I’d be against. The forums were open to “the unwashed masses” for years before they were pay to post, and a reputation system would only fuel and/or confirm the existing gossip about cliques. It’s just not needed.
I’ve seen rep systems that work, and rep systems that don’t. The ones that don’t, really don’t. The ones that do, really do. If we had a good one, it would, honestly, be a benefit to the boards. But in order to have it, we’d first have to introduce it, i.e. get over the hurdle of not-having-it and then having-it. Naturally, the mere proposal of a potentially destructive feature would in itself be disruptive enough to serve as argument against it. Kind of a quandary.
But . . . but . . . but then I could finally find out if I’m in the clique or not!
Just kidding. I don’t really care.
I agree that Charter Members should be able to keep their titles.
Back when the board went to pay-to-post, a lot of people said they’d never pay for internet content, and left. The Charter Members stayed and paid. Personally, against my better judgment, I paid and maintained my subscription to a board that appeared to be going down the tubes at times.
The Charter Members were tossed this “meaningless” bone of a title as incentive to sign up front instead of waiting to see if it worked out. Please let us keep it.
If the board is modernized, I’d like to request that the background color of the windows remain white, as they always have.
Window with white backgrounds are much easier to read; also, colored window backgrounds like these look much less professional at work. 
Good. Because you’re not. 
(This last post probably would have been more coherent if I’d waited until this morning, instead of posting half-asleep last night.)
What I was trying to say was that, in addition to the half-price benefit, Charter Members were given the title of “Charter Member” as an incentive to sign up right away (instead of waiting to see if that business plan actually worked well enough to keep the board going).
While this benefit may seem meaningless on its face, it means something to us. I, for one, would like to keep it.
That’s very well said. I’ve participated in a few boards with “rep per poster” systems and a few with “rate this post” systems. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.
The “rate this post” systems swiftly eliminate spam, off-topic posts (unless they’re really funny), and threadshitting. The ones that actually highlight the top-rated posts (e.g. Thottbot) are cool for old threads, where you can find the legendary awesome posts really fast.
The “rep per poster” systems seem to work more slowly, depending on threshholds, but they’re fairly good at self-policing when you have a community like this one. Newbies start out neutral and don’t get hurt by it, and the generally okay poster who screws up once doesn’t lose all the rep in one mass blast.
Overall, I like both types of systems.
Try pinning a note to your shirt. 
Here, just print out this post and make a little sign for yourself:
Velma is a Cheapskate
there you go.
I’m completely opposed to a rep system. On this board, we’re expected to, and even often do, judge posts on their value, rather than on the reputation (or lack thereof) of their author. I wouldn’t like this to change.
Thanks! Now if I can just remember where I put those damned safety pins. . .
Check in the vegetable crisper.
here’s a subject nobody has mentioned yet: Will ex-Dopers be notified that we are no longer charging big bucks?
(I’m assuming that somewhere in the data base the email addresses are retained, even if a poster dropped out and no longer pays.)
We lost a lot of nice folks who left when the payment system was introduced… It would be a good for the site to welcome them back----, but they need to contacted and told that it’s free again.
I’m assuming that since the new business model is based on ad revenue, the ads will be more intrusive. It’s easy to ignore the current ads. Will ads now be placed in more visible locations, such as between posts or to the right of posts?
I expect it will be like this:
I’m <Buy stuff!>assuming that <new penis enlarger REALLY works!>since the <IMPORTANT: Your checking account has been disabled. Click here to log in and let us empty it out!>new business <make your tits bigger overnight with our MIRACLE cream!>model is <Now on special!>based on ad revenue,<online pharmacy!> the ads will <Cialis! delivered to your door by an official government agent!>be more intrusive.<no way!> It’s easy to ignore <oh, yeah?>the current ads.<Just try!> Will ads now <special for the next 10 minutes only!>be placed in <You have won a brand new Toyota!>more visible<Bill Gates is giving $50 to the next 100 people who send him this email!> locations, <location, location, location, like in your face, loser!>such as between <No!>posts <Yes!> or to the right <Ha!>of <Ha Ha!>posts?
For a new member posting a question in GQ, I can see it being a very good thing. In other forums, it’s a little less useful. I’d be interested in at least seeing a description of a good one.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, seems to me. A lot of your users dont want to see the ads, but you wont make money without a certain amount ads seen.
Do you expect the membership fee to remain the same? (After all, it seems to me that if you were making money as it is, you wouldn’t be changing to a different system, I assume.)
Whoever invented pop-ups needs to die. Horribly.
(That’s a joke.)
I’m not convinced. A particular doper could post incoherent ramblings about political issues, and get a bad rep as a result, while being perfectly knowledgeable concerning the reproductive cycle of turtles.
I’m against a generalized reputation system, but I would love to see a “Best Answer” feature in GQ, allowing the OP to mark a post, or posts, as the best answer to their question. Folks who tend to give the best answer can develop informal dope cred. I have never seen this feature implemented unsuccessfully.
I was going to address that in my post, but decided against it. The internet is a different place than it was when these boards were free, bigger, more people, and for some even more difficult to control their kids (it wasn’t too long ago AOL was king with their fancy parental controls menu. My internal internet timeline may be a little whacked though because I can’t remember when AOL started declining. There doesn’t seem to be as good of a system anymore short of figuring out how to set up websense or something which many don’t know how to). Besides, rep systems can have rules to prevent clique stuff from happening, there’s still going to be a small degree but you canc ut down on it.
On a board I was on you couldn’t see their rep, there were four possible badges you could get… two good and two bad. It took a LOT of work to get a good badge and you had to be a complete troll to either bad badge (and the worst one had an auto-ban attached to it, of course you could PM a mod if anything unfair happend which never did while I was there). You may think “hey, this person is usually helpful” but it rarely increases the merit of the posts (especially since the badge is quite unnotcable unless you conciously look for it).
That’s why it requires a rule system. The rules I’ve worked with have terms such as no derepping if you disagree with a poster. You can derep them if they call everyone in the thread a “goddamn cocksucker that should die in a fire” (you should also report them for that of course) or they’re slinging too much mud but not enough to get formally in trouble, but agreeing/disagreeing isn’t a reasont o rep on the list (in fact it’s list on the section titled DO NOT REP FOR:).