Anon Coward votes not counting towards pretty badges

This topic was created by Warren Sealey .

[Warren Sealey]

Anon Coward votes not counting towards pretty badges

I'd like to start a conversation about the house rule that Anon Coward posts don't count towards "seniority" on the forums.

My thought is that sometimes when a person wants to post something which is closely linked to their specialist subject they can't use their real identity due to possible problems with their employer.

Obviously I am bringing this up on behalf of the community as a whole not because some of my best (IMHO) posts have been as an AC...

[jake]

Re: Anon Coward votes not counting towards pretty badges

How about, instead, ElReg does away with the bloody useless, utterly meaningless badges entirely? I haven't been in the scouts for about 40 years, and put .mil behind me over 30 years ago ... And while we're at it, get rid of the equally useless, meaningless "thumbs".

[Anonymous Coward 15]

Re: Anon Coward votes not counting towards pretty badges

Noo, keep the thumbs, it's fun to watch when someone behaves like a c*nt and attracts a torrent of downvotes but is still clueless.

[TeeCee]

Re: Anon Coward votes not counting towards pretty badges

Yes, I would also miss the regular game of "upvote the Eadon slapdown".

[John Smith 19]

@TeeCee

"Yes, I would also miss the regular game of "upvote the Eadon slapdown"."

Sadly no more.

[LinkOfHyrule]

Re: Anon Coward votes not counting towards pretty badges

I like the thumbs up'n'down, its fun to monitor how my corny jokes go down with the forum readers who can be bothered to click. I must admit though, my 5:1 ratio of up to down does make me wonder at times that I cannot surely be that funny - I think people are less likely to click on thumbs down than up unless you say something really dumb.

I wonder if an ignore button will be a good or bad thing for my "score"? hmmm

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Anon Coward votes not counting towards pretty badges

Everyone loves TeeCee. He said that he had an 8:1 up:down ratio in one of these threads (or was it 9:1?), so obviously his bad jokes are better than your bad jokes...

I don't take the votes too seriously, but I would love to know what Eadon's down:up ratio is? I'm making a guess that it's more down than up. What makes it funnier, is that I get the impression he's not a deliberate troll, he thinks he's fighting the good fight for freedom. Then every so often he posts something that suggests he's older than (a rather idealistic) 16, and I swing back to thinking he must be trolling deliberately.

Do you not have an ignore button? I thought they were going to roll them out to the sliver-badgers. I've not used mine - but I'd thought it was supposed to be for gold and silver, but they'd only rolled it out to the gold medalists first? Personally I'm too nosy to use one, plus you can't tell how the conversation is made up, if bits of it are missing. Also, in my experience as a forum Mod, what an ignore button meant was for someone to let fly with, 'I'm putting you on ignore now!!!!!!' - only to take them off ignore, reply to a post, and then loudly say they were putting them on ignore again BECOZ I HATE U!!!!. Rinse and repeat.

[jake]

Re: Anon Coward votes not counting towards pretty badges

No ignore button for us lowly silver commentards.

Not that I'd use it anyway ... wetware is a far more effective bozo filter. Thirty years of Usenet will do that to a guy.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Anon Coward votes not counting towards pretty badges

As you say jake, you should normally be able to spot an idiot within the first sentence. Even without looking at usernames.

[TeeCee]

Re: Anon Coward votes not counting towards pretty badges

Personally I'm too nosy to use one....

Same here. Only commentard I've ever considered using that on is Eadon, but the thread resulting from one of his turdspurts is often quite funny and I need the OP to make sense of it all.

Eadon's ratio is an interesting question. Dunno why you can't see another commentard's up / down totals. After all you can see all their posts and the scores on each so you could just add 'em up, which makes the total counts public domain info anyway.

The new layout in many places here seems to be having a skewing effect. If you can get one onto the article page under "Most popular comments" it skyrockets from there. Anyone else noticed that?

[John Smith 19]

Re: Anon Coward votes not counting towards pretty badges

"My thought is that sometimes when a person wants to post something which is closely linked to their specialist subject they can't use their real identity due to possible problems with their employer.

Obviously I am bringing this up on behalf of the community as a whole not because some of my best (IMHO) posts have been as an AC..."

It seems a fair rule to me. The badges are partly # of posts and I think the Gold entries are a personal selection by the staff. Not number of down votes or up votes (but it's been along time since I read the email introducing them).

[Warren Sealey]

Or they could do that yes indeed.. Sorry, I play too many MMOs and I work in training... I end up trying to introduce badges and achievements into everything...

[I ain't Spartacus]

The bronze badge is awarded on post number, so as long as the large majority of your posts aren't anon, it shouldn't make a great deal of difference.

I guess they decided to try and reward people who don't post anon, hence the anon votes not counting. And I suppose it does sort of make sense, that if the badges represent some kind of 'reputation signal' then only your visible posts should count.

I don't really know why they bothered though. As the Register forums are mostly about banging on about the subjects of the articles, I don't really understand why they even want a user reputation system. It'd make a lot more sense if people came here for technical advice. I suppose it's possible that this is a direction they want to head, now they've launched the non-article forums. Otherwise, a badge for 'long-term denizen of our forum' is understandable - for which bronze does the job perfectly - so why the rest?

I don't mind the voting, despite our jake's loathing for it, but I do agree that the badges are kind of pointless.

Although obviously, as one of the elite gold-badgers, I still look down on everyone else as the plebs they undoubtedly are...

[jake]

@IaS

I don't "loath" the voting. I just think it's bloody useless. It was developed "because we can", not "because it is a benefit to the overall continuity of the site". It's an example of featching creaperism at it's very finest, as are the "badges" and "icons" (and, for the most part, "Hardware"). Hopefully someone, somewhere, suckered ElReg's manglement out of a pay rise for the "good ideas".

While I'm at it, who cares how "long term" a luser has been here, #32560? Does it really matter in the great scheme of things? I certainly don't think so.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: @IaS

#32560

jake,

I am not a number, I am a free m... Error! Error! Error! Reboot in 5

4

3

2

1

POST - passed 10:15:21

_{BIOS (c)2000-2013 Vulture Corporation}

I am Register AI Resource Unit #32560 and resistance is futile!

[jake]

Re: @IaS

"I am Register AI Resource Unit #32560CENSORED"

Careful, amfM might get all excited ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

AC forever!

The bronze badge appears to be more about the frequency of posts and not at all about the quality of the posts. So a blatherer gets a badge over the occasional but more insightful commentard.

The silver badge's extra requirement is over 2000 upvotes? Surely the thumbs up:down ratio after reaching some absolute count threshold would be more appropriate way to gauge a commentard's 'worth'.

The gold badge's extra requirements - fair enough.

I only ever post as AC - I have my reasons - but I can't say that I regret my ineligibility for badges and whatever other stuff badgey guys get. I suppose I'm a bit a bit of a purist in the belief that a post's worth should be related to its content only - and not be clouded by any pre-conceived perceptions from the association with a handle, previous posts and certainly not posting frequency.