We’ve enabled a “reputation” system at CC. Those of us who have been around for a while know who some really helpful members are, but new arrivals need to guess a little. Sure, the number of posts and years on site are a clue, but it often takes reading a lot of a member’s posts to know if they know their stuff.
Now, if you find a helpful post from a member, you can say “thanks” by clicking the reputation ink that appears under their name. You can even add a short comment on why the post was helpful. (The icon is a tiny scale, which may not be recognizable due to its tiny scale. Pun intended.) You’ll see the reputation dots under the member’s name. More is good.
You can also take reputation away if someone is being a jerk.
Either way, please use this feature wisely. You get a limited number of reputation votes per day, and you can’t do the same member over and over.
There’s a bit of secret sauce in how CC members will build their reputation, but we hope over time this becomes one more way we can be helpful to those new to the college process.
I hadn’t noticed the scales but the green boxes caught my eye. I headed here hoping there would be an explanation. Perhaps it would be a good idea to post this in other frequently used forums to get the word out.
Yes, I can only add to reputations… I was wondering if someone could be so unhelpful that their reputation statistics could go negative. But we may never know… And the dots under a poster’s name – maybe they are sort of like the little symbols some college football players get to put on their helmets when they make a good play.
I agree with GA2012MOM that it’ll be little more than a high school popularity contest. Great if you tell posters what they want to hear, but likely to discourage expression of independent thought.
When you click on the scale, you have a choice of approving or disapproving of the post, so I think you can affect the reputation positively or negatively.
Well, I’ve always been impressed by the (aggregate) maturity of CC members. We’ll see how it goes.
The Facebook “like” is fine for a thread or page, but that doesn’t translate into a cumulative benefit for an individual member. We’ve got folks here who have stuck around for years providing super-helpful advice, and I’m hopeful that this is one way their contributions will be recognized.
