Reputation - a way to show appreciation for contributions

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Thanks Maura and Pat. Well, first, reputation is different from the 'Like' feature. Reputation gives you a chance to actually say something to the individual whom you appreciate. When you click the Star icon located below every post, you get a pop-up that allows you to add a reputation comment. I have disabled negative reputation. There is no need for that feature in a community such as ours. You can give reputation without leaving a comment, but it is always nice to see the comments of your peers in the community when s/he leaves a 'rep' for you.

The 'Like' feature acknowledges posts that are helpful without the option to leave additional feedback. This feature is also used in the Search Engine Positioning (SEO) for our community. The more individual likes a post gets, the move importance it has to search spiders as that content *must* be relevant or special. Likes are shown within the post that is 'Liked' whereas reputation is not shown on the individual post.

Reputation points are gained for activity in the forum, longevity in the forum, as well as for acknowledgment for a 'great post'.

Hope that helps!!

Cheers,
BD

[mauraec]

I do understand how it works - I just wondered whether enough other people knew how to make it work the way it's intended - and whether, due to it being an icon instead of a word, and requiring a little more work, that perhaps it wasn't being used as effectively as the Forum would like it to be. OT has so much in the posts and photos that just keeping up and responding when appropriate takes a lot of time and effort - I personally often forget to do a rep for someone - my evaluation of their post is really in my response. I don't know how you manage to keep up with all of this AND teach AND actually grow orchids AND all the other things you do - unless sleeping is optional, but I find that between working with my plants, staying active on the forum, and trying to lead the rest of my life is requiring a lot of organizational skills and energy I haven't used in awhile. Maybe I'll be better at this in 6 weeks, when this whole chemo thing is over with.

I don't mean any of this as a negative or critical comment on the OT system - just trying to give you some feedback that might apply to others as well, and thus might prove helpful somehow.

Always -

Maura

[kiwiorchids]

I do understand how it works - I just wondered whether enough other people knew how to make it work the way it's intended - and whether, due to it being an icon instead of a word, and requiring a little more work, that perhaps it wasn't being used as effectively as the Forum would like it to be. OT has so much in the posts and photos that just keeping up and responding when appropriate takes a lot of time and effort - I personally often forget to do a rep for someone - my evaluation of their post is really in my response. I don't know how you manage to keep up with all of this AND teach AND actually grow orchids AND all the other things you do - unless sleeping is optional, but I find that between working with my plants, staying active on the forum, and trying to lead the rest of my life is requiring a lot of organizational skills and energy I haven't used in awhile. Maybe I'll be better at this in 6 weeks, when this whole chemo thing is over with.

I don't mean any of this as a negative or critical comment on the OT system - just trying to give you some feedback that might apply to others as well, and thus might prove helpful somehow.

Always -

Maura

I find that rep isnt given as much as it should be in some respects, i try to give whenever i can. But i too think that perhaps the like button could be a thumbs-up icon and the reputation icon turned to a word? Sounds like a good idea Thumbs-up icons are always associated with good work anyway, but it took me a while to find the rep button lol

Thanks for all the hard work tho Bruce, and how can we forget the work LJA does too!?