[jek187]

I have been on a posting hiatus for about 3 months now. I've still lurked some, but mostly I've left 2+2 and the Zoo alone. The reason for this is the incredibly poor signal: noise ratio. Yes, I'm aware of people periodically bitching about the decline of the Zoo, and maybe it was just poster burnout, but it seems that almost all of 2+2 has gone to shit. We're in a relatively good period here in the Zoo, and the place is still crap.

However, instead of just bitching about the problem, I actually have a solution. We need to bring back the rating system for posters. For those too new to remember rating posters, it allowed every registered poster to rate other posters from one to five stars, and then all the ratings were average together. This system is inadequate for our purposes. The worst aspect is that it allows the trolls to register a bunch of accounts and rating bomb whoever they have an issue with. The end result of this system was 80% of posters had a 3 star rating.

My proposed system would work like as follows. Everyone is once again able to rate other posters. However, everybody’s rating has a weight attached to it. The weight is given by the following formula: N^.5*D.

N = Number of posts made
D = Days since registration

So, some troll who pumps out 100 posts in a week gets a weight of 70. Compare to an icon like Granny, who has 4,929 posts in a little over 2 years, gets a weight of 52,655. Granny’s opinion counts about 752 times more than your run of the mill troll. This seems about right to me.

For those mathematically challenged, this means that if Granny rates you a 5, and the troll rates you a 1, your rating is 4.995.

To clear things up a little further, we’ll take an “average” poster like Cubswin (Cubs is actually one of our best posters, but his numbers are average). He has 1,811 posts in 1y3m23d. This gives him a weight of 20,342. So, if he decides to rate the aforementioned poster a 3, that poster’s rating is now a 4.43.

So, now that everyone understands how a rating is determined, wtf does it mean?

Here is my proposed benefits/penalties for certain ratings:
4.01-5.00: Top level. You are able to bask in the adoration of 2+2ers everywhere
3.01-4.00: Normal poster, no restrictions
2.01-3.00: You need to work on thinking before you post. You are limited to 20 posts/week.
1.01-2.00: You are either a troll, or post such idiocy that you’re best off “contributing” to RGP. You are limited to 5 posts/week to redeem yourself.

I am certainly open to all criticisms/revisions of this plan. If it looks to be popular, I’ll contact Mat/Mason and see what they think, and work out the tech aspects.