what happened to the rep power??

[shannonlovesflowers]

I said it before and I'll say it again... oh brother!

I do feel the whole rep power thing is a popularity thing, and soooo what.

I used to get get upset over reds, I don't any more.

I used to get jazzed over greens, I totally still do.

But if I never get another dot again, red or green, I don't care. so be it.
It wont make me stop coming to FC. It won't validate me as a florist. I know what I know, dots or no dots.

But I have learned a lot from FC, a ton really.

And the funniest thing is how big of a deal "rep" can be.

 

[CHR]

First, this opinion is mine and mine alone.

Second, as much as some of us like giving positive rep points for the posts that delight us (including me), the rep system also gets abused... by that I mean:

1) members cooperating to manipuating the system to ensure that one member passes the another. The greens have nothing to do with the posts and everything to do with making sure one member 'beats' another. Keeping track of it in the comments makes it even more abusive IMO. It belies the spirit of what reps are supposed to be about - the collective assessment of posts by the membership - and not by just a handful or less of members.

2) members who have now figured out the 'spread it around' requirement so they 'green' a poster, hit three others quickly, come back to green poster #1, hit another few and then come back to hit #1 again. Sometimes 3 & 4 times in less than an hour.

From the tone of this thread, its seems some members believe the Admin team aren't really human and don't have feelings, or at least aren't allowed to have them.

No doubt, most of the membership hasn't even a clue that this stuff (some very negative and stuff) goes on in the background. This change to the rep system was made after much consideration. With Ryan's generosity of time and money as the host and owner of this board for now more than 6 years, a trust and a benefit of the doubt would seem in order.

I cannot think of another forum (florist or otherwise) where membership is open to companies who compete in the same service area are allowed. Time and again, Ryan has welcomed POS system representatives for companies he did no work for and webmasters who compete with him for clients. Believe me when I tell you no other board would tolerate it for a minute. IMO such largess and patience deserves respect and applause.

"Censorship'? Every single member is free to say what he/she believes - to give kuods, to say 'atta boy' or to say 'what the heck are you talking about?' . Nothing about the rep system change will prevent a single member from doing that. But it might prevent a few from making some of the admin team members want to quit their jobs - like me.

I came to FC to learn, share and grow. By and large, that's been my experience, but the BS which takes our eyes off the goal - to build our businesses and succeed as professional florists with real flowers - is draining. I'm hoping this change will help us get back to the reason I (and hopefully most of you) came here in the first place.

 

[Beth]

Like a few here have said, I think the rep thing is not needed, but it makes a lot of people here happy. FC has been built by people like Victoria and Sher and when a large decision is made like this without the community involved, it feels a little less theirs now. How about a family type post asking the communities opinions? Yeah maybe we won't all agree, but at least we feel our voice has been heard. Family is what you have here... I'm the brother everyone is embarrassed to take out.....and without the community, there is no FC.

How about a poll ... let the members vote on whether to accept the rep thing as it stands now, or go back to the former version... where you could give dots on ANY post. ?????? How 'bout that? Good idea?? :thumbsup

 

[Twila]

It just wouldn't be a normal week on FC without some kind of conspiracy theory admin bashing. S'ok - we're used to it.

You all love coming to FlowerChat - the community is what is it because of the members, AND because of the hard work and guidance of the admin team. Just look at the other forum(s) with absentee leadership and let me know how well they are doing.

It also wouldn't be a floral holiday season without some big row. Happens every time, every season. If we can deflect that criticism here instead of repeatedly bashing each other over WS affiliations that works for me.

We make decisions based on our belief for what is in the best interest of FlowerChat as a whole.

Ryan

So in other words...you CHOOSE to take this as a personal attack and not care about the feellings and thoughts of others? Am I reading that correctly? What a shame. Time perhaps for you to pull up the "big boy pants" and consider that others may have some good points. There really is no disgrace at changing your mind or going back to what we had.... Isn't that part of life...that we all have the opportunity and right to change our minds?

go ahead and take away the rep points if you think that is better for "Flowerchat as a whole"....but I would like to be able to give the compliments. Do you think you could give that back to us? Please--do I have to beg?

Just my thoughts

 

[Beth]

1) members cooperating to manipuating the system to ensure that one member passes the another. The greens have nothing to do with the posts and everything to do with making sure one member 'beats' another.

2) members who have now figured out the 'spread it around' requirement so they 'green' a poster, hit three others quickly, come back to green poster #1, hit another few and then come back to hit #1 again. Sometimes 3 & 4 times in less than an hour.

Wow, people really DO that? Who has time for that kind of silliness? Crazy.

 

[shannonlovesflowers]

Oh Cathy, now I feel like an a$$.

I think you're great. I love FC. I think the focus on rep is silly though.

Like I said, I like to get green dots, and red dots I usually get cause I'm not good at making my point without sounding like an a$$ sometimes.. So I don't care about the red dots anymore.

I had no idea about the big race with the dots! Seems comical really! The fact that there are members who are dotting like mad little daubers is really a funny mental image for me. And the fact that the reason is to "beat" some one elses rep, aw man, that takes the cake.

Anyway, I trust you. and if this is what you and the rest feel is best, then so be it.

I'm just here to contribute the best I can and have a great outlet. I feel FC is where people get me.

It's my "Cheers"

some times you wanna go where everybody knows your name.....

 

[CHR]

So in other words...you CHOOSE to take this as a personal attack and not care about the feellings and thoughts of others?

I hope you read my post above.

Wow, people really DO that? Who has time for that kind of silliness? Crazy.

They do... and more... sadly.

Anyway, I trust you. and if this is what you and the rest feel is best, then so be it.

Thanks. That means a lot.

 

[duanermb]

right on.

I came to FC to learn, share and grow. By and large, that's been my experience, but the BS which takes our eyes off the goal - to build our businesses and succeed as professional florists with real flowers - is draining. I'm hoping this change will help us get back to the reason I (and hopefully most of you) came here in the first place.

Here too, thanks for a great take on the matter.

 

[Sher]

So in other words...you CHOOSE to take this as a personal attack and not care about the feellings and thoughts of others? Am I reading that correctly? What a shame. Time perhaps for you to pull up the "big boy pants" and consider that others may have some good points. There really is no disgrace at changing your mind or going back to what we had.... Isn't that part of life...that we all have the opportunity and right to change our minds?

go ahead and take away the rep points if you think that is better for "Flowerchat as a whole"....but I would like to be able to give the compliments. Do you think you could give that back to us? Please--do I have to beg?

Just my thoughts

Not your board after all kiddo......you don't make the rules..don't cha get it?

 

[CHR]

IMO it's 'our board' and we need to take better care of it. IMO that's what Ryan's been trying to do. I hope you'll agree he takes his stewardship here with great care.

 

[Palms]

As you all know i am a huge dot fan but i certainly dont click on it to up peoples reps so how about if we just have the scales and we can pop an agreement but it does not change your rep?? Would this work? I am not sure if its up for discussion.

If it isnt it will not keep me away from fc one iota as i have made some great friends but i will be sad to see them go. (the dots that is).

I suppose the admins see things that we cant and we have to trust their judgement which i do.

Anyway, as always my two pence worth.

Daz, once again you have made my day start with a smile - loving your humour dude lol V, and Sher and Twilia you make some great points and if i could dot you i would...

 

[Mikey the Flower Guy]

I'm somewhat amused........
With SOOOO many things going on, is the "dot diet" REALLY that important??
This is NOT "Animal Farm"...here at FlowerChat we are ALL equally important, and each member's "rep power" is inherent to how you present yourself in this community.

 

[Mark Anderson]

There are at least two other forums for florists that I know of and probably several others that I've never heard of and quite possibly others that have come and gone. As far as I can tell FlowerChat is the one that has risen to prominence - despite the fact that one competing forum has all of the considerable resources of SAF behind it.

Why is that?

Ryan himself always says it's because of the members. And he's right - without the members contributing content this wouldn't be such a great resource. But the members could just as easily post on one of the other forums.

The moderators and administrators also play a vital role. The dedication and contribution of people like chr and BOSS cannot be underestimated (and Ryan is always quick to point it out). They too are vital to the success of FlowerChat. But once again they choose to come and volunteer here instead of another forum.

So why here?

I would argue that the root of the success of FlowerChat is Ryan. He makes the big decisions and steers the ship and got it to where it is. He has displayed a real gift for running this thing.

That doesn't mean that everybody will like every single one of his decisions. If you really like amassing green dots and Ryan makes a change to the formula that sees your count decrease of the number disappear entirely I can see why you would be upset. But if Ryan's focus was on making people happy or helping them collect as many green dots as possible this forum would not be successful.

Ryan has to take the broadest possible view and, in my opinion, there is an overwhelming pattern of good FlowerChat decisions coming from him. He is doing a great job - which is why we're here and why we care about our reputations on this forum.

 

[BOSS]

My personal opinion

Most of you do not remember that FlowerChat opened and grew to what it is today WITHOUT any reputation point system. It was not here in the early years, was not needed and frankly IMO has caused more trouble than it's worth.

Reputations were based on what a member said, not how many freaking green dots they got and everyone knew where people stood based on their contributions to the industry.

I mean sheesh, this thread got to 53 posts over night! Too bad we can not have a thread about a business matter, or product, design, shop management or other IMPORTANT item receive so many posts.

For those of you wishing to extend kudo's to other members, there is a private message feature, or you all have the ability to post comments on each others personal pages. Seems to me that these are a much better method than trying to see how many green dots one can achieve.

I've said this before... I'm with Mikey!

My personal vote would be for the rep system to go away, and I have made that clear to everyone, like Mikey said, we are equals.

 

[Victoria]

While all that is true Mark and Mark and Mike, I think the problem lies with the seemingly arbitrary way it's handled. If it's unimportant then why have it? If it's unimportant and everyone is equal, then why adjust it to further the distance between other equals?

Obviously it's not unimportant to everyone. I like how Darrell, Twila, Sher and others stated their points and I agree with them.

Ryan is doing a great job... there is no denying that. Because I don't agree with him on this point doesn't mean anymore more than that.

V

 

[Tracy D'Amico]

I'll say it again - I've handed out dots for "wrong"reasons, for jokes, thank you's, and sometimes I actually have a point to get across.

The weight of the rep system has become a bother, especially each time it's adjusted or tinkered with for whatever reason.

Most posters in this thread seem to like the brevity of giving a quick "wink & nod" to another post they agree with or acknowledgement they want to give. How about the function of the rep, without the actual "rep weight" attached? No reason to associate that wink & nod with a weighted position given by the system .... allow the rep mechanism, without the rep weight.

Just a thought - but whatever our parents/admins decide is just fine. Way too much time devoted to this BS, when there are funner & bigger issues to take on.

 

[Sher]

IMO it's 'our board' and we need to take better care of it. IMO that's what Ryan's been trying to do. I hope you'll agree he takes his stewardship here with great care.

If that was the real case then we would have not had the rep point system change three times in the last, what, 6 months without any opinuion asked of the members....I followed those changes and each time it was changed, it appeared tht a few members got real close to the smae rep powers as those of admins. That was an observation made by several folks so it is not a "conspiracy" viewpoint...If it was our board, there would have been a poll or a vote.

I'm somewhat amused........
With SOOOO many things going on, is the "dot diet" REALLY that important??
This is NOT "Animal Farm"...here at FlowerChat we are ALL equally important, and each member's "rep power" is inherent to how you present yourself in this community.

Mikey, I think based on a few PM's and several emails that I rec'd, is that "members" looked at their "REP" part of their "respect" points and to have them removed is insulting as well as censoring....
There is no doubt that this forum is the best we have out here,and that Ryan does a bang up job, CHR contributes immensely especially on industry news and such, but no forum should be able to have a few or one rule the whole as a group especially if the group members contribute financially or with their time...noone person is more important than the sum total of the group at large. I think manipulating, removing, changing or adjusting any rep points is censorship directed to perhaps a few and that it reeks of censorship and should have never been done the first time much less three. This is not a step forward IMHO. For all the reason myself and several others have posted, it just stinks.
Sher

 

[CHR]

I followed those changes and each time it was changed, it appeared tht a few members got real close to the smae rep powers as those of admins.

If that was the case, we could have repped each other into a frenzy and blasted our points to astronomical levels. No one would have known but us - but that's not the way we are. Do you realize how offensive such accusations are to the admin team? Quite frankly, I'm tired of having my and the other Admin's characters questioned.

I think manipulating....any rep points is censorship directed to perhaps a few

That's exactly what was done by a few members. So it's OK if they manipulate but admin adjustments are somehow 'censorship'?

Would love to hear your thoughts on what I said earlier:

1) members cooperating to manipulating the system to ensure that one member passes the another. The greens have nothing to do with the posts and everything to do with making sure one member 'beats' another. Keeping track of it in the comments makes it even more abusive IMO. It belies the spirit of what reps are supposed to be about - the collective assessment of posts by the membership - and not by just a handful or less of members.

2) members who have now figured out the 'spread it around' requirement so they 'green' a poster, hit three others quickly, come back to green poster #1, hit another few and then come back to hit #1 again. Sometimes 3 & 4 times in less than an hour.

Do you think this kind of stuff should just be left 'as is'? I suppose opinions vary.

 

[Beth]

Would love to hear your thoughts on what I said earlier: Do you think this kind of stuff should just be left 'as is'? I suppose opinions vary.

Cathy,

Is it possible to remove the rep feature just for the few who were abusing the system?

 

[theRKF]

Yes, it is.

And yes, it's being considered.

Right now, the steps that have been taken are:
1) Remove the rep power number from display on every post. The number still exists, it's just not as in your face. Hopefully this will make it less appealing to goof around.

2) Remove the rep system from non-floral forums, so that in future a user's rep score will reflect the community's esteem for their floral-related posts, not politics, jokes and such. After all, this is a forum for floral professionals, and while social stuff is great and adds value it's not the core of why we're here.

Ryan