Contributor points fouled up

[Rick Gerard]

I was rolling over my profile and noticed 8600 points, then I rolled over the other leaders in the After Effects forum and noticed that they also had 8600 points. Then I rolled over a post by someone that just joined the group and has only 1 post. He also has 8600 points. I think the points system is broken....

OSX 10.9.2

Safari 7.0.3

Chrome, Firefox, Firefox Nightly...

Any user, any forum, 8600 points. I think this feature got broken....

[Jacob Bugge]

Madison,

Are there any considerations about (the (im)possibility of) enabling the OP to mark answers as Helpful?

[Silkrooster]

I noticed the points are not increasing. It keeps saying I have 1 point to go to get to the next level, but that 1 point never comes. I have had several posts marked as correct or helpful. I also noticed, I can not create a document even though that says it will add 10 points.

Anyway, just letting ya know if it wasn't already known.

[Jacob Bugge]

Silkrooster,

We all see the 1 point and next level as ghosts from somewhere else, I am afraid.

But the static point count must be a new (kind of) error that seems to hit (some of) the innocent. I have tried to alert staff.

I have no clue whether documents/whatever supposedly giving points are other ghosts.

[station_two]

Really, the "points" are and should be the least of our worries now.

[Jacob Bugge]

Indeed, but good for making fun about punishment.

[Silkrooster]

You're right, but it is an issue just the same. How can anything get fixed if it does not get mentioned?

[station_two]

Why are the (utterly worthless) points "an issue'?  Who cares about the points!

[Laubender]

You are asking: "Who cares?".

I think it's a psychological issue. An incentive for some people answering questions. Now gone.

Will slow down anwering rates and overall participation in these forums, I think.

The other thing: in the old representation you could evalue an answer or better the answering one better (or at all) by seeing the score of his/her points over a period of time and the overall score of the number of posts that member had done. Not possible anymore.

Who can tell a newbie from a forum dinosaur anymore?

Nobody. At least not at first glance.

Uwe

[station_two]

Tell you what, 1,500 points and a five-dollar bill may just buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks, or maybe not even that.

[Laubender]

Of course. But do not underestimate the psychological aspect here…

Rationional arguments are filtered through emotions first before they become concious.

Uwe

[station_two]

Laubender wrote:

Of course. But do not underestimate the psychological aspect here…

Well… I suppose for poor souls endowed with an IQ at or below room-temperature level that might work.

[mytaxsite]

Laubender wrote:

You are asking: "Who cares?".

I think it's a psychological issue. An incentive for some people answering questions. Now gone.

Will slow down anwering rates and overall participation in these forums, I think.

I doubt it.  You haven't been to the DW forums where people are posting for quantity rather than quality.  You will find threads containing duplicate, even triplicate answers for the same question just to remain at the top of the list.  Without naming names, there are a couple of people who have to post something on each and every post even if a similar solution has already been given.  Perhaps this is what you are talking when you say   "psychological issue".  Oh god, we don't need this here.  We want quality answers not quantity.

[Silkrooster]

mytaxsite.co.uk wrote:

I doubt it.  You haven't been to the DW forums where people are posting for quantity rather than quality.  You will find threads containing duplicate, even triplicate answers for the same question just to remain at the top of the list.  Without naming names, there are a couple of people who have to post something on each and every post even if a similar solution has already been given.  Perhaps this is what you are talking when you say   "psychological issue".  Oh god, we don't need this here.  We want quality answers not quantity.

No, points are given to those that have given a correct answer or have helped. None are given for just posting. The total posts is suppose to do that, which as you stated gets out of whack when spammers hit the forum. But I could also see a spammer creating multiple accounts and answering themselves.(which I have seen)

This is why it is a petty issue as it is a flawed system. But like I mentioned it is a bug that needs fixing as we have no idea what other features that bug has corrupted.

The thing is I use the total post of the threads to determine if that person has received any help and how much help. I also look at the latest poster of that thread and see if I recognize who is helping.

But all of these are not working and several of these are counters, which begs my point a single bug could cause havoc on all of these issues and several more.

[Silkrooster]

One more point about the points system, that is how an OP marks the thread as having been helped or is correct. If it is correct, there is no point in helping, since it is resolved. Granted that is working, but if they remove the point system, it may not.

Just a thought...

[Phillip_M_Jones]

Plus the fact The system Rates you according to the answers you give. If you don't come up with enough answers. Then People needing answers wouldn't trust your answers as worth trying.

example Whose answer are you likely to try. From someone that has two marked answers in 10 years. Or someone that has 20,000 marked correct answers in 10 years.

[Silkrooster]

It maybe petty, but it is a feature of the forum that is not working correctly. It is important to point out all the issues as we see them and fix them. How do we know, what issues could affect other issues. It is all code. A bug could affect several areas, by reporting these issues we help pin point the bug(s).

I have to agree with Laubender, the points do help the beginners know who the seasoned forum roamers are. Would it be feasible for someone to not know much about the issue(s) at hand and get points for being right? It certainly does not point out who is certified, but may have experience behind them just the same.

Today the point may not mean as much as it did in the pre-graphical forum days. At least back then you supposedly got a bag of popcorn. Though Adobe still owes me that. LOL.

Anyway, no matter how one feels about a feature no matter what it is, some care for it and others don't, that's life.

[mytaxsite]

station_two wrote:

Why are the (utterly worthless) points "an issue'?  Who cares about the points!

Not me for sure because I have always thought that the points system was rigged in the old system and in the new system the points are given discretionary.  This makes no sense to me and sooner they are removed, the better it would be for everybody.  Duplicates would be reduced dramatically if points are not given at all.  On occasion I have found 5 people giving the same answer just to get their boot in and this happens often on certain forums such as DW.  The best forum I have seen so far is PSE where people restrain themselves from posting anything unless something hasn't been answered adequately.  That is what I like.  "Quality" NOT "Quantity".

[Silkrooster]

OK, I wasn't sure, so I thought I would bring it up.

[Guest]

I think it is a real disservice to the user to have eliminated total posts.   This is a measure of how active the person is, and using this and the number of points one can judge there level of involvement.  As a beginner would you rather take the advice of someone that has answered 10,000 posts or on that has answered 10?  While one should not automatically figure the old guy has better answers,  the tenancy is to find an old sage with good advice.  Similar to a surgeon.   Do you want one that has done the operation 10,000 times or 10?

[Jacob Bugge]

Curt,

I think it is a real disservice to the user to have eliminated total posts.

I only saw it now, after you mentioned it.

We are still left with the Member since date, which is undoubtedly wrong for most old natives. Mine is many years too late.

[Dave Merchant]

The points system is being worked on - the display issue is something Jive know about, but awards for Correct answers are still being recorded. Only moderators can mark a reply as "Helpful", that's unfortunately a quirk of the new version.

[Jacob Bugge]

Dave,

Is the (im)possible Helpful marking by OPs part of what is being worked on?

[Dave Merchant]

It's a bug, so it should be. This site's "theme" is very unusual since Adobe have disabled 3/4 of the features in SBS7, so a bunch of stuff that should be picked up by the templates through system variables isn't appearing - that for example is why you're always "one point away from the next level".

As to timescales for a non-SNAFU site - you'll have to wait until David or Madison say something outside of the NDA space.

[Jacob Bugge]

Thank you very much, Dave, as always.

[station_two]

Here's further proof that the points system is sheer nonsense.

A user replied to me saying "That is the information I needed", then went ahead and marked her own answer as "correct", giving herself the points.

What kind of messed up system allows that?