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I'm frequently finding that the system refuses to allow me to add a rating point, or just now, refuses to let me do a commentary rating. Just now, it claimed that I have to "spread" ratings, although I had done no other ratings at all, and not to this person at all. The system seems to keep imagining that I've been adding points when I haven't. Anything I can do about it?
The "spread it around" requirement keeps track of the last 20-some reps that you've given and won't let you give rep to any of those members again. Is it possible that you give rep so infrequently that you've just forgotten about those reps around 20 back that you issued a few months ago?
If not, I'm fairly sure that either of the senior mods can tell you who the last 30 recipients of rep from you were.
Just a suggestion, but maybe those last 20 reps should have expiration dates. It makes little sense that, should someone impress me a month from now, that I can't pat 'em on the back. I realize the idea is to prevent 'mutual assist societies' from popping up, but non-expiring reps may be taking it a little too far, no?
Just give reps to other posters who impress you and you'll be able to rep that person again. Surely there are more than 20 posters on City-Data who've said something that you felt was well-written, well-versed, knowledgeable, and the likes.
Just a suggestion, but maybe those last 20 reps should have expiration dates. It makes little sense that, should someone impress me a month from now, that I can't pat 'em on the back. I realize the idea is to prevent 'mutual assist societies' from popping up, but non-expiring reps may be taking it a little too far, no?
I have owned and managed a forum for several years utilizing vBulletin in the past, and I can state that there isn't currently a feature in the Administration panel under the User Reputation settings that enables you to have expiration dates for reputation. The User Reputation system itself does offer a variety of features, such as register date factor, post count factor, reputation count factor, daily reputation clicks limit, etc.
To answer Cida's original question, as Bo explained, the reputation user spread feature in vBulletin is a setting customized by the administrator that controls the number of users you must give reputation to before giving it to the same user again.
Thanks, guys, but I'm stunned. That seems nuts to keep track indefinitely of so many past ratings. I suppose it's fine for someone who mindlessly pluses people right and left, but I only do it judiciously, not often, and since I'm mostly in the NYC forum, presumably it's a pretty small pool of regulars. I don't keep in my head who I've plussed, but it seem reasonable to guess that one or two posters might be smart, sensible people who deserve to have their rating boosted, and I may repeatedly like their answers over time. It seems like a bad policy to hedge ratings in like that.
I'm sorry but it looks like you're not our typical user. The system is designed for an average member so I'm afraid we can't tweak it to your needs.
Perhaps we could invite you to participate in our general forums, then?
Marka, that's fascinating that there's an idea of the "typical" member - and that I'm not it! I certainly wouldn't expect anyone to tweak anything specifically to my needs, but maybe every so often the site overlords could re-evaluate things. It sounds like the current set-up encourages people to reward kind of indiscriminately, instead of the plus being really meaningful. But that goes a long way toward explaining why some people have astronomical ratings! I like the suggestion that maybe there should be an expiration date, so maybe after, say, 30 days or 60 days, you'd have a clean slate for rating again.
I actually like the idea of expiration date, sounds interesting. Unfortunately, we'd have to write a program to do it. And I'm afraid our programmers have other projects.
Last edited by Photography; 02-28-2011 at 12:08 PM..
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