FO SHO
NAW
I'll follow up with a detailed post, but the short version is ... I didn't like where the old system was going, so I changed how the calculations worked, fundamentally changed the code, updated all the given rep values, and rebuilt the whole world's reputations.
Don't panic. But it's permanent. Explanation to follow shortly.
Wow... That was quite a crash. With the updated scores, it looks almost as if every hit just gives a few points at max, or something. I'll be looking forward to the detailed explanations, and the new calculator.
Heh heh. I suppose it's safe to say good bye to the dream of achieving a custom title...
It looks like the relative positions of everyones rep count haven't changed so i'm gonna guess comp just took a nice bite out of everyone's value, if it was a flat percentage from everyone then looking at the new values is kinda cool because you can really see who had hig rep and who had INSANE rep before this overhaul.
I'm gonna miss those little boxes though, they made the area under my avatar look so much better
EDIT: How is this a complaint?
Last edited by Yukimura; Fri, 05-12-2006 at 06:10 PM.
i had finally gotten up to 5 squares and now its back to one
i even got 4 positive reps in a row once!
There were two problems with the system as it was
First problem: rep power spiraled out of control, blasting nearly every active poster off the rep scale entirely. This rendered the entire system meaningless in the short term, and utterly pointless in the long term.
Second problem: setting rep factors to a level that doesn't cause things to spiral out of control shuts out new users, making them unable to have a meaningful role in the rep system
Basically, the population has endpoints that are simply too high. The top users have >6000 posts (terra's currently at 7850, bud's at 6299, assertn at 6896) and have been around as long as the forums have existed. Other users have been around since the forums came into being, but have spent large amounts of time inactive. Still others are newer, but extremely active. And then there's the complete newcomers, who just haven't had any history with us at all.
The reputation system is supposed to be a way to encourage users to participate and a mechanism to give each other feedback.
However, as we've seen the last two months (wow, pretty much exactly … I first turned on and explained the rep system on March 11, it's now May 12), there are big problems with the implementation. Many of you have pointed this out.
There's three variables to control rep power: membership time, post count, and rep score. I think they should all count. But, if any one variable is set to a value that allows new members any influence, old members, high-postcount members, or people who've accumulated large amounts of reputation already become too powerful.
In the previous system, things were controlled by a linear equation, :
Since these are all integer ops, they lock a user into having no influence until they've exceeded at least one of those factors..Code:Power = (post count/post factor) + (user age/age factor) + (reputation / rep factor).
But some quick math shows us that if we have a low value, then we get disproportionately powerful people in the mix. With all the thresholds at 30, a user like AssertnFailure would get 229 rep power from his post count, and 33 from his age. And that's not including the huge reputation that he would quickly be able to build with other people having that scale of power. Clearly, this is broken.
But setting this value so Assertn doesn't have 230 rep power just from his post count renders the post weight meaningless. The old value was 400 -- meaning users with 800 posts only got 2 points from it, while Assertn STILL got 18 from it.
There are a lot of users around who registered back in 2003, and maybe posted a couple times (enough that their accounts didn't get purged for being inactive and having <2 posts). If age alone a substantial rep factor, then those people will be at an advantage. A user who's been around for 3 years, but only made 3 posts in august 2003 and has never been back shouldn't have more power than a user who's made 300 posts in the last 3 months.
Lastly, there's reputation score. This is the most variable of the lot, because it jumps forward by the power of the person giving you rep. This quickly spirals after a certain threshold - while the equation is linear, the growth along it is quadratic, based on the average rep value of the participants.
You may be asking yourself at this point, "what's wrong with all of that?" The problem is, the rep display only scales up to 1000. While I can add higher values to the reputation categories, I can't easily change how the display boxes scale. Meaning after a certain point, the average growth rate of reputations becomes greater than the intervals between display categories.
Further, Tuning any value such that the top end users aren't excessively powerful means shutting new users out of that field as an influence mechanism. And there will inevitably be users who are extremes at any, or even every category.
When I applied the brakes, the highest rep power calculated out at 186. Not very far away, the next was 178. Now, that's just too damned fast … and as I said, this is a quadratic growth. A single rep hit from one of the highest end reppers increased a user's displayed reputation by nearly two full boxes. That's … at risk of being redundant, too damned much. It means that EVERYONE very quickly goes off the displayable scale of reputations, one way or the other, based on the whims of a small group of more powerful (ie: more popular) people.
Now, my whole goal in the reputation system experiment was to encourage users to participate - to try to raise both the participation volume, and the average quality of posts. And you know, the system succeeded at that, on the short term. But at the same time, it's pretty plain to me that on the long term, the growth spiral was going to continue indefinitely, powers were going to continue to grow quadratically, and a single hit would be able to completely fill or flatten any user's rep display.
Even worse, individual users would get the power to disenfranchise anyone they wanted to. Think about it … if user X has a rep power of 200, they can neg rep a newbie, and drop their rep to -100 singlehandedly. Because that's where I set the threshold where reps don't count any longer, that user can no longer participate in the system until someone else finds it in their heart to toss them a positive rep and drag them out of the depths. But I think it's a natural tendency to pre-judge someone with those angry little red boxes proclaiming "this user sucks" - and that's more likely to swing more people to neg rep them.
Now, this scenario aside, if a new user who's just crossed the threshold into having their rep hits count (at 20 posts, by the old value), gets positive repped by someone with 200 reputation, and the rep factor is 25, that 200-point hit hands them 8 more points of rep power. Still pales in comparison to the 200 points that the giver has, but it's more influence than someone with 20 posts and no prior reps should have. This is sort of a power proliferation problem - by giving you rep power and making the rep factor smaller than your power, inherently every hit you make will be giving the receiver more firepower. And again, with the quadratic expansion of power factors, before long it would get to the point that by simply giving a rep hit, you would give enough power to another person for them to immediately give someone else another point of power (ie: two tiers of power proliferation from a single hit -- this would happen at a rep power of 625 -- with 2000 posts and being a 1 year member of the forum, that would be a rep score of a bit over 15,000 -- not too far off, seeing how growth had already reached higher than 1000 points per week for the top repped people).
Again, this in itself isn't much of a problem, it's just an inherent quality of the system. By using your rep score to calculate your rep value, you get this sort of thing, and this is where that quadratic growth factor comes from.
And the thing is, I like that attribute of the system! Or rather, I like the core meaning of it. I want it to be the case that if you are more popular, you've got more influence. That just makes sense -- let the system be a democratic meritocracy. But at the same time, I don't want it to be the case that if you're more popular, you're practically a god, and if you're less popular you're insignificant - because new users are inherently less popular than older ones, regardless of what they try to do. Part of my goal is to attract and keep new users, to keep constantly revitalizing the forums with a stream of new people who stay around. A community like this has two paths: grow and thrive, or stagnate and die, and I'd be ignoring my role as an admin if I encouraged it to stagnate and die (although, admittedly, it would make my life a little easier).
So … to summarize the problem, if the system is going to be meaningful and sustainable, then it needs to accommodate both new users and old, and give them fair influence. But fair isn't a linear equation, and linear equations in calculating power lead to quadratic growth and the implosion of the system as a whole.
So I changed the equation …
Here's the new general equation, roughly:
(there's some added logic for negative rep scores to keep things rational)Code:Power = 1 + sqrt(post count/post factor) + sqrt(age / age factor) + sqrt(rep score/rep factor).
You guys have put 2 months and about 4000 reputation hits into the old system. I didn't want to discard it, even though it was broken. So instead, I squarerooted all the values of all previous rep hits. Then I recalculated everyone's rep based on the new values for every hit.
The recalculation of total based on all of that has dramatically moved people, as you've seen. As for what your current rep power is, see RepCalcv2.xls . The top users are still the top users, but they're not so dramatically overpowered anymore.
I think all of this levels the playing field. Basically, as you get higher and higher values, you get diminishing returns. There's still value in doing more, but it's harder to attain that value. This lets me open all the doors. Every factor is at 30, but users at the extremes won't get incredibly disproportionate amounts of power.
Finally, a new guideline: quit signing your reps. It's ok if you sign a rep that's thanking someone for someone doing a favor for you (like ... making you a new sig, or solving a problem for you), or if you're asking a favor from them (like, "please pm me that link"). But if you're signing most of your hits, it will be interpreted as rep solicitation, and punished severely (like ... re-squarerooting your received hits, or simply disabling your ability to leave rep).
lol comp you explained it to me last night but i can't quite recall all the specifics... something about a square root beingthrown into the equation?
All I know is I like the change. Yeah, sure, we all look like we've got no reputation now. That's the way it's supposed to we when the Rep system has only been in effect for 2 months! People maxing out boxes, getting the customs after that little time makes the entire system quite laughable. Imagine if you logged onto a forum and half the users had reputation to the moon.
This way it seems like the system will more accurately serve as a long term gage of users. Serious props to comp for going through all the trouble of figuring out a better system and implementing it. It certainly wasn't an easy task, as you can see:
[07:44] * Assassin gives complich8 his thinking cap
[07:44] <complich8> I'm waist-deep in php right now
[07:45] * Assassin takes the hat back
edit - totally agree with comp. Signing reps is from the devil! Cease and desist at once or be destroyed.
edit again - I totally love my new title, though the fact that switching between that and 'Shaved Butt Monkey' is a matter I have no say in and that comp can do with his pinky in 10 seconds is a bit disconcerting
Last edited by masamuneehs; Fri, 05-12-2006 at 05:09 AM.
Humans are different from animals. We must die for a reason. Now is the time for us to regulate ourselves and reclaim our dignity. The one who holds endless potential and displays his strength and kindness to the world. Only mankind has God, a power that allows us to go above and beyond what we are now, a God that we call "possibility".
actually, the code mod itself was pretty easy -- though it would have been easier if that bastard hadn't taken back his cap.
Just that I don't actually know php, and wasn't terribly familiar with vbulletin code =D. Maybe I'll actually teach myself how to write it (instead of just tweaking it) this summer.
And yeah, it's basically just "squareroot each component of rep". For the extremely curious, here's a diff! HAHA!
Ok, So to be clear, signing reps is now illegal and punishable by law?
Ugh, code without nice line breaks are a pain to readOriginally Posted by complich8
... Huh. I wrote a paragraph or two in response just now, deleted it, and wrote another and deleted it too when I realized that most of the points I was bringing up could fall under a "wait and see" action. Although I'd like to chime in here on the not-signing-your-reps guideline as good. People who are loose, easy, and / or retaliatory with their rep hits tend to develop more say as time progresses.
Yup. But as with most laws that can hold water this isn't purely cut-and-dry.
While it would be safest to stop signing reps alltogether there's obviously some cases that warrant it. From what I've seen I agree this new guideline is in order, as signing reps just for the sake of showing your identity to the person you're Pos Repping certainly reeks of soliciting.
Humans are different from animals. We must die for a reason. Now is the time for us to regulate ourselves and reclaim our dignity. The one who holds endless potential and displays his strength and kindness to the world. Only mankind has God, a power that allows us to go above and beyond what we are now, a God that we call "possibility".
Heh. Well, that was quite a change. Powers sure fell down. This was an act of great equalization. When this whole rep system was established, and everybody started from the scratch (except for select admins), every single rep hit counted. But during the latest times when you had your eyes on the 2500 limit, and nothing else since you didn't anymore get more squares, hits from new users with low power became less meaningful, although they were still nice to get; who wouldn't want his efforts to be appreciated?
While it's useless to anymore even dream about ever getting up the 2500 score for the custom title (I'll probably be in a grave from old age before that happens), now it's at least possible to once again stare at the squares, and be equally glad about every hit you get.
And thank you very much for illegalizing the signing of the rep comments. That was a kingdom of fear. No matter what people say, but if they didn't get the favor back, I seriously doubt they were as eager to rep that same person again. And for me who only signed a few comments during the last days (as responses, though "valid" ones for the Event), it was thus a thing of great distress. As much as I wanted to have a custom title, I still didn't want to break the original idea of the reputation system. Now that it's practically impossible to gain the custom title, even slight solicitation of course is much less meaningful altogether.
Edit: Ciber has one red square and Wilik one green! No need to look any further for the ones who suffered the most...
Last edited by Kraco; Fri, 05-12-2006 at 06:50 AM.
That's the idea. I've done a bunch of database work (amazing the data mining you can do in these databases, lemme tell ya), and there's a very strong correlation between reps signing and what very much looks like "rep cliques" developing. And if I get much stronger correlation there, then the four or five users involved may end up simply removed from the rep system as a whole.
linux-generated universal diff format. Line breaks are there, but they're just \n, not CRLF. Open it in wordpad if you're in windows. But it's a diff, if you don't know how to read it it probably doesn't mean much to you.Ugh, code without nice line breaks are a pain to read
That's precisely what I'm trying to get back, and then some. That's why the code modifications. I still want people's power to reflect their degree of participation in the community, but I don't want it to do so in such an incredibly stupid, broken way anymore, ya know?
Some scanning through the user list seems to indicate that the average rep-giver is walking out of this with a power in the low teens. The highest powers are in the low twenties right now. My initial adjustment of the values of all previous rep hits has drastically impacted the value of all reps given. New reps, given under the new system, are generally worth more than the square root of the old reps -- though this is not always the case.While it's useless to anymore even dream about ever getting up the 2500 score for the custom title (I'll probably be in a grave from old age before that happens), now it's at least possible to once again stare at the squares, and be equally glad about every hit you get.
In many cases, the new rep hits you get will co
unt more than the old ones did, and since everyone's score dropped so dramatically, there will probably be a new period of power growth. Just that that growth should taper off, rather than skyrocketing.
My end goal is to have nobody have more than about 30-35 power per post. You can do some repcalc experiments using hypothetical numbers and verify that it's very, VERY hard to get much past that (10000 posts, 5000 accumulated rep points, and being here for the entire life of the forums so far would get you a power of 36).
What that means is this: if a no-name user is repping you, they still are going to have somewhere between 2 and 6 points to contribute. So the incredibly powerful hypothetical user, who's been with us since the start and is incredibly popular to boot, will be worth roughly six times more than someone who's at ~120 posts with no rep who's been here for a year.
What that means is that you'll have to get 125ish positive hits from the currently "powerful" people (who are in the low 20's), 70 hits from the hypothetical uber-user, or win the aproval of 415 or so faceless nobodies to get to the ever-so-desirable custom title level. That's ... a lot more, but still not a lot slower growth than bouncing forward 200+ points at a time, but it's still pretty bearable, I think. It means that an average positive hit is going to be worth .... somewhere between half and one percent of the way to a title -- rather than the nearly 10% that it was approaching. So, in short, don't despair! Someday, it may be yours! (or, there's other ways you might get one ...).
fear ... cheating ... however you want to put it ^_^.And thank you very much for illegalizing the signing of the rep comments. That was a kingdom of fear.
Wow. Talk about dropping a bomb, hehe.
I like the new system better. Its more fair.
Good job complich8
Ah, wordpad. I see. While delightfully readable now, all it is is the logic behind the rep power equation you mentioned... as you've mentioned.
Ah, goddamn it........bye bye custom title....so close....
Anyway, very good work man, systems way more fair. If this wasn't done, I would have had a custom title and full rep within two weeks.
Signing now illegal huh? Hmm, gonna take me awhile to get back to the top...A long while...........
Anyway, at Complich, excellent work, those calculations aren't bad.
Edit: I guess I was solicitating rep, I repped you, would a rep like that be considered solicitating? Making it obvious who did it?
this is for the better, it's understandable. for those who are good posters shouldn't have to worry about it, even though it's makes things slower, it's a more effective way to make things keep on going.
custom titles? exactly what are custom titles? do people care actually care about what your title is? stating the obvious, but it's not really all that great as one would make it out to be. will it really matter like 2 years from now when most of us will probably forget about these forums anyway? you all should just make the most of it by just posting and having fun like you've always had.
of course, everything has a flaw. you just have to do it without breaking it.
Last edited by RedX1z; Fri, 05-12-2006 at 10:00 AM.
Signature by Lucifus
She knows what you did last summer..
------------私はコピーX 及びSimca が空を征服することを信じる------------
In the case of me, I can see it anyway. Not that I'll ever react to it. Feel free to rep me, I don't care =D
Yes you do. You are just saying you don't.
You are the person who most deeply cares about reputation. After all, you are the one who has spent hours into making it work better and being more equal. And you even made the calculators, and wrote long posts explaining how the system works. So, I think you care the most about reputation, no matter what you say.
Well I have no problem with you starting the rep over Comp.
But there is one thing: I was literally one pos. rep from getting my own Title, and you've ruined it *insert dramatic sobbing and music*
I had such a great name too
R.I.P Captain America.
Wow, what a reform. I have to say all credit goes to Complich8 for giving this ALOT of thought.
The new system is amazingly well though out and fair. All though everyone, including myself, will miss their inflated reputation, at less now the rep system means something
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