Reputation System Discontinued for now

[the guy who be short]

So, what's an infraction point?

[The Might]

Ummm...I have a question.
I've noticed those infraction points some time ago and I was wondering where can a member see if he has got any infractions?
I mean, I doubt I have any for now, but I can't seem to find anything in my User CP that links to that.

[alatar]

Back in the day, as noted here, I posited that some wag with the time and...well, time could sit down and analyze the Downs to see just how one could maximize his/her rep. Think of the glory of using algorithms to determine the best thread in which to post to have the highest possibility of getting repped. No more spending hours writing and rewriting a post to see it ignored. Like Doppler storm tracking, one could see on some probability map where and when to post and WHAM! Post and ye shall be repped.

I have started down this path.

Using the list provided in the first post in this thread, I determined the gender of each member. That took some time, and I won't be providing my data as I'm sure that I got more than a few wrong (that, typos and some of you are most likely posers, so...). Using pictures and posts, I tried to determine the sex of each poster, but in some cases there was just no way to know, and so I took the scientific approach and assigned the gender that most supported my results.

Anyway, with 167 males and 133 females (I think), the data indicate that:

• females rep more, and

• females rep more than they receive rep

Conclusions? Many, but you form your own.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Generosity, thy name is woman. (my interpretive conclusion)

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Generosity, thy name is woman. (my interpretive conclusion)

Truly.

Or at least that was my initial hypothesis, based on perceptions in RL and at the Downs. It may be true that, being male, that I'm selfish (the data indicate that I'm a typical male repper), 'taking' more than I give, but I don't think that we have enough data to extrapolate that far from the curve. Could it be that male posters rep females on a even basis (1:1) but, due to biology, rep other male posters less? Or do males rep less due to some other factor?

Is rep emotionally driven, and if the average male had less 'emotion' than the average female, could this explain what we are seeing?

Note that I did not apply statistics to the data as I'd burned enough time on it (the Perseid meteor shower was a fizzle, and so...) and, more likely, how even more boring would the results be if there were no statistical difference?

[the phantom]

1.019692716

I was pretty even. Go me.

So, why the difference between males and females?

Maybe we have, by pure chance, a handful of rep-hoarders who just happen to be primarily male and a handful of rep-gushers who just happen to be primarily female.

But no one likes to hear that kind of explanation for data. It takes the fun out of it.

Okay, so a different explanation... Maybe the women just click on more threads than we guys do, and read more of the posts than us. I don't know about the rest of you gentlemen, but I generally skim new thread titles, and only click it if it grabs my attention. Then I read the first post, and I continue reading the thread only if the first post gets me interested. If the discussion stops entertaining me, then I'll stop reading right there.

If I make it to the end of the thread, then chances are I'm interested enough in the topic to have an opinion of my own, and so I post. (this isn't always the case, but generally)

And once you post in a thread, you keep up with it. Every time you hop onto the Downs, you make a point of checking the threads you're actively posting on. So, that essentially means that the only threads that exist are the ones you post on. And if that is the case, you will only give rep to people posting on those few threads. But they will be repping you as well, so the rep balances. But a rep surplus can be achieved by receiving rep from outsiders- members who aren't really involved in the back-and-forth on the thread, but who read it just the same.

Now, I have no scientific evidence for this, but it seems to me that a lady is more likely than a gentleman to read through every thread at least once. It's sort of like my group of friends and our relationship with restaurants. The girls are always suggesting places we haven't been before, or places that have recently opened. The guys, on the other hand, are more than happy to go the same familiar and comfortable place every week.

I've said all that to say this....

The male-female difference might just be a coincidence.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by the phantom

1.019692716

I was pretty even. Go me.

Go you, as you are better than the typical male (but we knew that ). But note that I based my analysis on the number of reps given/reps received, and not the points, so your number is 0.940366972. The male average is 0.89730108; female 1.048323817.

So, why the difference between males and females?

I still think that it's biological. My mother fills my childrens' pocketses with candy as I try to hustle them out her door while my stepfather complains that she shouldn't be giving the kids so many sweets.

My wife would paper our walls with every sheet of paper with any scribble of our children where I would keep just those things that are very special.

Dunno. As always, just asking questions.