topic (when it was originally posted) - but it keeps getting re-hashed. It's not like we're ignoring it, it's just we've already gone over it several times. At the end of the day, the decision lies with Robo - and looks like he's gonna post a poll - so hopefully that will get everyones opinions on the matter, so then he can work out what to do.

I apologize if it looks as a thread, although it never was meant to be. I just feel like this is a big issue, since it has happened to more than a few of us recently, and it makes me pretty put off in a lot of ways by it. I come to CC to post feelings/thoughts and to have good natured fellowship with other christians, like minded or not, and I just kind of feel strongly that being abused for not doing anything wrong is just... well, wrong. If that upsets you, then I apologize, but toward those in a position of power, I feel like us "members" need to feel like our problems are at least heard/seen. I don't expect immediate resolutions for them, because I'm sure it takes a lot of time out of your busy schedule that you may not have the luxury to give, but I just at least feel that a simple "we see your posts and will do what we can type of post from a mod is a worthy expectation.

I appreciate you responding. That is about all I really wanted!

God Bless,

Chris/Dabears85

I was unaware of that, and so I apologize for being ignorant on the subject. This whole thing wouldn't really even be a topic of interest for me if I didn't actually experience the problems that others have had in the past until recently. I just feel a little transparency in things like the rep comments is a good thing, because it makes people rethink some of the negative things they say to others before they post them. I'm fine with getting negative rep points, but some of the comments were more of a concern for me than anything. I'm not one to respond in a holy war against people who say negative things to me, but I think if I knew the names of a few of them, then I would be able to report things that were abuse at least. That was my main concern. I don't disagree with people being able to post negative rep comments, but I disagree with things being unchristian-like in the things that are said, that's all.

Anyway, I appreciate the feedback, so thank you.

I do understand that the issue has been rasied several times before and I did take the time to read those threads to see what the history was regarding this issue but the specific issue of anonymity was only addressed once that I could see and it seemed that it was turned off and then turned on again, I made note of this in my original post and I just wanted to hear from the mods to see if there had been any change in view on this....so one brief repsonse saying yes or no was all I wanted not any kind of long drawn out discussion.

But I will say that if a topic keeps recurring it may be due to the fact that it hasn't been dealt with in a way that people are satisfied with but I do respect the fact that all the moderators have a lot of other stuff to do.

But thankyou for running a poll.