Recommendations

Well, I think it's time to re-tune the recommendation situation. Presently, the 'recommended'
list is filled with posts having merely one recommendation. In the past, with a few exceptions,
the highest one generally sees is around three. The ones that seem to get the most are insults
(usually directed at Red Night).

The reason for this was there was a double-tune of the recommendations a few months back:
the rec-count was eliminated and the number of recs per month was instituted. This essentially
killed the system.

This seems a shame to me.

I suggest either getting rid of the recommendations altogether since they really aren't working
or restoring one or both of the two recommendation tunes.

Nemesio

...bring back the old recs...

For those of us not around back in the day, could you please explain how the prior system worked? Thanks.

at the bottom of the post was the word "rec"...if you liked the post you would click it and the number of recs would appear in a line above the post...i though it brought on more creativity...try to post something that someone thought was funny or something to earn a rec...

Originally posted by reinfeld
at the bottom of the post was the word "rec"...if you liked the post you would click it and the number of recs would appear in a line above the post.

I'm sorry, I don't understand. What is different over the current system

...well, do you have a "rec" on your bottom line ( of the post box ) to click to add a "1" to replace the "0" i now have on my upper line ( of the post
box ) to permanently and forever tell the world that i just wrote a great post..and when i get 9.000 recs i can get very uppity with you when you only have 6...

Originally posted by reinfeld
...well, do you have a "rec" on your bottom line ( of the post box ) to click to add a "1" to replace the "0" i now have on my upper line ( of the post
box ) to permanently and forever tell the world that i just wrote a great post..and when i get 9.000 recs i can get very uppity with you when you only have 6...

Oh, so each month all the recomended posts are removed. So a post with 3 or 4 recomendations will be enough to reach the top of the list. Thus, most of the posts aren't worthy for others to see.

Originally posted by Drew L
I'm sorry, I don't understand. What is different over the current system

In the old system, two things were different:
1. In addition to the rec count for a post, there was also a rec count for each user. The number of recs you had received for your posts was displayed together with your name, avatar etc. in the forum. I never found that very meaningful or useful, and it sometimes led to recs being given to posters rather than posts, so I am glad we got rid of it. But there are also some people who found it motivating, because you were rewarded with a high rec number if you wrote many good posts.
2. There was no rec limit (other than the limit that you can't give more than one rec for the same post). Therefore, good posts got a lot more recs back then than they do now, so they stood out more among the posts that only got one rec. Now people may have run out of recs when they see a great post, and if they rec it later when they have a free rec again, it won't show in the Recommended list anymore because that list only shows posts from the last seven days. This limit has never made sense to me. It would have made some sense before the personal rec count was dropped, because it would have prevented people from rec'ing every post of someone else for personal reasons, but the limit was introduced when the personal rec count was already dropped.

Originally posted by Nemesio
Well, I think it's time to re-tune the recommendation situation. Presently, the 'recommended'
list is filled with posts having merely one recommendation. In the past, with a few exceptions,
the highest one generally sees is around three. The ones that seem to get the most are insults
(usually directed at Red Night).

The reason for this was there w ...[text shortened]... really aren't working
or restoring one or both of the two recommendation tunes.

Nemesio

how about a similar system to the games limit ...

nonsubscribers are limited to 1 recs per week,
and
subscribers get 14 recs per week.

Originally posted by Nemesio
Well, I think it's time to re-tune the recommendation situation. Presently, the 'recommended'
list is filled with posts having merely one recommendation. In the past, with a few exceptions,
the highest one generally sees is around three. The ones that seem to get the most are insults
(usually directed at Red Night).

The reason for this was there w ...[text shortened]... really aren't working
or restoring one or both of the two recommendation tunes.

Nemesio

I agree whole heartedly.

It is slightly ironic that these actions made the "rec" more scarce and therefore a more valuable commodity: yet the only posts where these valuable recs are spent in unison is an anti Red Night post. I'm sure many in this community use recs as way of saying - bring back our recs - as Red Night is perceived as the killjoy who orchestrated their removal.

This site has been an utterly superb waste of my time for nearly 6 years, in that time it has continually improved functionality, fairness and value for money.

Yet the mismanagement of the way the rec system was fudged during a mad week still irks me. I believe the system did not need changing, but even if did need altering, it would have been better to remove the rec counter OR limit the number of recs, rather than do both almost simultainously.

I live in hope that, like almost every other aspect of this site, the owners will improve the current system in fair and balanced manner, and the humble rec will once again be the positive reward it was designed to be.

Originally posted by Nemesio
Well, I think it's time to re-tune the recommendation situation. Presently, the 'recommended'
list is filled with posts having merely one recommendation. In the past, with a few exceptions,
the highest one generally sees is around three. The ones that seem to get the most are insults
(usually directed at Red Night).

The reason for this was there w ...[text shortened]... really aren't working
or restoring one or both of the two recommendation tunes.

Nemesio

Recs....we love recs!!!!

The list of recommended posts is certainly no worse and probably better than the the pre-wreck reformation period.

These two highly wrecked posts from the past say more than I can about the ridiculousness of your argument:

"Good god already"

"Did he tell your stupied?"

If you need a wreck counter to affirm your self-esteem, why not take little gold stars and stick them all over your computer screen everytime you say something witty?

In truth, the previous rec system was not that bad.

If you looked at who had the largest rec counts, they were all people worthy of it. Regardless if you liked their style or disagreed with their ideas, these were all posters with considerable weight and charming/infuriating personalities, which made the forum fun and interesting to be in. I think that, in that sense, the rec count system worked quite well.

Then came Serendipity, whose sole goal was to get a large rec count by simply demanding recs. I think that the main big problem was that recs were easy to give, so people actually gave him recs for meaningless posts. This was clearly ruining the system.

I think that a rec count and a slightly higher number of recs per month could help the system. It's very likely that there will be a race to who has the most recs in the beginning, but if recs are finite I think they won't be as successful as before. At least, it would be interesting to see how it works.

Originally posted by Red Night
The list of recommended posts is certainly no worse and probably better than the the pre-wreck reformation period.

It must seem ironic to you that my post about the imperfection of the system blows the other
posts on the list out of the water, then, huh? Do you really think my post was that great? I don't.
I think my post makes a legitimate point. This system is lousy. I don't think a post like mine
should have made it to the top, much less crushed the opposition. I'd rather see something
insightful or funny at the top and have my post lingering on page four or five. Ten people have
used up part of the meager allotment of recs in order to indicate their support for my position.
Given that the next highest is merely 3 recs, this should tell you something.

Think of it this way: If there are 11 posts that I think are rec-worthy in a month, I have to ignore
one. Don't you think that's a shame? I do. And since the recommended list only reflects the past
week, it really means that I can only reasonably recommend 2.5 posts a week. Don't you think
there are more than 2.5 posts on this site worth reading each week?

If you don't, then you should probably be in favor of abolishing the system of recommendations
altogether because there isn't really that much worth ready anyway.

You might notice that I only observed that the institution of two recommendation tunes crippled
the system. I didn't call explicitly for the repeal of both, but of perhaps one or the other or maybe
both.

As for the idea that people do it for self-esteem, why do you suppose you care so much? Don't
you think inspiring people to be smarter, more careful, witty, or funny assists in making a good
forum? Furthermore, drawing attention to the posts which are smarter, more careful, witty or
funny only benefits RedHotPawn. Nothing's fixed with this system. People are still trying to
be jerks or getting their friends to recommend posts that don't merit it and so on. It's just now
a post with 1 recommendation makes it to the first page. This system has only exacerbated
things. Or do you really think that only five posts a week deserve more than one rec (the current
disposition of the 'Recommended' link)?

Lastly, I think your staunch opposition to this derives from the fact that you're a pretty mediocre
individual and you like the idea that other people aren't recognized for their ability to achieve.
You would do well to read Kurt Vonnegut's short story Harrison Bergeron:

http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html

You aren't really that insightful, you're not really that funny, you're not really that shocking,
and you're not really all that good a writer. So, a system that actually recognizes those others
who are good at one or more of those things is probably pretty frustrating to you.

Well, don't worry. You shouldn't be all that worried about being average: 50% of the world is
inferior to you. Meanwhile, stop whining so much about the old rec system or extolling the
non-existent virtues of the current system.

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
Lastly, I think your staunch opposition to this derives from the fact that you're a pretty mediocre
individual and you like the idea that other people aren't recognized for their ability to achieve.

I am of the opinion that his opposition to the rec system is because the rec system is the truth as opposed to his spin.

The rec list states time after time after time, that he is universally disliked, his spin says that he is the voice of the weak, the beloved of the majority.

He speaks of massaging egos with recs, while starting threads extolling how important he is on a chess website. Thread 79088 🙄 My pity for him knows no bounds.

D