Warning Meters

I had been thinking about this for a little while, and I finally pieced it together after reading WhiteLion's suggestion about the rep system.

I have found on some forums that there's a system where they have meters in the side columns under a persons avatar of a green bar with a percentage number.

They use this on people who break rules and are reported by users (via the report button) I think it's a good way (and more enforcing) for people to behave more on the forums.

If someone get's neg repped - oh well, they can still do it again.

The punishment for getting their warning bar to 0% would be an X amount of days banned from posting. I think that each time they get to 0% the X amount of days should be increased.

This would be helpful if there was also a section similar to how it is on your profile where you get -repped and +repped information as to where you got your warning.

If the person can see what post got them their warning bar decreased, they'll be inclined to stop.
There can even be an automatic message after the first warning of explaining of what will happen. If the person is truly confused, they can contact the admins or mods.

The bar can go up in % over time too. In case that person decides that they want to change their behavior.

I'm not saying the users can decrease their percentage, but can report a person, and the mods can decided if the report was valid enough to decrease their percentage.

This will not work for people you don't like, and for people who are new to the site, since that's often what negative repped is used for. It will simply be used for when rules are broken.

Playing the devil's advocate:
If the mods' PMs upon rule breach are not going to stop a person from being a douche, neither will a glitzy warning metre.

People's failure to comply with the rules is usually based on two possible factors
A) They are intentionally breaking the rules, as they crave attention, or whatever.
B) If you would ask them to take an IQ test, they would end up eating it.

Candidate A will not cease his behaviour when faced with the warning metre because being disruptive is his very goal.
Candidate B will not cease his behaviour because he will fail to comprehend the meaning of the metre.

Yes, but that's why I mentioned each time they get to 0% the X amount of days banned increase. I think after person A gets banned for a month or so - they'll either move onto another site or just come back and get banned permanently then.

Claiming ignorance doesn't work under the court system, nor should it be valid here. There are rules you agree with when you first register, there are rules in stickies on the top of each forum section - there are rules to the right of what I'm typing in right now. There's absolutely no excuse for somebody to be breaking the rules.

OK, that part makes for a pretty compelling argument. Assuming they're too stupid for JISAKU JIEN/proxies/...

What speaks against it, is the intimidating amount of work it would be. Not going to lie to you: I'm not thinking this has very high chances of being integrated.
What speaks for it, is the sheer entertainment factor (a sort of health/HP bar over everyone's heads sounds hilarious along with the Nixonator) and the fleeting hope for some corrective effect, if only with the cheapest of trolls, which is admittedly a good start.


Oh, that was never in question.

That is actually kind of funny. HP bars.
I can't imagine it being that hard for it to be implemented. Like I said, I've seen it on other sites that aren't even nearly as well done as Fakku is.

As long as the bar only responds to the things the mods/admins think are valid reports of wrongdoing I think it would be fine. I could easily see people reporting people they don't like over and over again to try to get them banned from the site otherwise.

No, users should not have any impact on the meters life whatsoever. The only thing users can do is hit the report button and allow the mod to view the post and them decide whether or not the meter should be brought down.

It seems valid enough, but there might be some extra legwork involved. I proposed something like this before to a different extent where a user has three strikes, and only the admin staff can determine whether you struck out. After three strikes (warnings), the user is temporarily banned. After serving the temp ban, they only have one more strike before permanently banned. Give or take, a strike can be erased through a timespan of a month, which will hopefully enforce good behavior. Perhaps on strike two, the user will be banned from the requests section and User Uploads. Maybe something like this could be used in effect in conjunction with your HP warning meter.

Why not just have posts that garner multiple negative reps automatically flagged for review? The rules even at the side of this posting box, whilst simple, are still fairly strict in the sense of grammar and spelling, and thus not always adhered to. If people -rep such idiocy the mods can look at it and dish out a warning, log it and then ban if it happens again, without the need for an entirely new system. Also, people are less likely to -rep than report because of the limited amount that you receive; a good thing in my mind, as it highlights only what is definitely unacceptable and limits the workload.

What speaks against it:
One neg-rep (max) per user per day, countless report-worthy posts per day. People have a single rep to spend, and they're busy spending it on posts they (dis)agree with, or helping their clique out. This metre is about people breaking the rules, and so neg-rep would have to be used only on people who break the rules, not for petty infighting.
Moreover, few enough have actually ever read the rules, and so would not even notice the rule breaches. Under your proposal, it would take several unique users who have read and understood the rules per every offending post - that is just not viable. 'm sorry, but I think that would be wholly useless. Too much rocket science. Using the report button to report offending posts is much easier, and more viable.

Something I tacked on probably moments before you posted - "Also, people are less likely to -rep than report because of the limited amount that you receive; a good thing in my mind, as it highlights only what is definitely unacceptable and limits the workload."

I have heard a lot of people say that they rarely, if ever, give out rep because of the flaws with the system. The way I see it, there are hundreds of active users who read the majority of topics in areas prone to such posts, and as such they are well-versed in forum etiquette. All you need is even two of them to -rep something, and if anyone disagrees and balances the rep out, it is debatable and as such not an issue worth dealing with. I feel that people being unclear about rules and reporting posts wrongly (which cannot be disagreed with), leaving mods with a huge number to work through and maybe a minority which are unsuitable, is far more problematic.

I think you don't realize the scale at which users actually report posts. I'm pretty sure most don't, and only those who care enough will report posts/threads when they see fit. So a deluge of reported posts/threads shouldn't be a worry in any case. Plus, it's usually the oldfags that do it.

Fair point, but I still feel that it's better to have some kind of consensus, lest people report posts and then either whine or lose faith in the system if nothing happens. At least with rep people could give silent input as to whether a post should be reported or not; I just think that they would accept a general consensus more easily than a lack of action on the mod's side. It might also avoid debate over whether a mod was right to take action over a post, which might have offended a minority for whatever reason but been taken in good stead by the majority.

I endorse this product and or service.

While the system would probably be a nightmare for Jacob to design and implement I think the end result would be worth the effort. We have too many trouble makers running around trying to gain everybody's attention. If you neg them then their buddies will +rep them so not only does it negate your one -rep but, they actually go up in rep. That defeats the whole purpose of -rep to begin with. Plus, a valid point was already mentioned by gibbous, a lot of people don't use the -rep for the proper reasons.

The flaw in this system is the same as the flaw in the report system. People have to use it for it to work.

This would probably be a bitch and a half to implement, and wouldn't stop trolling in the least. As it stands now, this would just give a visual clue as to who is about to get banned, rather than them just getting banned.

I don't know, I gave up on reporting posts a while ago because every time I reported something that was pretty obvious trolling, baiting, or a personal attack, I was PMed and told by the mods that Fakku as a forum didn't want to stifle that kind of speech. Historically, the rules against flaming, trolling, baiting, etc, have barely been enforced.

I know Nikon posted in Random that the mods were going to start taking the rules more seriously. Hopefully they do, because otherwise reporting or a warning meter not only fails, but people give up spending their time doing it.