Is the Fall From Grace fatal to the Good Guy Certs?

Originally Posted by WebSlave

As a reminder, the paid memberships requirement is a method of trying to insure the credibility of the people voting in a system that can impact a person's or business's reputation on this site. Having this completely open to any Tom, Dick or Harry, who can register multiple times an d vote any way they please for any REASON they want to, in my opinion just would not serve my intentions and hopes of unbiased voting on the polls and the ratings. It is just a very simple "majority rules" based voting system with the hopes that the majority of people voting will be coming to an honest and truthful as well as accurate consensus about the person or business.

I can see why you're concerned about mutiple user names for one person, but when you said that anyone can vote on the GGC threads, you pretty much guaranteed that people would be voting for whatever reason they saw fit and not a "valid" one. Of course if someone complained I'm sure you'd investigate and assess points if you felt someone was voting just for the sake of voting, but the paying to vote doesn't mean that anyone will think any more logically about why they're voting.

Originally Posted by Webslave

I fail to see how this methodology would favor any particular person or company in any way except to make the votings a more realistic view of reality. I think this was addressed before and the claim by some people that paying members would tend to be more biased then non-paying members just doesn't appear to hold water, in my opinion. If someone can adequately convince me otherwise, then I will reevaluate this decision.

No, it makes it an accurate picture of how paying members view a company, not necessarily reality. And as for the claim that paying members are biased, I think anyone only needs to look at the recent ousting of a good guy to someone who made a "bad guy" mistake and how many "regular" members didn't question him as vigorously as they would an unknown to see how there people interpret a bias. Another example would be several "regulars" standing up for a company they knew only by reputation (as they could not recognize the owner from several clear pics of him doing something that is clearly not safe or ethical) and berating a kid for not apologizing, and then themselves not apologizing when the situation became crystal clear.

Originally Posted by Webslave

How so? If I believe that someone has posted and especially bad post or an especially good one, how would my voting (which I rarely do) affect anything at all about them that really means anything in the real world?

I thought I made myself clear before, but apparently I was wrong. I am speaking ONLY of reputation points on this board. Not the real world.

Originally Posted by Webslave

Do I see posts that probably should be assessed warning points but don't? Absolutely! Sometimes it's just laziness, or sometimes it's just getting tired of the whine-o-grams from people invariably after they get the warning points... Personally, and in my opinion, the more mods I would have, the more problems I would have. Each mod adds their own personalities and more then likely they would piss someone else off as well as myself and the present moderators... it is VERY doubtful I will add anyone who WANTS to be a moderator here, and volunteers uninvited. I will come to them and ASK them from how I see them handle themselves in their postings.

I never volunteered, I never offered up any one person for moderating duty. I've moderated chats and upstart boards, and of course its a "be asked to do it, don't ask for it" situation. Lets also keep in mind, like I said before, the more people there are to do the work, the easier it gets.

Originally Posted by Jim O

Then stop complaining. It's your choice to pay and vote or to not pay and not vote. Plain and simple. But as you so aptly alluded to earlier, it's Rich's playground and he gets to make the rules.

Whoa, hold your horses. I am not whining here. I am trying to probe further into why it was changed from all registered members being able to vote to only paying members being able to vote. So please, be a more discerning reader next time.

Originally Posted by dragonflyreptiles

Sorry, I found it, you don't want to be a part of a clique and its not a perfect BBB, OK I get it. If you don't want to be a part of a "buy in program" then DON"T, why bother to post at all.

That is not why I don't want to pay, that is why I don't think that the Good Guy Certification is important to me at this point in time. I have homework due online at midnight and I'm leaving town for a day tomorrow so I'm not posting any more tonight. Please feel free to search through my posts back in january-ish for the real reasons I am not going to pay $10 to have my identity verified. I bother to post because a good debate can often clarify positions at the very least, and I think that alone is a valid reason to question why things have been done they way they were.

Originally Posted by sirenofthestorm

I can see why you're concerned about mutiple user names for one person, but when you said that anyone can vote on the GGC threads, you pretty much guaranteed that people would be voting for whatever reason they saw fit and not a "valid" one.

When did Rich say that ANYONE can vote on Good Guy Certs?

You may want to do better research:
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...ad.php?t=64541

Now he may have for a while allowed non paid members to vote but it was structured back in Feb with the beginning of paid members that ONLY paid members would be able to vote due to multiple user name possibilities.

Wendy, real quick, what I meant by that was "anyone, regardless of whether they have or have not done business with the business they're voting on." Does that make it clearer?

Originally Posted by sirenofthestorm

Please feel free to search through my posts back in january-ish for the real reasons I am not going to pay $10 to have my identity verified. I bother to post because a good debate can often clarify positions at the very least, and I think that alone is a valid reason to question why things have been done they way they were.

Sorry if it does't mean enough to you to tell me, it doesn't mean enough to me to care about.

Looks like you bother to post to see how much crap you can stir up!

And who made you King of finding out why things have been done the way they were?

Wendy, when Rich made his changes to the site after his "affair" with Chris he very briefly opened it up to all registered members. He then shut it down and required a verified membership again when he realized the potential for abuse.

Whitney, get a nice snack and get comfy in front of your computer, and do your assignment, email us if you need help, between all of us someone will be able to lend a hand, and we can chat more when you return here.

Originally Posted by sirenofthestorm

Wendy, real quick, what I meant by that was "anyone, regardless of whether they have or have not done business with the business they're voting on." Does that make it clearer?

Whitney, I think you need to make it clearer the first time, not add to is as you go along.

Originally Posted by sirenofthestorm

Whoa, hold your horses. I am not whining here. I am trying to probe further into why it was changed from all registered members being able to vote to only paying members being able to vote. So please, be a more discerning reader next time.

If you are going to ask me to be a discerning reader then be the same and note I never used the term "whining".

As for the reason, I believe that Rich already has answered that. I synopsized his reason as I recall it and as I understood it in my post above.

Originally Posted by Jim O

Wendy, when Rich made his changes to the site after his "affair" with Chris he very briefly opened it up to all registered members. He then shut it down and required a verified membership again when he realized the potential for abuse.

I knew it changed breifly but if Whitney wants to complain about rules he should be thankful for that "testing the waters" period of freedom and not complain when the rules are enforced.