One other recommendation I would make on this subject is that if a person is not posting in a thread they get at maximum 1 downvote in a thread.

Well downvoting anything will drop the downvoters reputation by a point.. do you still think this is necessary given that condition?

[quote name='Cornstalks' timestamp='1334879289' post='4932997']
The goal of the reputation system isn't reputation. Its goal is to let good things float to the top (by encouraging them) and crappy things sink to the bottom (by discouraging them, in addition to rating filters). It's not worth developing an overly complex system for this, in my opinion.

In my viewpoint though a goal of the reputation system actually is reputation. Determining content quality is definitely a goal, but we also want to recognize contributions. Don't forget that programmers are typically very ego-driven and IMO we want to make sure that the people that are doing a lot of work helping other people get the most exposure on the site.. with the ability to segment reputation by time slices it will be able to tell where you fall within a short time period. This nullifies only the most senior people on the forums from being guaranteed a top spot.
[/quote]

From personal experience I would agree with this. I do try to make my posts insightful, helpful and occasionally dark-humoured (dark humour always gets me minuses lol). But I find ratings as a useful guide letting me know that an answer I have given is useful. As well as when I am being downvoted I also find a deeper understanding of where I went wrong and incertain cases if my advice is truly abysmal will actually re-edit the post acknowledging that it was bad advice. The rating provide a very quick visual form to indicate something is right or wrong as well an acknowledgement that your work does count...or not count as sometimes is the case.

[quote name='Stormynature' timestamp='1334933490' post='4933230']
One other recommendation I would make on this subject is that if a person is not posting in a thread they get at maximum 1 downvote in a thread.

Well downvoting anything will drop the downvoters reputation by a point.. do you still think this is necessary given that condition?
[/quote]

Probably not. To be honest can't wait for this system to be implemented. Having just had a second round of multiple single downvotes over 2 threads after having had the first round repaired by a Moderator it gets annoying to log on and find yourself knocked back 9 or so points and then try and figure out why.

Almost. Except for the explanation part with the "this is how to be a good member of the community."

We actually created a new article section called "GameDev.net Help" which will be open to both staff and the community to post articles to.

http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/gdnethelp/

We'll be looking to provide this as a centralized area to share information regarding the new system, writing articles, etc.

I'm not sure that a somewhat arbitrary numerical scale is the best way to track contributions. especially when the upvote/downvote buttons still seem to mostly be used for 'asshat --> non-asshat' differentiation.

Then we need to do a better job letting people know that it isn't "I think you're an asshat and I disagree with you breathing on this world" and it is "your answer isn't of a sufficient enough technical quality to serve as a useful response to the OT". With the old system we never said much of anything as to what the numbers meant.. with this one we will be explicit.