Hello Jeremy,
its a good idea and will give all those helpers some recognition for their efforts, delta bravo.

This is a really bad idea. I find it hard to believe that LQ has put as much thought into it as claimed, because the problem is too obvious: by making the reputation personal, you give a red-carpet invitation to people who want to make personal attacks, lowering reputations as much as they can. The 'thanks' button did not do this.

It would have made much more sense to replace the 'thanks' button with something that allows more finely-grained feedback/gratitude, WITHOUT making it personal. I have in mind, as a rough example, a very short survey asking such questions as "Was this response on topic?", "Were you able to solve the problem with the info in this response?", "was the response polite/clear?" and a few more like that.

I think the idea is great. Reputations like this can be cheated though.

I'm interested in why you think people will be incented to "lower reputations as much as they can"? Is that your perception of the community here at LQ? Additionally, you do understand that only the most Senior members have access to the ability to use the negative portion of the system?

--jeremy

One of the main goals of LQ is to help members get questions about Linux answered

It seems that the majority of the newbies like myself are very happy if
they got answers to their questions, and even if some are more or less helpfull, you got more than one replies!
I hope that not the majority of senior members wants LQ turn into a kind
of 1M $ Quiz 'who is best in Linux' without the 1M $ reward.

Well, normally I'm against a rep system as it is often implemented, simply because you can be down rep-ed to near zero within a short period of time by a bunch of spammers. However, from what I've read on the system now implemented here (as I was away when it happened), it might be alright. My only problem with the rep system is negative reps, but I suppose if they must have a comment and only count 50% and are only available to senior members, this may solve the issue. I guess we will see how it turns out. It is also great that people can opt out of the system in case.

@H_TeXMeX_H: have a look at the update from Jeremy here. As you can see, the system is fair and there appears to be no abuse of negrep.

One of the moderators already addressed the issue earlier in this thread by pointing out that only privileged users, "senior members", will be able to give negative ratings. Or something like that (I am not quoting precise words). It sounds good, but I am still skeptical. "Senior members" are not infallible just because they are senior. On the contrary: their seniority usually gives them superior technical knowledge, but there is little correlation between that and the skill set required to answer questions well, which is a skill set very much like "customer support". So, for example, senior members are more likely to assume that the asker knows something that senior member knows, but the asker does not.

I saw this vividly illustrated when I asked a question about deleting and then reinstalling applications (I was trying to avoid having to do this); it turns out the answerer assumed I knew that most (at least all "well-behaved") Linux applications save their configurations in the home directory, so that you can remove and reinstall an application without losing your configurations/settings.

When he finally did mention this, his wording made it clear how impatient he had become, which is entirely inappropriate behavior for a forum that prides itself on being a friendly place for newbies to get help.

That is why, despite all the progressive innovation that LQ has accomplished, little has changed since this issue (of the differing skill sets) was first brought up, in a nascent but still relevant form, back in the 4th century BC by Plato in the Gorgias (where Gorgias claims the rhetorician can explain even what he does not himself understand).

"The majority"? How do you know? Did you do a count? I have seen a great many newbie questions either left unanswered or answered incorrectly. But I have not done a count, I doubt it is a 'majority'; just a noticeable number.

Then there are those which, just like you say, have more than one reply, but most of the replies are wrong! I pity the newbie trying to figure out which answer is correct

Hmm, yes, it does seem to be going well.

I never said that senior members are infallible, or that they should have greater power because they have been here longer. Instead, my concern was with new members spamming the rep system with negative reps. I would say that at the very least, being a senior member means that you are not a spammer, and will not negative rep people for no reason. That was my main concern, and I think that it has been dealt with by the rules now in place.

How I know ? I just counted the number of newbies and comments in that thread(Adalin, paparts, robeich), I don't know if this is representative to all the other newbies.
I do agree that a correct answer is best.
But are you sure that a very strict pointing system is reducing the number of not so good or wrong replies ?

Honestly, I could care less about a rep system. With reps, or without reps, does not change how I answer or ask questions. I see people dunking on others left and right about what the majority likes or doesn't like; Why does that matter for a rep system?

This forum's priority should remain what, I assume, has always been: answering questions for those who need it. Adding a rep system would just complicate what is already a great system and a great community.

For those who wish to argue my points: I don't care. This isn't a discussion for me and I have left my feedback.

I used to participate in an online language translation forum which had a good system where you could agree with someone elses posting. The posting which most users agreed with would then be marked as being the 'best solution' unless the OP chose another option as being the best one.

When the OP marked the thread as 'solved' they'd have the chance to indicate which solution worked for them. Long-standing threads which were never marked as solved would show the posting which most agreed on as being the best answer.

The poster with the 'winning' solution would be awarded kudos and points.

This method correlated the scoring accuracy directly to the specific question from the OP and not by giving a general grade to the other posters. Posters may know lots about some things and next-to-nothing about something else. This system also raised the 'historical value' of each thread, making it easier to find a 'right' answer for a new question from an old thread.

BTW, the site I'm talking about is: www.proz.com
if you want to take a look. Their system may have changed, for better or worse, since I last participated there 8-9 years ago.