I curious if the ratings could be setup so that beginners have to "earn" the right to upvote or downvote a post. This could be participation in the site, not having less than 0 for so many months, or getting their posts upvoted.

The whole idea of having to spend reputation to down vote others is a form of earning. That idea has been mentioned a few times.

I still think voting on posts should lock after a fixed time period and you can only up/down vote a user so many times per length of time.

I still think voting on posts should lock after a fixed time period and you can only up/down vote a user so many times per length of time.

That's a good idea. I could go for that.
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I like the idea of up/down voting a specific user only once an day, or whatever, as long as you take into account these issues:
- If I upvote, I should still be able to undo it by downvoting, and vice-versa.
- I need to be able to upvote/downvote multiple different users in the same thread, without being timed out.

Those two issues make implementing your suggestion slightly more complicated. Keeping track of the time of my vote, the user I voted on, and what type of vote I did (up or down?). The more they have to tweak, the more they get away from the 'off-the-shelf' version of the forum software.

But I totally agree, that would be the desirable solution. And hey, GDNet isn't a really off-the-shelf community; they knew they'd have to at least do some customization the shape the site around us.

[quote name='Gaiiden' timestamp='1311547747' post='4839765']
I'm completely against downvoting in the Lounge, personally.

Honestly, speaking for myself, I don't see the big deal of downvoting in the Lounge if voting either way is completely decoupled from Reputation. I mean... it's the Lounge. It's opinion-based, non-technical. So why limit an user choice to express their opinion? People have downvoted and responded to posts before. There's no danger in that not happening. And... it's decoupled from Reputation. Completely harmless, IMO.
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I think the Lounge is a perfect place to down vote a post with words rather than a little button. As long as it doesn't end up in vicious name calling, in which case a mod can still lock the thread, I prefer to see a post when someone has a different opinion. This in contrast with technical threads where you prefer a high information density and "I don't like your post" comments would only derail the original topic, unless the post contains detailed information why someone post might be 'incorrect'. The same as replying with a random image of a kitten to show one's appreciation for a post in the Lounge isn't so much a problem (in fact I highly encourage it), but it probably wouldn't be appropriate response in the OpenGL forum.