Thats whats different with the thank you system, users can thank you for various different posts but they can only do it once. So the more useful posts you make the more they can thank you, but if you stay quiet then thats all you will ever get...
OK: New settings of the original rep system: How many reputation clicks can a user give over each 24 hour period? Raised from 2 to 3. How many different users must you give reputation to before you can hit the same person again? Set from 10 to 5! I'll post an request for an search update at vbulletin.org. The 3.x versions already have that feature.
That's what a rep system is used to be. AFAIK at the original system you can give a rep to a particular post only one time as well. The amount of posts is honoured by the icons (post count), no matter what you have written. I want to mention that reps or thanks are or should be given voluntarily and honestly. One rep / thank you given from the heart is much more worth than 1000 faked. Of course everybody is pleased about when getting reps / thanks. There are even members that have tried to fake some reps....and hence some limits are necessary. (See post above.) My reps are quite OK, but not extraordinary. I could say I did much to keep MDL running, I was here since the very first beginning, I'm responsible that the Chinese biosmod techniques came to here, I taught many how to mod bioses, they got enthusiastic and kept / are keeping modding alive and I was a member of the WoW loader project..... Without me there wouldn't be others, I should have got 1000 reps therefore. But that would be unfair / untrue. If I hadn't do that, somebody else would have done it. Also without the help of my friends and long time members it would have been impossible to keep MDL running and to make MDL what it is now.. I like MDL and I'm proud to be admin here. I'm a helpful person, this I know...and I have fun doing it. I also would like you, Daz, resign my current reps at once and start over again. Sooner or later I'll get again the reps I have 'deserved' or even not. The thanks system will reflect the user the same way the old system did. Helpful members will get more than others. Helpful members don't have to be afraid when the old rep system should be disabled. I'm Yen, without reps or with thanks or without thanks. The MDL team will decide if the old rep system will be disabled or not. The only reason to stick with it is, like Daz mentioned, the vbulletin bugs that may cause problems in the near future. To enjoy MDL is most important, to talk to others, to share / gain knowledge. Just to have fun.
I think it's difficult to figure what's exactly the difference of the rep system and the thanks system. English native people understand reputation and thank you by its meaning. Others like me understand at once what thanks means, it's a common word. Reputation...I know what it means, I just have consulted the dictionary and have checked ALL its meanings. If I have learned about the vocabulary at school long time ago and don't exactly remember what it means I could say there is no big difference to each words, I mean to each act. To thank somebody or to raise reputation points. In fact in real life there are no reputation points to collect in your pocket. Your current reputation is relative to another person. A person can say I have got good reputations regarding blah...somebody else exactly can disagree with. Reputation lasts a long time and is a part of a person. Also reputation is relative to a particular matter. My reputation being a good biosmodder is probably high, my reputation regarding doing some housework probably bad. And the following phrases came into my mind: Once your reputation's gone, you can boldly carry on. Once your rep is down the drain, life ain't gonna be the same. To say thank you is easier. Reputation is a sort of precision, a strictness and doesn't really 'measure' a member of a forum. It sounds more like ranking and has in fact nothing to do with my real reps. A forum like MDL shoudn't build hierarchy..like it's common at military or police....hierarchy is provoking such faking and flaming things we have got already. To say thank you is for the moment and an act of friendship. To give reps leads to hierarchy. OK now to the more seizable things: What I like at the thank you system is that's visible to all. I can read a post, I know who it posted and I can see who thanked. At the rep system I can see how many reps each member has got. But I don't know who has given them and what for. (OK I'm an admin I can..I'm speaking for the members). The search function would complete it to a very good system, I hope the author will complete it. A thank you is easily spoken and is nice for everybody to hear. Without to disturb / separate the community. I guess it's difficult to say if a given thanks was made right or wrong. As long as it's from the heart it's right, no matter if the post really helped you or anybody else. When somebody says thank you to somebody else he is doing that by his own decision. Thank you for giving me a link, thank you for the instructions, thank you for your opinion. (No matter if he agrees with it or not!) When you are noticing that a member is very helpful to others, you may think that you cannot express that, because no post was exactly addressed to you. Right. But you will keep that fact in your mind. And your willingness to thank him will increase for sure. So why not thank him? You are thanking HIM for his post. HIS counter will be raising, it's named 'thanked' instead of 'rep power', that's all. You don't thank for the posting alone. Sorry for the long post.
No problem Yen, its good to talk about the system publicly as it can give others a better understanding. I like that the thanks system displays who thanked me for things, it's really great that I can finally see my supporters. As you just mentioned what it really needs now is a log each user can view in his/her profile to see where all their thanks are coming from. An example being myself, currently thanked 90 times but I can only trace 71 of them easily, the rest could be on just about any post I have ever made. I understand how I could thank someone else for helping someone else but I don't know if it's me or just a country thing but the wording seems wrong. I would usually say "nice tip" or "a great bit of info" and wouldn't refer to that as thanking the person but rather encouraging them in some way. With that said though thanking them even if the post is not directed at you could encourage the person to do the same more often. Thats what I will miss about the rep system if it's removed though, the user could leave a nice little message if they wanted just as a bonus... That's something I personally take my time to read and check each time I'm logged in, I get some really nice messages from some people.
At morning I wrote a long post. Now some questions: Basically we could let run both systems. Do you think it would be too much for the members here to use both systems? Aren't they overextended with ? I just browsed through the thanks system settings. It allows to give automatically reps with each thanks given. Would it be an option for you? You're right. To leave a comment is a nice thing only the rep system allows. I also have got some nice comments already and was very pleased about. At the moment I'm satisfied that both systems are running. You may say thank you for a post and you may add reps with a nice comment. Each system runs independent, that's IMO fine. Honestly yesterday I said I would disable the rep system later, today I'm quite satisfied about how it's now.....and if some technical problems should occur, the vbulletin's own rep system will surly work. I've read the authors description of his post thank you hack: A nice addition, he stated. Not a replacement.
Daz, regarding your suggested display order. Finally I wasn't able to change it. But one positive aspect: I have found the alignment variable and could move the block a bit more to the left to gain space. It looks much better now and I could complete the phrases.
Oh great...thats exactly what i proposed some time ago. (Remember?) We have this in our forum (not OS related) for a long time and i must say i prefer it over a pure add-reputation based system by far. (BTW, there is no need to remove the 'reputation-meter' because thanks will count towards that too if set up to do so.) Anyhow, nice to see it got implemented. Just meant to say thanks for improving the forum to make it even better than it already was.
I think both systems have a purpose but maybe you could link the thanks system in with the rep system, so say every 10 thanks adds 5 in rep? You could still leave the direct rep system in place but have the thanks count to the rep system too... If thats even doable. The alignment is better now by the way, however it's not been adjusted on the default theme One thing I will say is the author of this addon needs to add a limit control as to how many of the 'thanks' can be viewed on posts unless the user clicks "view all". My thread for example could at some point contain a huge wall of thanks if people keep up whats happened since the system went live -- over 100 thanks in less than 24 hours. Side note: I think with myself having the one thread it helps my rep/thanks allot when compared to say a BIOS modder who has done allot but their contributions are spread across many different posts. So I may get allot of thanks on one post whereas a BIOS modder may get thanks spread across many different posts *if* the user is able to find the BIOS mod and then returns to say "thanks it worked". It's unfortunate as doing BIOS mods for different systems is ongoing work, I got respect for allot of the guys who help people with that though... even if a few of them absolutely hate loaders.
Phazor, of course I remember you. It was you who made me think about the thank you hack and I kept an eye on the development for the vbulletin 4 version. Even though the version for vbulletin 4 is not fully completed I'm happy to have it installed here. Thanks for your idea! Daz, I have fixed the alignment issue at the default style. Minimum reputation to add would be one point of reputation for one thanks..... Please keep in mind that the displayed value is not the amount of reputation points. It's the rep power. The rep power is the amount of reputation points to be added to another when a reputation is made. Your rep points are 3314, the scale is defined until 3000. The corresponding phrase to your level is : 'User collects SLICs, programs loaders and mods bioses' The green light indicator is fixed, I cannot change its behaviour. Every 100 rep points it changes until all lights are bright. Corresponding rule: For every X points of reputation, users gain 1 point of reputation-altering power. x=10 To realise your suggestion I would have to set it to 5 points for each thanks received. So every second thanks received the counter will raise by one. That sounds good I'll do it.
I just have tested it. The system is intelligent! It adds 5 rep points (not power), when somebody receives a thanks. It subtracts 5 if it's removed. But it DOESN'T subtract 5 if the thanks was received before the new rule was set...well programmed! So it subtracts only what was added before.
I feel honestly honored. Knowing to have contributed, if only an idea, to the setup of a place as great as MDL is a little like leaving ones footprint on the road of internet history. (BTW, thats probably exactly what Ironhead Haynes had in mind when he said "Do as the dinosaurs do and leave deep prints".)