I just noticed how when folks have a negative reputation, it shows them as 0 in the actual threads.

I just wanted to say - and I'm assuming it's intentional - that is a really clever design choice. This is so the reputation tag in the corner doesn't negatively color people's interpretations of posts, right?

I just noticed how when folks have a negative reputation, it shows them as 0 in the actual threads.

I just wanted to say - and I'm assuming it's intentional - that is a really clever design choice. This is so the reputation tag in the corner doesn't negatively color people's interpretations of posts, right?

Correct

I would prefer to be able to negatively vote, and un-like something already liked.

A while back we started with a positive uprating only system with the conversion to IPS. Then due to some complaints about lack of downrating we added back downrating of a particular post. We've opted to backtrack a bit on that largely to address the largest number of issues and secondarily to fall in line with the way the next iteration of the forum software will handle this issue.

At this point in time negative downrating is no longer permitted for a particular post. There were a couple reasons for this:

1. Downrating hurts a persons reputation, so a person disagreeing with a particular point of view can have a damaging effect on the rating of a member
2. The system does not limit consecutive downrates from member A to member B, meaning one member can go and downrate every post a member has made and kill their rep
3. We *want* this to be a positive system that we can ultimately tie other participation to - for example, if we publish an article a user has created then +50 rep, or if we feature their blog + 25 rep . These amounts are just made up and don't reflect any hard decisions, but we want people to be motivated to increase their reputation. We also want reputation to be more readily impacted by what you contribute on a positive basis to the community.
4. 100% of the headaches of the reputation system have stemmed from downrating and abuse, which because of the way the software works we can't easily control
5. A negative downrate on a post tells a user absolutely nothing about the post without knowing that the downrate came from an expert on the topic - A complete noob and an expert are equals (which shouldn't be the case)

The solution thus far:
1. IPS 3.2 is moving to a system that integrates all "Like" capabilities into one system - We grabbed the 3.2 version of the "Like This" image they are incorporating into posts and put it on our forums - thumbs up is gone
2. If a user is technically wrong, then downrating never said anything about why the answer was wrong in the first place - Wrong answers will have to be reconciled the old-fashioned way.. by actual discussion. This discussion should prove to make a particular topic a better resource anyway, and that's kind of the point of the site.

So without rewriting the way the whole thing works, our path of least resistance right now is to disable downrating. This is a case of the cons of having negative ratings outweigh the pros and we dont have an interim solution.

So now all the computer nerds have their own conflict free zone on the internet. How nice. Since I can't get down rated I have little incentive not to call people computer nerds. Quite honestly, this kind pussification is whats wrong with the youth of today.

Given the arguments against, I wish the negative ratings for posts had been kept, but the rating score for individuals been nuked. Yes, saying a post is wrong is useful, but a negative five rating on a post is a more clear indication that a person is spouting bad advice than five posts from people saying that he's wrong.