New Forum Features

[Craig]

The vBulletin 3.0.0 Beta 4 upgrade is finally complete, and the forum is re-opened in all it’s.. uh, vBulletin 3.0.0 Beta 4'ish glory........

Anyway, now for the explaining of new stuff.

Threaded View & Hybrid View

Back in the early days of the internet, forums used to be primarily structured like a tree, where posts branch off from one another within a thread. These sort of forum systems still exist today, and you can usually find them easily being their visual appeal is pretty crappy.

vB3 has incorporated a “Threaded & Hybrid” view mode, threaded being the classic style I just mentioned, and hybrid is a mixture of the modern style, as well the classic.

In order for the threaded-system to work, you need to designate a specific post you are replying to within a thread. This is opposed to how we usually reply to the newest post in a thread.

To designate a “parent” post to branch off a sub-topic to, you need to click the “” that resides next to the “[quote]” link in a users post. This will automatically jump you to the “quick reply,” where you can resume as you would normally go about posting.

Just how does this reputation system work?

A new registrant to the forum has the starting option to rate a member from +1 or -1 points.

For every 180 days you've been registered, you gain +1 reputation-altering points.

For every 500 posts you gain +1 reputation-altering points.

For every 100 points of reputation you have achieved, you get +1 reputation-altering points.


Here are the conditions to rating other members posts:
You must have at least 50 posts to rate.

You must have a minimum reputation of 10.

You may only rate 20 posts within a 24-hour limit.

You cannot rate the same person twice until you rate at least 15 others.

User Picture Options

You can now add your picture to your profile. This way you can have your avatar and also show your picture within your profile. For an example, check out my profile.

[Army Fencer]

Craig,

What's the deal with the server being busy all the time now? Is there a specified server load now?

[Craig]

Guess we're just really popular!

I'll look into it.

[prototoast]

Just testing the threading.

[Rolls]

Okay, so how do you view someone's or your own reputation and what does it mean anyway? I guess it gives more validity to your post?

Rolls.

[Craig]

The little green dot by your post number represents your reputation. If you hover over it, you'll see a little message which I need to go in and customize.

We'll see how reputation develops or if it is used much. It's basically the karma system that exists on slashdot and some other forums.

Craig

[D'Artagnan1673]

Craig,

The whole +1 reputation points for every 500 posts.... is that retrospective?

[Craig]

Yes, you have a "power" of 8 based on your # of posts and length of time as a member.

[Rolls]

The little green dot by your post number represents your reputation. If you hover over it, you'll see a little message which I need to go in and customize.

We'll see how reputation develops or if it is used much. It's basically the karma system that exists on slashdot and some other forums.

Craig

Cool, but everyone except yours just says their username when you hover over it. I guess that's a netrual reputation. Will the green dot change colors?

Rolls.

[D'Artagnan1673]

Cool, but everyone except yours just says their username when you hover over it. I guess that's a netrual reputation. Will the green dot change colors?

Rolls.

Veeco & Edew say something like Edew is on a distingiused road.

[Strytllr]

Ok, I still don't understand some things.

How does a person get negative reputation? Not that I want to try, but I am curious.

Next, I still don't see where other reputations is listed. I can see that I have 10 (which I assume is default) in my edit options, but no where else. I assume the 10 is default since I haven't been here long enough nor posted enough to reach even 10 points. ?!? Or did I magically get 10 for reasons that will be made clear later????

But really, what do reputation altering points really mean anyway?!? I can't for the life of me come up with any convincing meaning except that they've either been here a long time or talk a good deal.

hehe. Not uncommonly, I'm confused.

Oh yeah, and how do we edit our reputation phrase??

[Craig]

Everyone defaults to a 10 to start. I added some for those that are recognized by their titles to be Experts since they have already proven themselves and should start out a little higher.

For others, if you feel that the post was helpful then you can click on the reputation icon (the check mark / x thing on the left under their name area) and rate them positively.

Alternatively, if they are way off base or just posting random nonsensical stuff, you can rate them negatively.

The system is set up so that those with seniority (by posts or time served or reputation level) have a little more power to impact the ratings than those that are new.

I'm curious to see if/how it will be used and what will come of it. I'm sure I'll have to adjust thresholds at some point and I definately want to change the tag lines for each level. I'm open to thoughts. This was just a default feature so I thought "Hey, why not."

Craig

[Strytllr]

Heh. I assume then, there is a failsafe there that will keep a person from increasing their own reputation??

Ah. Nevermind. I just found out. Nice system there.

[wflaschka]

The disabled "Quick Reply" box begins to make sense... in threaded view it defaults to enabled.

Looking over the thread of the past few days, I now see that I've been randomly nesting my replies any ole place... probably causing much confusion.

[wflaschka]

"Stop me before I subreference again!"

[qatet]

So now everybody's going to try to think of really snappy first lines for their new threads, hunh?

[telkanuru]

Any one else had problems staying logged in? I can stay as such on www.chiefdelphi.com, another site that uses this system, but here it seems not to like me.

[JAySE SUiCiDE]

uh oh..d'artagnan isn't on a distinguished road!..
yay! wflashka will become famous soon enough!

god..i have a feeling i'll amuse myself for hours with these..

~Jes

[Inquartata]

Veeco & Edew say something like Edew is on a distingiused road.

Now they "will become famous soon enough". It's like fortune cookies or something!

[Army Fencer]

And "Inquartata is on a distinguished road." How the heck did that happen!?