I was advised by a friend that he had received an unkind note in his reputation, supposedly signed by me. Well I assure you I didn't send it.

Obviously someone is simply trying to use reputation to stir up trouble. This is really sad.

If anyone else receives such a note, would you please let me know, or else report it to Randy so he can deal with the offender.

If you look at JonNYC's Reputation thread, you will see that this is EXACTLY what I predicted would start happening, and there is no way to stop it, IMO, unless you simply turn off the reputation feature. I'll find the post.

EDIT: here it is:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...5&postcount=53

Does this actually surprise anyone?

At the very outset, the "birth" of the "new" board, I promptly received three unsigned "dings," even as I've essentially neglected to post for over six months now.

At least these criticisms were honestly "anonymous!"

Early this morning I received yet another "ding," for this, another two year old thread:

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"10K Post Club Apr 19, 04 2:12 am Years later, same old stuff Glen"

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...49#post1778349

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Do I really think that Glen is actually responsible for this?

Does anyone?

For that matter, should FT'ers really care? "Reputation?"

-Mark

This is really sad....

I think the reputation system should stay... but that the system should automatically display who left the feedback.

That is so sad that people not only are not willing to post their name... but feel a need to implicate someone else.

They need to remember that Randy's team probably can see who posted... so they are not totally anonymous.

William

Sadly, anonplz, I don't think that in this instance turning one's reputation off will help. Someone could still make negative remarks and sign your name.

I thought it was posted that system administrators can easily track who left a particular comment-- I don't know that myself-- but I thought I saw a post by someone who was quite familiar with the inner workings of v.bulletin saying this was the case.

Anyone who leaves feedback with a phony "signature" should be subject to the absolute harshest of punishments, IMHO-- it's a very disruptive and obnoxious thing to do.

No, I mean Randy should consider turning it off systemwide. If it's going to be abused that way, there is no alternative. I hardly think Randy wants to have his valuable board decline in value simply because members couldn't get along. If the reputation features helps people continue their squabbles, then it should just be turned off. This type of tactic is going to continue until then or until Randy makes a decision as to how to go forward with the reputation system. I don't know anything about the technical aspects of vBulletin, but there must be a way to tinker with it.

I think the best approach here may be the approach favored by some OMNI posters - if you come upon a comment you don't like, just skip over it!

I could not agree more. Any person who sends a note and signs another's name should be permanently banned from F/T -- no matter who he is or how long he has been here. I can not imagine anything lower than that.

Randy, please confirm whether you have the ability to track down a "ding". If you do, I think the simple announcement of that fact will be enough to stop phony signatures. However, if anyone suspects that someone signed a false name they should contact the person whose name is signed and if that person does not confirm that he sent it the incident should be brought to Randy's attention.

I really do not foresee this as being a very big problem (assuming that Randy can track down the offender). There may be one or two cases but when people learn that they will be taken off of F/T they will certainly think twice before pulling a stunt like that.

I am sorry alanw, but I don't understand what you are trying to say.

How can we "skip over" an unkind comment that some unknown bad guy makes in our name and sends to a third party? If the third party believes that the negative comment came from the person whose name was fraudulently signed, the damage is already done.

I agree that this particular nefarious activity should be cause for permanent removal from FT. It is clearly intended to do damage and create trouble on the boards.

I agree with mandatory signatures when posting a reputation point. Make this part of the system.

^ Seems that this is the emerging consensus among members.

As to just skipping over bad feedback and doing the same in OMNI, well, then, why do we even need moderators? I'm sure plenty of members would be fine getting rid of moderators, too.

But I do understand what you're saying, alan. As a matter of fact, my personal policy is to disregard utterly all unsigned negative feedback. But now that I know that some members are hijacking pseudonyms, I won't even be able to trust that system.

Another thought: since anyone can register, what's to stop someone from registering a fake handle using a random anonymizer, signing in, and then again posting negative feedback using a hijacked pseudonym? There doesn't seem any way to stop this unless automatic signatures are activated in the software.

Posters need a minimum of 20 points of repuation and 250 posts for their reputation votes to have any effect.

FewMiles..

When everyone logged in the new FT for the first time, we were all intrigued by the little green box underneath our names. I was surprised by it, and didn't and still don't know exactly how it works.

But I thought it would be a way of replying to people's posts, in a far simpler manner than what it has become.

Now it's a tool to put dings into other people, and now they are turning it as if someone else did

Just incredible.

I know that this feature is for use at the Coupon Connection, and they are still trying to figure out how to isolate it to that forum only.

Why not get rid of this, and turn it on when they have figured it out?

Would that make too much sense?

To me this is nothing but a feature that has created nothing but grief among some members, and just another way to create controversy.

Is it useful in the Coupon Connection to begin with? You can only do reputation points once in a blue moon.

BTW, I did give up a few dings early in this feature, before I knew how this thing worked, but it was all in jest

Now I am trying to correct them, and the system won't let me

I understood that the reason for having a reputation system was to be more like an Ebay or other auction site so we could gauge the reputation of an anonymous stranger we might choose to do business with, ala Coupon Connection.

I have just started using Ebay and other auction sites myself (late adopter!) but I notice that on those sites you can SEE who has made the dings against a person and that person has the opportunity to counter the negative feedback. If we aren't going to make reputation totally public, I think that at least letting the person who is being rated see who is making the comment is helpful - first in understanding what they may be doing that is annoying others and also to help understand who they may wish to associate with "less" in the future.