Why do we have this?  To establish who's popular and who's not?  Establish pecking order?  Is this high school?  I don't see the value in this feature.  If this is a board for support, why do we have a feature that could potentially marginalize people with unpopular opinions or values?  I saw a -1!  Often, trans people are fragile enough as they come out, now they have to deal with a de facto popularity poll as well?  Is this really necessary?

Dawn

The reputation number is not there to indicate popularity, although some may use it as such.  It's there for people to use as a way of expressing how they feel about the quality of the actions that the person concerned is doing in the forums.  The advice they give, how active they are, the topics they post, and things like that.  If the reputation marker was meant as a popularity marker then I would agree with you, and I think mine would be in the minuses as well .

  Yep mine is high but I hope that it's high because of the quality of work that I do here at Susan's.  most of the stuff that I do is posted for everyone to see in the forums, sometimes it gets me in trouble with the boss, but that's cool, but the not so good things that I have to do is through PM's to members who do not abide by the rule that govern us, and that would definitely win me popularity point

I don't think it's something we should put too much emphasis on the same way as the more posts you make the more stars you get, they too indicate status of some form.

Just my thoughts,

Steph

I've seen these on several forums.  I just don't use it.  Seems like something that is too easily abused (on other forums, that is) and a mature, respectful community like this just doesn't need it.

Hey Dawn,

If you get a chance check out "A Parable from Max Lucado" in the 'spirituality' forum....being able to use the 'applaud' and 'smite' buttons remids me somewhat of the 'gray dot stickers' and 'gold star stickers' that are used in the story.  Except that in the story it really is about popularity, whereas here it's not. 

For myself, I vowed never to 'smite' anyone, although I did smite someone once who had posted a blatantly hateful message (who is no longer part of Susan's, thanx to our diligent moderators!), and I confess, I knew the person was likely to get banned, but it just felt good to smite the little devil.   >

Even the applauds I use judiciously, as there are many here whom I admire, respect, love...but that doesn't determine whether they get applauded or not; as Steph C said, its a matter of the quality of the posts.  If it were really about popularity, I probably would refuse to use this feature at all.

Valerie

Reputation serves a useful purpose and each and every one of you can ensure it works properly. Applaud good posts and smite ones you feel are bad posts.

Don't smite someone's post unless it's a clearly bad post. Never smite simply because of who the poster is. I am happy to say no one here has used it as such so far and the first person who does will get smacked down by me. I do review the karma logs. That doesn't mean you can't smite even my posts when it's warranted.

Smiting and applauding is a form of feedback to the poster. It lets them know when they are rising in reputation that they are doing ok. when their reputation is lowering then people feel they are off base. I have smited people on this forum including the one person who had a -1 reputation. I only smite when a post violates the rules or is totally off base with the purpose of the forum the post is in.  I would rather people just applaud good posts rather than smite a questionable one. When you see your reputation rising then you can be proud of your contribution's to the community. When you see it going down which doesn't happen much. Take a look at the things you recently posted and see what could be causing people to object to them and try to use this feedback to change what ever you think it was. Chances are you would be right. It's generally common sense. Longer posts are more likely to get applauded than short ones. Posts which show a lot of thought will get applauded the most.

Reputation is also a way to judge the advice you receive from someone. If the person giving you advice has a high reputation then it might be better advice than from someone with a 0 or a negative reputation. However never totally accept or disregard advice from someone based solely on their reputation.

I hope this clears up the matter for everyone. Remember reputation is not a measure of popularity just people's opinions about their posts.