General Discussions

**frost** · 11-10-2007, 11:54 PM

So... when is it a good reason to give negative talkupation? I didn't see a good description in the rules or the announcement forum, so I'd like to clear that up.

I thought it was for posts which were useless junk, but I received an angry response to giving somebody negative TP, so maybe I'm wrong or maybe my definition of useless junk is too strict.

**SeanB** · 11-11-2007, 12:08 AM

JMO. I think it should be given when the user is spamming, or being purposefully missleading or a real jerk.

The only negative I've received was from a user who just didn't agree with my viewpoint. I guess it made him feel better to neg me. To me, that's a missuse.

If you have to worry about getting negs for expressing your opinions, then you will likely find somewhere else to post or not give your opinion, which lessens to usefullness of the site.

**Learning Newbie** · 11-11-2007, 01:01 AM

It's reputation. You should sort of do it according to your own definition of what's acceptable, and with enough people participating that will even it out. But you should also give reputation (positive or negative) based mostly on community norms and standards. If a person does something very dishonest, is spamming or scamming, or for some other reason you feel the community needs to be warned, that's when -ve is appropriate. And likewise, the + is to help n00bs recognize helpful people. Especially in the SEO realm, where it's difficult to tell good advice from snake oil, the reputation is to help people make that distinction.

**ADAM Web Design** · 11-11-2007, 02:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frost

So... when is it a good reason to give negative talkupation? I didn't see a good description in the rules or the announcement forum, so I'd like to clear that up.

I thought it was for posts which were useless junk, but I received an angry response to giving somebody negative TP, so maybe I'm wrong or maybe my definition of useless junk is too strict.

The reason you received the angry response is because you damaged their reputation. I'm not questioning the validity of it (there are a lot of posts on here that deserve the treatment, and I've done it too), but when you take away TP from some users on here, it's like stealing an ice cream cone from a 7-year-old. They'll cry and they'll sniffle and they'll whine and they'll complain...particularly if you knock them into the red. They HATE that.

Some of them will even try to fight back with a disapproval post of their own, but it's largely ineffective (particularly when they're in the red) because your disapproval cuts into their ability to give any TP of significance one way or the other. The problem with this is that it creates the "do unto others...but do it first" mentality; you need to make sure that you get to them before they get to you. I've always considered that a flaw of the system, but I don't really know what the solution is either.

As far as what to approve/disapprove goes, my rule of thumb is this: don't do anything unless it's a post you're sure either helps users or harms them. If you feel it's bad advice that could potentially hurt someone, by all means use the TP feature to let them know. Either they'll learn or throw a hissy fit to validate your opinion (sounds like you got the latter treatment). If it's good advice, reward the user (that's why it's there.)

**stOx** · 11-11-2007, 04:11 AM

I would say give it for any post that deserves it, positive or negative.

I give positive TP for posts that answer a question well, Told me something i didn't know or made me laugh. I give negative TP for misleading information, Rudeness and spam (though moderators are more likely to give infractions for rudeness and spam).

**fastreplies** · 01:12 PM

Here is his post

Quote:

Are there any reliable hosts out there which focus on hosting databases (MySQL in particular)? I don't really need the web hosting portion of it, just MySQL and maybe phpMyAdmin.

and here is reply he got

Quote:

web hosting portion is where your MySQL and phpMyAdmins resigns.
You can't have one without other but you can have MySQL without PHP
if you use some CGI based Control Panel

TP comment: irrelevant to my question, not to mention incorrect information

The full story: http://www.webmaster-talk.com/web-ho...ysql-host.html

fastreplies

**ADAM Web Design** · 11-11-2007, 01:24 PM

Ooooooooooooookay.

* walks away from the firestorm *

**fastreplies** · 11-11-2007, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

Ooooooooooooookay.

* walks away from the firestorm *

Adam,

I promise to be

civilized this time

fastreplies

**ADAM Web Design** · 11-11-2007, 05:26 PM

I'm still walking away.

**princess06** · 11-11-2007, 10:36 PM

IMO, negative talkupation are for those with useless posts. and just spamming the boards

**fastreplies** · 11:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by princess06

IMO, negative talkupation are for those with useless posts. and just spamming the boards

Let see here

Looking at your post I have 3 choices

1. Ignore it and walk away
2. Give you negative TP because in my opinion your post is useless
3. Treat you like a troll and push you downhill by asking you to define for me useless

a. We can dismiss the first choice, I am still here
b. I won’t give you negative TP (at least not at this point)
c. I am not going to insult your intelligence and ask you to define useless but what I am going to do is to ask you to go to thread that started this thread, read it and then render your opinion if my post in there was useless

Quote:

I'm still walking away.

Adam, you were right all a way down, my respect man

fastreplies

**serandfae** · 11-12-2007, 01:12 AM

fastreplies, she isn't spamming, that's a valid opinion. Personally I've only given negative TP once and that was why, moreso because of the manner in which it was done. The situation that precipitated this thread is past. If the TP system is abused, the mods do take notice. I, for one, trust them, because I've seen them at work. And you ought to know me well enough by now to know I don't suck up, I'm just stating a fact. Take a deep breath, you're still our Buddy.

**fastreplies** · 01:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by serandfae

fastreplies, she isn't spamming, that's a valid opinion

I know that but what I am trying to prove is that any post even helpfull one can be
treated as a spam if someone wants to see it that way.

If my post in question had no value to frost, I bet one day someone would get some benefit
to learn that for example: if hosting account come without PHP they still can use CGI to manage their DB

Oh well, this is a lesson for us all
Thanks Tim anyway

fastreplies

**frost** · 02:10 AM

I'm not trying to prove myself right at this point, fastreplies. There's not really an "undo action: give negative TP" button, and as far as this has gone, I'm not sure that I would press it if it did exist.

The point of this thread was to give me, and anybody else, an idea of what talkupation is for, specifically negative talkupation. At this point, I actually don't see ANY reason for negative talkupation. As stox mentioned, I'm fairly sure members who spam or are rude are quickly dealt with via infractions or worse by the moderators (and we seem to have plenty of moderators). If that is true, why do we even need negative TP?

Quote:

Looking at your post I have 3 choices

1. Ignore it and walk away
2. Give you negative TP because in my opinion your post is useless
3. Treat you like a troll and push you downhill by asking you to define for me useless

As for receiving negative talkupation, there are also 3 options:
1. Ignore it.
2. Immediately take it to the forums and make a huge fuss about it and give negative TP back in return.
3. Send a PM either to the mods, the TP giver, or both, explaining why you think the negative talkupation was unfair. People are often more than understanding.

**serandfae** · 11-12-2007, 02:15 AM

As I saw you two were both replying at the same time, I waited for my response. Thing is, when asking a general question one should expect answers that don't fit what is being sought. Personally, these I ignore and move on. And, Frost, your question here is valid and I think at this point has been answered. Without taking sides, I looked at the thread, found fastreplies' answer to be as legitimate as any other given, and gave him +TP for it. Seems like there's little else to do but move on....

**fastreplies** · 11-12-2007, 02:30 AM

Hear, hear Tim

fastreplies

**angele803** · 11-12-2007, 10:41 AM

Here is the "official" post about talkupation and how to use it:
http://www.webmaster-talk.com/news-a...-do-i-use.html

**Learning Newbie** · 11-12-2007, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frost

The point of this thread was to give me, and anybody else, an idea of what talkupation is for, specifically negative talkupation. At this point, I actually don't see ANY reason for negative talkupation. As stox mentioned, I'm fairly sure members who spam or are rude are quickly dealt with via infractions or worse by the moderators (and we seem to have plenty of moderators). If that is true, why do we even need negative TP?

The same reason we need positive TP. Apart from moderation, users have a way of self policing via reputation. We had a member called bgod aka varsity who practiced ruleslawyering, was extremely unhelpful and irritating but without actually stepping over the line of any particular rule. At least for a while. Moderators wouldn't remove him without cause, and until he eventually provided a good reason to be banned, TP was one method people had and used of letting new members know to ignore his bad advice.

On the other hand, when it's misused, especially in response to a question one has asked, people find that being known for handing out -ve TP is one way to not get their questions answered. In truth, giving a half answer to a vague technical question doesn't seem to merit negative reputation in my opinion, and I would certainly be more unlikely to leave a reply in a thread started by somebody with a penchant for this, lest I myself loose rep for trying in good faith to be helpful.

**jamestl2** · 11-16-2007, 11:45 PM

Does anyone know what our negative TP power is? Is it the same as the Positive number? Is there a limit? I've never given negative TP to anyone so I'm unsure what determines it.

(Plus I don't want to give negative TP to anyone just to test it out)

**serandfae** · 11-17-2007, 12:04 AM

Your Talkupation-altering power is the same, positive or negative.