Originally Posted by Counsellor
People were not "voting on whether or not you liked a posting" - you can do that by rating a thread. The point and effect of the "reputation" feature is not to rate a particular post, but to rate the poster. If it were simply to rate the post, you could click on some icon in the post to find out how it was rated (there is such a software capability - to rate individual posts).
No, the point is to bless or dump on the individual him/herself.
Actually, while that is how it came to be used on Flyer Talk, the point of the software indeed was to rate a particular post -- addressed to the poster. An individual's reputation was to be the sum of his posts. As currently set up, rating a thread says nothing about any individual post on the thread.
As proof, click on the scales on one of your posts in this thread. You will get a response, "Your reputation on this post is Positive," or "Your reputation on this post is Even," etc. If any comments have been made on your particular post by anyone, they are listed for you.
In retrospect, of course, the "reputation" feature has come to signify much more than reaction to a particular post. What professional does not care heavily about his reputation? To those with little inventory, it is literally money in the bank.
So certainly, once people became aware of the significance of reputation points, disapproval became a formidable sanction which, happily, is less casually bandied about now that it is no longer anonymous.
It bears repeating (sorry for those who have read this several times), but one can express disagreement in the comments while "approving" of the poster. Happily, this seems to be happening more and more.
