Statement: remove negative repution.
Thread that make me think about it: http://villavu.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77208
At the moment the reputation system used on this forum works with people giving each other positive and negative reputation. A certain quantity based on the giver there reputation power will be added to or removed from the current amount of the receiver his/her reputation. This will then increase the amount of green boxes shown under the username. This is supposed to be a representation of the way the community feels about someone and the amount of respect the person receives from the community.
The point from this system I don't like and would like to discuss is that you are able to disapprove someones post based on it's content. It happens that people receive de rep purely based on the fact that the user has posted a opinion different than the the person that disapproves. I think that this is doesn't reflect the purpose of the reputation system and will force users to post opinions that are accepted by the community. I believe this is a system that indirectly removes the right of free speech on this forum. For that matter I would like to see this function removed.
Another reason to remove this function could be the purpose if it is used correctly. Why would someone hand out negative reputation to an other user? If the other person really misbehaves or is trying to start a flame war a member with the power to hand out warnings and infraction(ssrl+) will review the post if you report it. This is the method these users should be punished by, not by giving negative reputation cause from your point of view the user misbehaved. It's, till a certain degree, back seat modding from other users. If I posted an offensive post with or without a few curses, I would probably receive some negative reputation and an infraction. Why is there a need to hand out that negative rep? The warning or infraction isn't shown in my public profile for a reason. It isn't necessary to carry that note around.
When negative reputation is removed people there reputation will reflect all the good or amazing posts this person has made. I believe that it is more important to value someone for there good posts, then forgetting those posts when he or she made a bad post. This is also a question what do you want to be shown by the reputation? The amount someone contributed to this community by scripts, help and useful posts would be my answer to that question. What else do you want to be displayed by the reputation system? It would be an improvement to the current system which doesn't give an accurate amount of reputation earned by a person. What if a person wrote an awesome tutorial, but then states in another thread that he disapproves the homosexual marriage, the odds are that he will receive few or no reputation cause of the negative reputation. I would like that to be fixed.
Note that I do not receive many negative reputation.
Discuss.