Many of you have seen the re-introduction of our Post Rating System, as well as the matching Member Reputation that have replaced the user rank system. We've received hundreds of questions and comments about the system (and we thank you for all the feedback!), so we thought we'd take this opportunity to explain what everything means, why we've added it, and what you should be doing with it.

The first element you'll see is on the top right-hand side of all forum posts. There is a series of five stars that allow you to rate a post based on what you think of its contents, relevance to the topic, and insight.

A few key points about rating posts:
- When a post is made, voting will only be allowed for a period of time (between 7 and 14 days).
- When the voting period ends, we average out all the votes for that post to give it a final rating.
- If you do not rate a post, we assume that it was not a remarkable post and we give it three stars.

Our goal is to let users voice their opinion about posts around the site so in the future we can quickly identify posts that are very informative or entertaining, and feature that content around other areas of the site (which means, if you write posts that people like, we can make you famous!) . It is not our intent to belittle or judge anyone, so we have based this system entirely upon the opinions of our community members.

The next feature you'll see has replaced our user ranks (which were based on post count). We wanted to find a better way to measure user contribution to the community than post count, so we decided to add a Member Reputation metric in its place. These reputation scores are also displayed in the form of a five-star rating, and indicate the result of a very complex algorithm which calculates each member's reputation.

The algorithm that calculates the reputation scores take a large number of variables into consideration; average post rating, who rated the posts, average number of replies to threads they've created, what threads they've participated in, and even who they've rated (and how) - among many, many other things.

This algorithm is dynamic, and will automatically adjust itself based on what you've rated other people: the algorithm is intelligent enough to see that you're rating all your friends highly, but rating other posts and topics from other people lower. It will automatically adjust itself to rate users accurately, removing bias from social circles and (gasp) cheating schemes to prevent manipulation of the system.

I hate this system. I'm permanently stuck at 1.9, even if I give a five-star post. This system sucks and should be canned. The whole rating system should be canned because it's no indicator of how good you are. It's all opinion, which isn't good. And Member Reputation is just wrong. I have a 1.9 reputation now. While Remaeus and other high-ranking people have 4 or 5 star reputations. It isn't right, and needs to be canned. FOREVER.

ThatsNotPoetry wrote:Auto-ranking a post at 3 stars just because it hasn't been ranked by a user seems rather unfair. If someone keeps mostly to themselves and a few small RPs and therefore doesn't get a lot of attention (or votes), it doesn't mean their posts are mediocre.

If a post's voting period ends without any votes, it doesn't get calculated into the reputation score.

Angel Of Darkness wrote:I don't like this system. It makes me feel like an idiot because I'm stuck in the 1. something..and then I see all these new comers who only have one post and they're 3 stars and it makes me mad..so yeah I agree with True Grave that this system isn't a very good idea because it makes people think they're not that good.

Well, let's look at your posting record: you registered on July 14th, 2008 - and you've already got over 4,000 posts. That's 70 posts per day! If you're posting that much, you probably aren't spending very much time on each post.

Look at some of the posts you've made, like in this thread, for example. I can see why people are rating you lower - you're using the forums like they were a chat, and making super-short posts.

Syren Song wrote:The only issue I have with this is honesty. There are some people on here who would probably prefer to dish out unjustified low ratings to others in order to make themselves feel better or to bring down those who have high ratings out of jealousy. It is those types of people that are the only real threat to an otherwise decent reputation system.

As the algorithm learns and adapts, these dishonest votes will have less effect on the system.