Agreed. If you are going to disagree with a post and take the time to ding me, "be a man" and do it publicly. Even more so when you take the time to "explain" the ding.

Back in the dim distant past, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and there were ice caps on the Sahara, there was another quaint way to disagree with a post or point of view.

Doing it on the thread.

I just love "progress".

I'm very sorry, but I just don't want to go reading through the 20 threads on this turkey. Just wish they'd shut it down. But, I do have a question...

What's a Purple ding?

Does it mean someone ran out of "options" and their ding doesn't count?

Can the Purple ding come from both negative and positive votes?

I ask because I got a slew of anonymous Purple dings with no comments or signature attached. I haven't a clue what they mean or might have meant!

Looks kinda blueish on my screen.. but if it isn't red or green it means that the person posting the comment doesn't have enough reputation points themselves to influence your reputation one way or the other.

I got a ton of positives (I know because folks left some nice commens) that were blueish.

So, yeah, they don't count.

This was my post in another reputation thread that got me my first Red ding.

If a comment like this can get flagged then the subjective nature of reputation is a joke, IMO. I have read many posts that were far more offensive in nature on Omni than my suggestion above. While I appreciate and like the reputation system, there is a problem with it. The anonymous reputation ding is certainly going to be abused. I wouldn�t be surprised to see more negative dings sent to me because of this post. All I know is that people can base what opinion of me they want and I am not going to get caught up with this status identity.

RobotDoctor....I would have given you a negative ding for that highly inflammatory post but I gave out too much "love" last night and I'm waiting for my reputation powers to re-generate.
Seriously, I have posted elsewhere that, IMO, this new reputation feature on FT operates much in the same way that it does in real life. ( And, no, FT is not real life!)
Folks are consciously/subconsciously mentally adding or subtracting reputation "points" as they deal with you on a daily basis. Problem is you don't know this is happening and can't object when someone thinks" Hey, this guy is a lowlife" when you say or do something the other person objects to. At least on FT, you kind of get an idea where people think you're coming from...rightly or wrongly.
Do people on FT or in real life always make reputation judgements rationally? Not necessarily. But if we all had to go through life with a bunch of red or green dots on our foreheads as an indication of our true reputation, I believe many of us would be shocked at what appeared.

Thanks. Just so I understand...you're saying that these uncommented non-counting blue ones could have also been from negative attempts?

That's right. The blue/grey ones are people who don't meet the criteria for influencing others' reputation scores. This is because they have fewer than 250 posts and/or have fewer than 20 reputation points (as per the FAQ). If they don't put a comment, then you have no idea whether it was a positive or a negative.

FewMiles..

Yes. It seems that all of my positives have very nice or funny comments and are signed. The bluish ones don't, so I'm taking them as negatives.

I've been away, where exactly is it that I get this renumeration that everyone is talking about? Do I have to do any actual work to get it?

I never get any blue/gray ones.

What are the red ones with all of the nasty anonymous comments?

Love notes from secret admirers...

Keep in mind that one can always bestow bling (the opposite of a ding) while expressing substantive disagreement in the (preferably signed) reputation comments field.

The use of "positive only" reputation points would go far toward maintaining the "kinder and gentler" nature of this bulletin board.

Keep this in mind:

Perhaps they are from people who have read your posts and don't like what they saw?

FewMiles..

"bling" being short for "blessings"?

I like it!