But you previously said it was to support a person’s reputation. Which is it?
I think it would be a lot of fun to give people points for good posts but I guess most don’t feel that way.
Fun? There are plenty of places you can go for Fun out there on the interwebs. No need to drag something that might be “fun” to this board.
Next you’ll be wanting pictures, since some of those cats are “fun.”
Bah. Humbug.
I found this in the FAQ’s of the board:
What are ratings?
The forums allow you to rate threads between 1 star (terrible) and 5 stars (excellent). Once enough votes are cast for a thread, stars will appear next to its name in the listings. These show the average vote, and can be an easy way to see which threads are worth reading if you are on a busy forum.
On the forum viewing page you can also arrange threads by rating, with either the highest or lowest at the top.
It therefore makes sense to rate threads because it helps all users. To do this, click on the ‘rate thread’ link at the top of the thread viewing page. Choose the number of stars you feel best represents the quality of the thread. You may or may not be able to change your choice of rating at a later date.
This is what I meant. i guess you did this at one time but don’t any longer?
Speaking of pictures…we’re not allowed to have a profile pic? I’m new here…please be nice:D
re:stars
I do not remember that feature being live on this board at any time, and I joined two weeks after Ed Zotti.
I know another board I frequented had that turned on, and it lead to a furious flurry of ballot-box stuffing.
I can’t seem to find these in the SDMB FAQs-could you please provide a link?
Paid subscribers only. 
That’s a generic FAQ page for all vBulletin forums. (It’s over here.) It talks about some features we don’t use here. I don’t think we’ve ever turned on avatars or reputation.
Oh. Ok thanks;)
We don’t “rate” threads here-we participate in them. If a thread isn’t to your liking, you can either chip in and try to make it better, or ignore it and watch it eventually slip off the front page. If you are concerned about how “popular” you are, you should do some research before you post things you think are facts, accept corrections gracefully, and hand them out just as gracefully-do this, and your reputation will skyrocket without the aid of any buttons, lights or whistles.
thanks:)
Two points: first, you already have a way for users to share interesting threads on their Facebook: you paste the link to the thread in your status update. People (including you) can then “Like” the link, and that does the exact same thing as a “Like” button on the thread page itself would have done. A large website I work on recently added “Like” buttons to every page, and we were a bit surprised when we rolled it out and loaded up one popular page to test it, and that page already had over 4000 “Likes.” This is because people can “Like” a page whether or not you put a “Like” button on it. So the first point is: a “Like” button doesn’t get you any functionality you don’t already have.
Second: It’s not a no-brainer. It may be free to use and easy to install, but it has a cost: performance. Facebook is friggin terrible about this. Every time you load a page from a site that includes “Like” buttons, your browser sends extra requests to Facebook to load the little image and the code for the “Like” button. On days when Facebook is performing badly (which does happen), it is incredibly annoying to wait 30 seconds staring a mostly-empty page on cnn.com with your status bar saying “waiting for static.fbcdn.com.”
I participate on a “hyperlocal” blog where issues related to one city are discussed. There’s a very strong hive mind on there, which leans towards blind boosterism and “homerism”. Make a well-worded, well-cited post that goes against the grain of the hive mind, and watch your reputation plunge.
The SDMB, in many respects, has a similar hive mind. Imagine what would happen to the reputation of an otherwise intelligent, articulate and well-regarded poster who admits to being a deist or having once enjoyed a meal at Olive Garden. Would posts by celebrity Dopers be judged differently than a lesser-known member?
Only if you decide which threads are “worth reading” based on how many other people have made that assessment. Which I realize many people do, I just don’t support encouraging it.
I pick threads based on topic. My experience is that the herd has a very low bar for what they find compelling.
This is what I was thinking of when i had an exchange with Guin a few days ago about the way this board has lost some of what made it great. Things are a lot hivier than they once were, and that’s sad.
LOL “Like”
Let’s not forget the one thing we can agree on–the Straight Dope is for thoughtful discussions of topics, even if the topics themselves aren’t very significant. “Like” buttons really don’t help thoughtful discussions at all, and sometimes can hurt them. You might have people playing to the balconies, only posting highly popular opinions just to get high ratings. Reasoned people who hold unpopular views may quit because their ratings are too negative. Like buttons won’t kill the Dope but they could certainly hurt the board.
Unfortunately I worry that people who would in the past think up four paragraphs to reply will just think “ah hell I’ll just push the like button”.
So what? Ken can have different reasons than other posters for supporting a Like button.
Which makes it totally useless. Did the post get 25 “likes” because that many people agreed with what the poster was saying, because that many people like that poster, because of a combination of the two, or because certain people will push the “like” button for their clique no matter what is posted? The poster is stuck wondering why people are “liking” or “not liking” the post, and an exchange of ideas(y’know-the reason for a lot of these threads) is tossed to the side.