Brad...Help please

[Malcolm's Dad]

I went to click the + reputation for PKCrossley in the Leadership vs Dominance thread. I clicked the -1 by mistake. PK I am so sorry. Even with my glasses I don't see these little things on the screen. Is there anyway to cancel that? I feel terrible.

[pkcrossley]

don't feel bad! i've pressed all kinds of crazy wrong buttons --including a lot in disastrous email mishaps. i've been puzzled about what the purpose the feature is, my recommendation would be to just turn it off. by its very nature, it is bound to do more harm than good. i really doubt that anybody conscientiously marks every outstanding post they see. i don't mark any. the point of an online forum is that people should be able to express themselves without being judged; here is a feature that does nothing but promote judgmentalism (good or bad). i know the software providers love to add more and more "features," but nobody is obliged to use them.

[kjwarnold]

How about that? I've been on here for several years and I've never noticed those things!

[Sam I Am]

Ditto here! Had no idea what the green and red buttons do... now its kinds of scary

I just pushed KJ to find out what it does. Sorry... just curious

[bradl]

Moved to forum support.

I'm not going to take up editing individual ticks (if I even can) that are only even potentially useful in the aggregate over an extended period of time. A simple (+) tick on another post cancels out an accidental (-) tick somewhere else. As PK suggests it's largely pointless (although it can have value in some scenarios - most of which are blissfully absent in CTF so far). I only rarely use it to mark a post I find especially useful, insightful, or remarkable in some way.

I'll agree that the point of a forum is for open discussion; I'll respectfully disagree on the matter of freedom from judgment - indeed from my perspective it's crucial that people exercise their judgment about what they read, and be at least somewhat accountable for what they say. I am ambivalent about the reputation system overall, but can see upsides as well as downsides. I'm going to let the experiment ride for a while.

But back to agreement: no one should feel bad. I don't know who did what to whom, nor can anyone else. Emphatic agreement that there are tons of features that are wholly optional: avatars, signatures, statuses, member photos, PMs, embedded media, and on and on. None of it really necessary for talking about Cairns.

As a side note, lest anyone feel alone in not always knowing how the software works ... I tip-toe around in the administration section myself, sure I'm one always click away from breaking the board somehow

[Malcolm's Dad]

Since PK isn't offended I feel better. I don't really know what that feature is for. I like to give credit where credit is due, but I'll stay away from that now.

Fortunatly CTF doesn't have the idiotic childish posters I've seen on other sites. The internet is such a useful tool its a shame some people waste it. I'm in a senior citizens chat room where we've have to ban some people. I hope they don't find CTF.

Brad I understand you don't have the time to tinker with this. I've worked on computers and know how tedious it is to find an individual memory location and change it. Your software may not let you do that. I had to ask and now I know how to correct it. Thanks for your efforts in maintaining this forum, I appreciate it greatly.