When did we all become fencing experts?

[Army Fencer]

I'd like to know...

[Fencergrl]

Scary isn't it?
I don't think Craig anticipated rep to be handed out the way it has when he set this forum up. Perhaps instead of automatically having the system decide you're an expert based on your rep, you can choose your own title instead.

Or perhaps a different title instead of "Fencing Expert"

[needle]

Or perhaps a different title instead of "Fencing Expert"

"Rep-attractor" ?

[Gav]

I never realised it did this .... hmmm ... hopefully Craig will chime in on this.

[oiuyt]

Or perhaps a different title instead of "Fencing Expert"

Epeeist? :)

-B :)

[mrbiggs]

I don't know if it's relevant, but negative rep is back now.

That will at least make the posters with very high rep the consistently good ones.

[oiuyt]

I don't know if it's relevant, but negative rep is back now.

That will at least make the posters with very high rep the consistently good ones.

How does that follow?

I can see how it COULD mean that the posters with very low rep are the consistently bad ones (although this wasn't universally true when we originally had it, so I'm unwilling to stipulate that it WILL have that effect), but I fail to see how allowing negative rep means that we will suddenly get rid of the problem of people getting rep without the necessary step of having good posts.

-B :)

[oiuyt]

Meanwhile, this afternoon I got tagged with -10 rep points (so someone with considerable rep-altering ability given that negative is half that of positive) for the "epeeist?" joke in this thread, receiving the comment "Haha" with the reputation change.

If anything, I'd suggest that, if such were to become a pattern, we would merely be INCREASING the (relative) effect of public epeeists being artificially reputation-enhanced as non-epeeists are pushed down by negative repping alongside of the clear history of artificial pro-epee rep pumping.

That said, I don't expect it to become a pattern of behavior. Nor do I expect non-epeeists to go through the epee-only thread and balance the books a bit, as it were.... :)

-B :)

[mrbiggs]

How does that follow?

I can see how it COULD mean that the posters with very low rep are the consistently bad ones (although this wasn't universally true when we originally had it, so I'm unwilling to stipulate that it WILL have that effect), but I fail to see how allowing negative rep means that we will suddenly get rid of the problem of people getting rep without the necessary step of having good posts.

-B

Because with only positive rep, you can get alot of rep even if your posts aren't so great, or even bad, because every once in a while you make a good post.

[Inquartata]

Or because you're an epeeist. ( Or play one on TV. )

I reiterate my original position, going waaaaay back: rep, whether good or bad, serves no purpose here. It is a meaningless distraction and a potentially divisive influence. If we want to comment on a particularly helpful, insightful post, a droll remark, to give a compliment or a rebuke---why not just do it on the thread, or via PM?

[Craig]

Ghost in the machine. Some old setting had tied promotions to reputation points but the cron never ran until after the server move.

Craig