Daily reaction limit (see expanation in first post)

[Aveschapines]

Hi everyone! Mitch (admin) has asked me to ask you all: if the daily reaction (like, thanks, confused, etc.) limit can be changed, what do you think would be a good/reasonable number? I asked in another thread but I don't know how many people saw it, so I'll ask again here, with a poll to make things easier 😄 If you'd like tme to add more options let me know. Comments welcome as well.

For further clarification: each post on this forum has an icon at the bottom that allows users to click to add a reaction - like, thanks, confused, sad, or ha-ha -- to a post. Those are called reactions, and there is currently a limit to how many times per day users can click on the reactions. Also the community automatically assigns reputation ratings to members based on how many times other users have clicked the reaction buttons described above on their posts. The reputations can be seen on members' profiles. Please feel free to ask for more clarification if needed.

Edited July 18, 2018 by Aveschapines
To clarify the reputation ratings process

[MerMaeve]

25 or 30, IMO.

[Charlie Spencer]

Is there a technological reason to have a limit?

[HamRHead]

1 hour ago, Charlie Spencer said:

Is there a technological reason to have a limit?

Good question. And if there is some valid reason for a limit, I would like to see the "reactions" refresh in 1 to 4 hours as apposed to what appears to be a punitive 24 to 36 hours or longer.

[Aveschapines]

I'm not sure if there is a technical reason or if they number and time limit can be changed. I can say from past experience that since the reputation rating depends on the reactions, some people take them very seriously, and there have been a number of complaints about people misusing them. I personally don't care about all that (and even if I did, it makes no sense to base the reputations on number of clicks instead of percentage...) but I'd prefer not to have to deal with the complaints. 

But I will definitely share these thoughts with Admin.

[Charlie Spencer]

Based on that response, I'm voting for the largest number of available responses over the shortest period of time.

Personally I don't see the value in 'Reputation'.  The name makes it sound like there are factors being considered beyond just 'Likes'.  If the price to get unlimited 'Likes' is to drop 'Reputation', I'd vote for that option, or at least renaming it as 'Likes'.

Edited July 15, 2018 by Charlie Spencer

[HamRHead]

9 minutes ago, Charlie Spencer said:

Based on that response, I'm voting for the largest number of available responses over the shortest period of time.

Personally I don't see the value in 'Reputation'.  The name makes it sound like there are factors being considered beyond just 'Likes'.  If the price to get unlimited 'Likes' is to drop 'Reputation', I'd vote for that option, or at least renaming it as 'Likes'.

Agreed. I would vote to name it something besides reputation. How about Feathers? 

[Aveschapines]

As far as I can tell, it's based on number of clicks on any of the reactions (like, thanks, confused, sad, haha). I would certainly be happy to see the reputation rating go. I know a lot of sites do have have limits to prevent bots from clicking, but not necessarily as extreme as this one. 

Again I will share all this feedback with admin.

[Charlie Spencer]

6 hours ago, Aveschapines said:

As far as I can tell, it's based on number of clicks on any of the reactions (like, thanks, confused, sad, haha). I would certainly be happy to see the reputation rating go. I know a lot of sites do have have limits to prevent bots from clicking, but not necessarily as extreme as this one. 

Again I will share all this feedback with admin.

I tried to 'Like' this but, well, you know...

[Charlie Spencer]

10 hours ago, Aveschapines said:

I know a lot of sites do have have limits to prevent bots from clicking,

I don't think any here has a publicity agent issuing press releases regarding how many reputation points someone has, and how that's more than Taylor Swift or Oprah have.  But I could be wrong

When I joined here a couple of years ago, I found the term 'Reputation' very confusing.  I mistakenly assumed it indicted the member's reputation as a birder, maybe based on the number of IDs provided or trip reports filed.  I have no objections to getting 'Liked' for bad puns but I wouldn't want anyone to think a high Reputation number is representative of my merely average birding skills.

[Aveschapines]

1 hour ago, Charlie Spencer said:

I don't think any here has a publicity agent issuing press releases regarding how many reputation points someone has, and how that's more than Taylor Swift or Oprah have.  But I could be wrong

When I joined here a couple of years ago, I found the term 'Reputation' very confusing.  I mistakenly assumed it indicted the member's reputation as a birder, maybe based on the number of IDs provided or trip reports filed.  I have no objections to getting 'Liked' for bad puns but I wouldn't want anyone to think a high Reputation number is representative of my merely average birding skills.

Maybe not, but as a mod I have had complaints about people ruining their reputation ranking (by unclicking all their posts, or clicking on all of someone else's to raise their ranking above someone else's). I would be happy to have it disappear. I'll see if I can add a question to the poll on that, although again I'm not sure what can and can't be turned off.

We also get plenty of spam and bots, and occasionally very persistent trolls, so I don't think it's an irrelevant issue. We are enjoying  a brief reprive from the spam since the crash, but I have no doubt it will return once the world finds out we're back up and running.

Now it might be fun to rank people's birding skills, but that couldn't be done on an automatic basis!

[MerMaeve]

1 minute ago, Aveschapines said:

Maybe not, but as a mod I have had complaints about people ruining their reputation ranking (by unclicking all their posts, or clicking on all of someone else's to raise their ranking above someone else's). I would be happy to have it disappear. I'll see if I can add a question to the poll on that, although again I'm not sure what can and can't be turned off.

We also get plenty of spam and bots, and occasionally very persistent trolls, so I don't think it's an irrelevant issue. We are enjoying  a brief reprive from the spam since the crash, but I have no doubt it will return once the world finds out we're back up and running.

Now it might be fun to rank people's birding skills, but that couldn't be done on an automatic basis!

Maybe we could have something under their profile like "What would you say your birding level is" e.g. beginner, advanced beginner, intermediate, advanced intermediate, beginner pro, pro....

[Aveschapines]

5 minutes ago, MerMaeve said:

Maybe we could have something under their profile like "What would you say your birding level is" e.g. beginner, advanced beginner, intermediate, advanced intermediate, beginner pro, pro....

You could certainly add that to your signature if you want.

[Charlie Spencer]

2 hours ago, Aveschapines said:

You could certainly add that to your signature if you want.

An excellent suggestion.  Done!

[Administrator]

I am not clear what "reactions" even mean. It might help if in your poll posting you explained its purpose and maybe "reputation" as well. Then people could make a more informed decision before they vote. So far only 9 people have voted in the poll so that is pretty small number to make a decision around.

[Charlie Spencer]

@Administrator, by 'reactions' we mean clicking the heart-shaped button at the bottom right of each post and selecting one of the options there (Thanks, Laugh, Confused, Sad, Like).

[Charlie Spencer]

4 hours ago, Aveschapines said:

Maybe not, but as a mod I have had complaints about people ruining their reputation ranking (by unclicking all their posts, or clicking on all of someone else's to raise their ranking above someone else's).

I'm always amazed at how much emphasis some people place in the online opinions of complete strangers, strangers whose opinions they wouldn't ask for or care about if they met in person at random.

Just me, I guess.

[Aveschapines]

2 hours ago, Administrator said:

I am not clear what "reactions" even mean. It might help if in your poll posting you explained its purpose and maybe "reputation" as well. Then people could make a more informed decision before they vote. So far only 9 people have voted in the poll so that is pretty small number to make a decision around.

OK; I added further explanation in the post (the poll itself doesn't really have a space for that) and a note in the poll title to read the first post. I hope that clarifies things for everyone.

I agree there haven't been enough votes yet to make any decisions; the poll has only been up for a day or so, and I was thinking of giving it more time to get more responses.

[syncrasy]

Are the questions mutually exclusive? In other words, can there be reactions without reputation rankings?

Edited July 18, 2018 by syncrasy

[syncrasy]

17 minutes ago, syncrasy said:

Are the questions mutually exclusive? In other words, can there be reactions without reputation rankings?

Never mind. I re-read the description. ("Reactions" and "reputation rankings" are independent features.) But if you're entertaining the idea of removing the reactions feature altogether, then I suggest adding a "0" option to Question 1, e.g., "None. I recommend removing the reactions feature."

Edited July 18, 2018 by syncrasy

[Aveschapines]

24 minutes ago, syncrasy said:

Never mind. I re-read the description. ("Reactions" and "reputation rankings" are independent features.) But if you're entertaining the idea of removing the reactions feature altogether, then I suggest adding a "0" option to Question 1, e.g., "None. I recommend removing the reactions feature."

Honestly, no, I personally wasn't thinking about removing the reactions, and I'm not sure that can be done. I'm not that familiar with the platform the forums run on. The issue that people brought up was frustration about the limits on reactions, so kind of as far from asking to have them removed as possible. Do YOU want to vote to remove the reactions? 

And actually the reputation rankings and reactions aren't completely independent; the reputations are based on reactions, so if there were no reactions, there would be no reputations (as far as I understand). And I'm not sure if either feature can be removed completely, but I don't see how we could have reputations if there were no reactions, but there could be reations without reputations.

[syncrasy]

1 hour ago, Aveschapines said:

Do YOU want to vote to remove the reactions? 

Not necessarily. I think they're silly (I've never clicked a "Like" or a thumb in my life), but I'm probably unusual.

 

1 hour ago, Aveschapines said:

And actually the reputation rankings and reactions aren't completely independent; the reputations are based on reactions, so if there were no reactions, there would be no reputations (as far as I understand). And I'm not sure if either feature can be removed completely, but I don't see how we could have reputations if there were no reactions, but there could be reations without reputations.

Really? That's not what your original explanation at the top implies (reactions = emotional icons; reputation ranking = simple view count). But looking at your reputation for example, I see that reputation is a count of reactions, not views. So they are related. In which case the poll is a bit illogical (answering Question 2 in the negative would mean that Question 1 is moot, yet the poll requires an answer to both questions.

Edited July 18, 2018 by syncrasy

[Aveschapines]

4 minutes ago, syncrasy said:

Really? That's not what your original explanation at the top implies (reactions = emotional icons; reputation ranking = simple view count). If reputations rely on reactions, what's the relationship? 

I edited again; is it clear now? My understanding is that the reputation is based on how many times a member's posts have been clicked on (reacted to) by other members. So it counts how many likes, ha-ha, sad, thanks, or confused reactions you have and assigns a reputation rating based on that number. I don't believe it has anything to do with view counts. If you look at your own or someone else's profile you can see the reputation score and the number of reactions that led to it.

There is something about reputation activity but I'm not sure what that is, and I couldn't find anyone that had any activity when I looked at several profiles. But I know in the past it was based on how many reactions a person had on their posts.

[syncrasy]

6 minutes ago, Aveschapines said:

I edited again; is it clear now?

Yes, much clearer. (I figured it out while you were replying.) And now I realize that if reactions can work without displaying reputation count, and reputation can be hidden without disabling reactions, then the poll questions are fine. Took me a while to catch on.

[Charlie Spencer]

19 hours ago, Aveschapines said:

The issue that people brought up was frustration about the limits on reactions,

I wouldn't be so frustrated if I knew what the current limit is and how long between resets.  I think I've asked twice but may have missed the answer.  A limit is much easier to deal with when you know what it is.