I have been around for a month or two/three here, and I generally like the forum, many knowledgeable people here.
It's the first time I have been subjected to a point rating system, and I have some mixed feelings about it.
It claims to represent "reputation", although to me, it is more "time of being here + number of posts". I would see "posts / month" or so as a more fair notion, but ymmv.
At times, I do think "hmm, this is not going to give me rating points". I post anyway, but I guess that can be seen as a disadvantage of the system.
I do like getting recognition in the form of +3 a lot, maybe too much even.
The more useful thing of it is perhaps that it avoids duplicate "I agree" posts, keeping topics nice and short.
I had 2 down-votes. In both cases my viewpoint was a bit extreme so I can see people disagree with it, but I think it was incorrect to down-vote. I brought in new points to consider.
I would have loved going into discussion with the downvoter in the topic, understand why my ideas are supposedly wrong, but all I have is "-1". No message to reply to.
As the forum aims to get fair discussion (which is a good thing imho), I keep on wondering why the down vote exists at all.
"I don't think it is useful to the discussion" is too generic to have value, I think.
Is it just a silly tech-thing, "we have upvote, therefore we must have downvote too"?
(I would probably make that mistake too if I would write forum software the first time.)
Just wondering,
Albert
Disable down vote?
although to me, it is more "time of being here + number of posts"
It pretty much is 
Being forced to attach a "reason" to a downvote would be a good feature IMO.
+1's are good for "I agree with this"
-1's are good for "I don't agree with this" -- but to encourage discussion, it's important to state why you don't agree.
This suggestion has come up before 
It is definitely intentional that we have down votes. The latest version is actually the mildest we've had, the fact that it now costs a reputation point to down vote someone else has, for the most part, reduced abuse of this feature to the lowest levels I've ever seen. From a moderation point of view, it is very useful as it allows you to determine whether a particular member has a consistent attitude problem.
But you will always get down votes you don't agree with. Overall, I wouldn't worry about it if I were you, you seem to be doing fine.
I do agree about how, after a while, your reputation becomes mostly a function of how long and active you have been. Someone who has been here for a long time, but is occasionally rude, inaccurate or unhelpful, will appear to have a better reputation than a newer arrival who is more consistent. I think displaying something like a delta over the last month or N posts would be useful - whether alongside or instead of the current absolute value I'm not sure.
The option for including a message with a down vote has been requested, I don't know if it would help - it would depend on whether the down-voter engages with this. It could be abused to send unhelpful messages if it is anonymous.
The site has that. There are a few ways to get to it, like hovering your mouse over the person's name and picture to get the popup box, then clicking "View Reputation".I think displaying something like a delta over the last month or N posts would be useful - whether alongside or instead of the current absolute value I'm not sure.
The default span is 3 months, but you can change it.
Author
-1's are good for "I don't agree with this" -- but to encourage discussion, it's important to state why you don't agree.Indeed, disabling down vote would force people to write a post.
But you will always get down votes you don't agree with. Overall, I wouldn't worry about it if I were you, you seem to be doing fine.I am not worried at all, just wondering whether down vote is actually useful to the forum.
This suggestion has come up beforeI expected that, but a search didn't turn up anything, surprisingly. maybe the "searchbox" is just broken? (I haven't been able to find anything on this site by search, so far.)
Some people use downvotes to indicate disagreement with the viewpoint of a post. This isn't good. Typically I upvote someone who has an intelligent view that differs from my own.
However, the more common behavior is to use downvotes to indicate disagreement with the attitude of a post. This is important, because it helps users recognize that while they are welcome, and their viewpoints are welcome, their negative behavior isn't. This helps create, over time, a more friendly community and more civil discussions. This is an area of moderation where the user hasn't crossed an actual rule where a real moderator needs to step in, but is still crossing social lines of internet etiquette.
The site has that. There are a few ways to get to it, like hovering your mouse over the person's name and picture to get the popup box, then clicking "View Reputation".
The default span is 3 months, but you can change it.
Sure, I was more thinking that this information might be the one displayed by default, rather than buried elsewhere.
For example, Hodgman could start trolling us for years before his reputation would start to look bad relative to the rest of us. That's been the plan all along, hasn't it Hodgman?
The downvote button tooltip says "this response is not useful and does not improve the conversation", which seems a fair enough definition - and one that notably does not condone using it for mere disagreement.-1's are good for "I don't agree with this" -- but to encourage discussion, it's important to state why you don't agree.
So rather than using the downvote button to register disagreement, I'd say one should use it to indicate that the poster is either factually incorrect, or that the poster's tone is out of line (and if more than mildly so, this should be accompanied by a report to the moderators).
The downvote button tooltip says "this response is not useful and does not improve the conversation", which seems a fair enough definition - and one that notably does not condone using it for mere disagreement.
If the site wishes to discourage downvoting for mere disagreement, that might be made clearer by indicating that the two buttons are not perfect opposites. It may be that a UX change would improve the usage of the rating system. I think the tooltip text is clear, but maybe by changing the icons and labeling them it might help.
With perhaps the tooltip for the "warn" saying, "Warn for unfriendly or rude behavior".
I also agree with the show the last 30 days worth of ratings idea, though I might suggest it being, use the last 30 votes, so you're not "punished" for being absent from the site.
You should have seen it in the old days. Where people with high reputaion counts (for whatever reason ... ie- merely just posting everyday..i) imparted an exaggerated MINUS score on a single down count --- I made the mistake of posting (my opinion) in the "Lounge" on a controvercial subject and getting a huge down reputation score shift overnight (when certain peoples intollerance of other peoples opinions on something unrelated to any competance in subjects addressed by the rest of the forum site (game stuff) was still enforced).
Since then its been flattened (i think - to one vote one count)
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