Honestly I think you yourself do care quite a lot about your reputation, even if you say you don't.

You make a thread about this exact thing every so often, and it's always right after you get downvoted because you posted a reply which contains irrelevant or just bad advice to some thread. Once you get downvoted you start complaining and trolling about being downvoted in the same thread which gets you downvoted even more since you're derailing the thread from its original topic.

I've read trough your latest downvoted replies, and the exact scenario I described above happened. The OP in that thread required info from a professional developer, you replied to his questions with vague answers while you weren't even the right person to answer them, so you get downvoted. When someone tries to tell you that the OP actually wanted answers from an industry professional you just start trolling, which gets you downvoted even more.

The reputation system might not be perfect (nothing is), but if you still believe the problem lies with the rep system or everyone else on this forum, it's really time to start thinking about your own replies or to stop replying for a while altogether.

And if you happen to have the bad luck to start off with a bad reputation then it's impossible to get a good reputation.
Because other users can downvote your posts without getting a penalty themselves.
If someone has a red number then you dont even need to read it just downvote before reading it since you dont take a penalty for doing that.

No. Down-voting does carry a penalty; you lose 1 point every time you down-vote someone (no matter the rank of that person).

In order for your reputation to get so low, other members have "spent" hundreds of points of their own reputation. You also down-vote a large number of posts yourself, which obviously lowers your own rating (unless you up-vote an equal amount). You've even abused the rep system where you've gone through several dozen posts belonging to a particular member (across many threads) and down-voted all of them within a few minutes.

but it is a bit sad that people judge me before reading my posts just because they see the red number.[/quote]You've got that backwards. You receive so many down-votes because people do read your posts.

I don't quite understand how you do it, but we're always getting complaints about you specifically, as people always seem to think you're trolling. I've actually stepped to your defence in these matters and argued that you are honestly not aware of how offensive you often are, and aren't deliberately trolling...

Honestly, the reputation system isn't perfect and we'd like to continue improving it to make the absolute best system we possibly can. It will likely never be perfect for everyone, but with continued work I'm sure we can make something that keeps the majority of users happy, provides useful information, and isn't overly intrusive for those who would prefer to simply ignore it.

The majority of users wanted a system where individual posts were voted on rather than directly voting on users.
The majority of users wanted a system where voting was not enabled in off-topic forums such as The Lounge and Comments, Suggestions and Ideas.
The majority of users wanted a system where there was a penalty for down-voting to discourage pointless down-votes.

All of these changes were implemented, and I think they made for great improvements to the system.



Now, that being said we will not be removing the reputation system. Even the older, significantly more flawed system resulted in a marked improvement in the site, helping both to discourage problem content as well as highlighting the most helpful users.

We are however absolutely willing to take suggestions and ideas for how to improve the system.



Let's be brutally honest though. You're not interested in improving the system, and most of your complaints about the system are based on flawed assumptions. You're a spoilt kid who is upset that you've been down-voted for consistently foolish behaviour.

Your reputation is not simply bad luck, it's the result of your own behaviour. You have been consistently voted down to the extent that even whilst gaining a free +1 for each day you log in you're ranked #203039. It takes more -- significantly more -- than 100 negative votes to get a reputation as low as yours. You're consistently accused of trolling, not by the same people repeatedly, but by different users each time. Another major contribution to your negative reputation is the fact that you consistently down-vote anyone you dislike or who's opinion you disagree with, even if they're trying to help you or are simply pointing out facts, costing you -1 point to your own reputation each time.

Your reputation is completely deserved, and I would suggest that if people take you less seriously based on your reputation then that's really a glowing commendation for the system rather than some black mark against it.


I'll briefly respond to some specifics from your posts though:

You can get a positive reputation just from simply giving others a positive reputation.
This means that everyone will have a positive reputation and it means that reputation doesn't actually mean anything.

This is to encourage participation by voting, and also allows an opportunity for those who have been down-voted to restore their reputation. There's also a limit on how many points can be gained in this way.

Rather than meaning that reputation doesn't mean anything, it makes it even more impressive that your reputation is so low in spite of the fact that any up-voting helps to balance it out.

if you happen to have the bad luck to start off with a bad reputation then it's impossible to get a good reputation.

No one is forced to start off with a bad reputation due to bad luck. Everyone starts with the same reputation. Everyone gets +100 points for free to begin with. Everyone earns +1 free reputation point each day they log in, so that all your have to do to cancel out a down-vote is to log in on four separate days. Unless you're being consistently down-voted it's actually pretty easy to recover from damage to your reputation score.

Because other users can downvote your posts without getting a penalty themselves.

As has already been pointed out, this isn't correct. In order to discourage pointless or petty down-voting we made it cost a point from your own reputation to down-vote someone else.

Also if a user with negative rep downvotes someone else then the target doesnt actually get negative rep.

You need to have a reputation lower than 0 -- that is, you must have lost at least 100 points, plus any additional ones you have earned -- for this to apply, and your votes would begin to have an effect again if your reputation were raised above 0 again. Up-voting can earn your points back towards this end. Logging in also helps earn your points back.

It's so easy to avoid being effected that you're the only regularly active user it applies to, and again, I think it's a good thing; as mentioned above, you often down-vote people who are trying to help you, and I think most people who agree that it's a good thing that your votes don't effect their reputations.

and the following im not 100% sure off but negative rep users get bigger negative hits every time.

This is incorrect.

there was a female moderator, i think she is the one who made this system.

No.

one of my warnings on this forum is because I started off a reply with "you are wrong" and then I followed it up with a lengthy paragraph with my arguements and reasoning why I believe he was wrong.

I can see your warning history, and this isn't accurate.

and sometimes i just upvote randomly without reading their posts just so i can get a few positive reps.

Again, you admit to cheating the system and you still have one of the lowest reputations around.

I always back up what I say with reasoning,sense and logic and sometimes even facts.

Unfortunately, your sense of "reasoning, sense and logic" is twisted enough that you're often completely incorrect and quite often somehow completely ignorant of the realities of the industry and completely unwilling to listen to those who try to better inform you. It's a pretty regular occurrence that a knowledgeable member tells you some fact about how things are normally done and you simply stick your head in the sand and insist it isn't true.



If anyone has any genuine feedback they'd like to offer on the system, we're more than happy to hear it! We know it isn't perfect, and we will continue to work on improvements.

This post prompted me to look through this user's recent history. They have been banned. The system works.