What are forum points all about?

It may be worth revisiting this thread, although some of its important links, such as the one in posts #76 & #83 are dead: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/294104?start=0&tstart=0

Among others, the OP and posts #76 & #78 point at some of the more obvious unfortunate aspects.

Notice, at the top it says, "Branched to a new thread."

Why? And what's the thread? 

The stupidest thing about this system is the the people handing out the points and marking the answers answered when they are given incorrect answers. We can't hold it against them they don't know any better they can't help it they are Adobe challenged. But also when more of these Adobe challenged people come along and find threads with their problem marked answered, this is a real disservice to let them think they have the correct answer.

this whole correct answer star point system is not a good thing as it also discourages discussion as there is always more than one way to complete tasks in Adobe apps.

At a point in time, yet undisclosed, the subscriber with the most points will receive an "all expenses paid" trip to have lunch in the Official Adobe Cafeteria. It is rumored that they will be able to order the lobster!

Now, some of the Asian and European subscribers are really anxious for this, but some of us much closer to California are in it only for the lobster.

Hunt

BTW - do I get the big points?

The point of points? It's to encourage users to do the job of Adobe's lousy customer support.

The pointlessness of points has been up many times before, including thone, now locked:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/435134?start=0&tstart=0

I would have included links to a number of other threads, but the Search seems unavailable now.

Jesse, maybe the 80 points stolen from you are somehow included as ghost points, at an increased rate, something like time and a half, or with a 25% bad conscience addition.

Jochem, thank you for the link in post #5. It is quite informative, and it underlines the silliness of the point structure, with the significant undervaluation of forum contributions, as compared to the other sources: even the most elaborate forum answers are rated like trivialities elsewhere, such as simple typographical error corrections. It also explains why some hosts/posters arrived here with huge amounts of points when the forum pointsgiving started.

There are also some other things to note, some of them mentioned in earlier threads. Points are given rather randomly, often especially for very simple answers about wellknown issues, often not for deep answers and careful instructions; the latter often happens when the OP, sometimes out of the inevitable ignorance of a new user, has marked an earlier post hastily/wrongly.

As mentioned earlier in this thread and elsewhere, apart from their detrimental effects on what was a community of equals, the  titles are silly. Some of the most knowledgeable contributors I know, who have never asked a question but answered many very difficult ones in great detail, are termed users.

After initially concentrating my efforts on this forum, trying to suggest and point out, I decided to partake at a lower level here, and to resume my contributions in other forums exactly as in the days of the fair forums, disregarding and keeping stumm about forum issues such as points there, and to keep hoping for the return of the fair forums.

The points are sorta ment as a feel good reward for helping people out for free. You rate responders by their answers and reward how you want.

However, for the most part there are dozens of correct answers because nobody does the exact same work flow and everybody has their way of doing things. To "me", while others may differ, the points are worthless. Can't use them to buy a coffee or a night out on the town. Maybe the points might be worth something on e-bay.... hmmmm....