ForumRepSystemRebuttal

Rebuttal by [MartinMeredith]

Moderator Participation

The author of the proposal of which I am rebutting states the following

 This is in fact a sweeping assumption, many of the more wild forums that employ this method of self-policing have highly repped moderators since they are the ones that keep things on track.

By not participating in a system they have brought in, certain moderators seem to be saying that they are above others and therefore should be immune from feedback from their fellow Ubuntu users and developers. 

This is, In my opinion, completely innacurate. As a moderator/ex-moderator of several large forums, I personally have experience of Forum Moderators/Administrators being "attacked" via the web due to their actions of moderation taken on forums. I have regularly seen members of staff be slandered/libelled across the web, because of their actions that are complying with well-defined moderation policies. I have also seen more than one person be "CyberStalked" because of the actions that they took against a user on a forum.

Recieving Negative reputation can be classed as "lesser" than the above, but it is still classed as abuse. As Moderators/Administrators, they are open to abuse, which by disabling the "feedback" system for themselves, they are protecting themselves against such abuse.

Psychological: Fear of Speaking One's Mind

Some of our users spend massive amounts of time particpating on the forums. For those that interact at a frequent rate, they are likely to disagree with another user eventually. Certain individuals have much thinner skin than others and take "harsh", anonymous criticism a lot more personally. Therefore, getting negative reputation may discourage certain individuals to fully speak their mind, which is against the spirit of Ubuntu as per the Code of Conduct:

 Desmond Tutu described ubuntu in the following way:
      "A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole."
      -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in No Future Without Forgiveness

If people want to speak their mind on the Ubuntu Forums, then they are free to do so, however, flaming and spamming is against the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. To quote the following passage, from said Code of Conduct

Be respectful

Spamming/Flaming/Trolling doesn't fall into that category, however, everyone has the right to speak their own mind, to the extent where they are not either

1) Directly provoking other users. (aka Flaming)

For Example

STFU you loser

2) Indirectly Provoking other Users (aka Trolling)

For Example

Hey you guys, Why don't you use ''Distributinon X'' It's SOOOO much cooler than Ubuntu. All the users of it think so, so why do you guys still use Ubuntu

If someone makes a point, which is not directly/indirectly provoking other users, then it has the right to be there. If the person receives negative/abusive feedback via the reputation system, then they have the right to report it to an Administrator, who will remove it, and deal with the user who has misused the system. The Moderators/Adminstrators at the Ubuntu Forums are bound by the Code of Conduct, but they cannot be expected to be able to "Police" the WHOLE of the forums, espescially in a large forum such as UbuntuForums, and thus, a "karma" (reputation) system helps them do this.

It's Against the Spirit of Ubuntu

I will quote what skoal said on the forums, as this pretty much sums it up for me

Thanks for the quote. I actually re-read it and came back with a completely different conclusion than yourself.

    * "affirming of others" - check.
    * "does not feel threatened that others are able and good" - people who would otherwise receive neg rep should not feel envious or be intimidated by those who would otherwise receive good reps...check.
    * "[...]self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole." - as part of a "greater whole" we all (from time to time) need to reassure or reacquaint our brothers and sisters with that concept, which a rep system does...check.

How does the equivalent of giving someone a "pat on the back" go against the spirit of the community. It could be argues that the ability to give negative feedback is against this, but, say for example, the system was set up to only give positive feedback. What would stop that person making another account/having a friend give them positive feedback and then go around giving completely the wrong information, and possibly even giving out malicious information (for example, informing someone of a command that would cause them to destroy the data on their hard drive, whereas all the person wanted to do was for example, mount an NTFS drive. Whether the person did this knowledgably or not, the negative feedback means that people will be wary around that person, and wait for a higher rated person to respond to their question before acting on the advice of the person who may be answering questions wrongly, or acting maliciously.

I work for a website called InvisionFree At this website we work a "staff only" negative feedback system, this is for staff records, but basically works in a manner where the staff can give a negative feedback for a user if they are for example, breaking the rules, giving bad support etc. The user(s) never see this, but the logs of the negative feedback recieved is stored so that staff can "keep an eye" on troublesome users. This works well, and we dont have positive feedback, as it's accessible by staff only, and we don't need to keep a track on who's being good - just those being 'bad'

My Conclusion

In Conclusion, I believe that there is no problem with the current system on UbuntuForums, and in my opinion, it is neccessary to the running of the forums. I will be attending the Community Council Meeting via IRC and wish to be called upon to provide the view of a member of the UbuntuForums, an experienced Forum Administrator/Moderator, and a part of the Development team of a widely used Forum system, (names not named for privacy reasons, will be disclosed on request to a Community Council Member