Reputations - a *short* primer.... (and a word about User Notes)

I thought it would be a mistake to include the reputation system on this site, but people seem to be having a lot of fun with it over on my CornSnakes.com site. Matter of fact, I took it offline for a while and got a WHOLE LOT more requests to re-enable it then I would have imagined. But if it proves to be more hassle then it is worth HERE, then I will pull the plug on it.

I will post what I can here about it. If you have any other questions about it, sorry, but you are on your own to figure it out yourself. I haven't looked into everything about it, and doubt I will anytime soon.

If anyone wants to dig into this with any more depth, then I suggest that you go to the vBulletin Message Board where you will soon learn that even the developers are a bit hazy about this. Evidently this was taken from a hack by another programmer and incorporated into the latest vBulletin version. It appears that even JelSoft's programmers aren't all that certain about how it works.

Anyway, here goes....

An Introduction to User Reputation
User Reputation in its simplest form is a ranking of your user's benefit to your forum. Its basis comes from the opinions of all of your forum users that choose take part in it.

Users gain and lose reputation based on how their posts are scored by other forum participants. Users with the ability to affect reputation, will either give or take aways points by approving or disapproving with a post's content.

User reputation can be a derisive element of your forum so great care should be taken before a decision is made to enable it.

All of the factors that affect a user's reputation score are found in the User Reputation section of the vBulletin Options (in the Admin section). Please view that section of the manual for more information on controlling how users are able to affect another user's reputation.

Modifying User Reputation Levels
As users, gain and lose reputation, they are associated with a moniker that describes their current level. These levels are modifiable by navigating to User Reputations->User Reputation Manager.

In the above example, we have all of the levels that users on this forum can achieve. For example, a user with a reputation of 55 would have the level of will become famous soon enough. A user with a reputation of -5 would have a level of has a little shameless behaviour in the past. Since the lowest level in this example is -99999, any user with a reputation lower than this would use the default undefined level that is set in the reputation section of the vBulletin Options.

From this screen you can choose to edit a level description, change a level minimum or remove a level. If you wanted to change the minimum level of has a reputation beyond repute from 2000 to 3000 you would enter 3000 in the input field where 2000 is currently and press [Update]

If you wished to change the text of has a reputation beyond repute, you would press the <Edit> link.

From this screen you can also change the minimum level as you can from the previous screen. Enter the new level text in the Description field but take care as you can not use HTML in this field. Press [Update] when finished.

Adding a new reputation level presents you with the same screen, but only empty. Make sure to choose a reputation level that is not the same as a level that already exists as levels must be unique. You will not be allowed to save the field if you duplicate a minimum level.

The following is a pic of the actual options for setting point accumulations for certain events for a member:


Bear in mind that this is from an Admin's perspective about the Reputation system, but it should give you an idea about what it does.

There is one option in the Reputation display that I have limited to be visible to Contributors and Admin/Mod staff only. That is the ability to actually see WHO left the Reputation notes on you....


Now that you are all experts on that subject, I will bring up another one that probably most people have overlooked...... User Notes....


From the following text, you will see that this particular option is generally only used by the Admin and Moderation staff of a site. I thought that perhaps this would be another useful tool that all members could use to post comments about other members that would reside in their User Info section (User CP) as a type of instant feedback. After all, this seems to go hand in hand with what the BOI is all about, and push come to shove, I guess this site is really built around the BOI and what it is intended to accomplish.

With that said, if I see this abused, it will get yanked from common usage by all but the people it was originally intended to be for. So use it wisely, please....

User Notes Options
Users with permission to read / write usernotes are now able to goto a profile of a member and leave usernotes about this person. This feature is intended to allow staff members to discuss members and keep the information organised rather then having a variety of threads in a staff forum.

The vBulletin Options > vBulletin Options > User Notes Options setting group allows you to set up the parsing for a usernote. You can turn on or off the use of BB Code, Smilies, [IMG] tags and usage of HTML.
Note:
The ability to use usernotes, read them, read your own, allow others to reply or manage them is a usergroup setting. Do not forget to walk through each usergroup to set the use and permissions of usernotes correctly.

Basicly the usernotes are plain-text entries that hold comments from other (staff) members. Turn on these options to allow markup of text and insertion of smilies / images or even HTML

There. Now you all know just as much as I do about this stuff......

I've been looking around and it seems that what you see are two different things with that icon and number.

1) Reputation Power
2) Reputation Level

Rich - correction to the email - it does show the level.

As far as I can decipher it Rep Power shows you the amount of points you can affect on someone else's Rep Level. Rich can, right now, affect 100 points on a user's level - either negative or positive. Rep Power is most likely a combination of how long one has been a member, how many posts to that person's name, and what his/her reputation level is at. If I place my cursor on the icon next to Rich's Power up pops "Webslave will become famous soon enough" which, looking at the settings above, means he is between 50 and 150 positive Reputation Points.

To be even more confusing.....I think you can only influence a level negatively by a fraction of your Reputation Power. I believe default is 1/2. So in reality I can affect someone else's Reputation Level negatively by 12 points (My current Rep Power is 24).

I apologize if that's incorrect but that's what I've come to understand in looking at the vbulletin sites.

In my next post I will be discussing the Power Point Totals for Dungeons and Dragons and how it affects your Shield Factor without sacrificing your overall strength...


BTW - Still haven't figured out how to see who has been adding to my Reputation Level. I've gone through all of the User CP and it's just not there.

Ditto. I can't find it anywhere on my user CP. I'm taking that to mean no one has left me feedback and all my points/power come from the length of my membership and the number of posts I've made.

Originally Posted by sirenofthestorm

Ditto. I can't find it anywhere on my user CP. I'm taking that to mean no one has left me feedback and all my points/power come from the length of my membership and the number of posts I've made.

If someone could please add reputation points to me and let me know when they've done that I'll go back to User CP and have a look to see if that puts it up there.

Thanks,

Originally Posted by MR_Jungle_Mist

If someone could please add reputation points to me and let me know when they've done that I'll go back to User CP and have a look to see if that puts it up there.

Thanks,

Done! I think the research you are doing on this at the vBulletin site deserves a pat on the back.

And there is our answer.

Reputation points are only visible in User CP if/when someone has started to give you any. If you don't see them clearly in your User CP then your "Reputation Level" is solely based on factors other than what folks think of you.

I'll try to grab a screen capture though I believe I'm unable to do so with this old Commodore64.... damn tape drives..!..

Screen Capture of User CP

Here's the latest stats on the top 25 for the Reputation listing:

holy carp im in the top five and have 29 points... odd

I guess that means that some people with a VERY heavily weighted reputation power have voted for you.