Post/day is a bad idea.

A new user could have 30 posts in one day and own poor little me.

Well, you incorporated it into your little mathematic equation :P

He also included a ^6, but I wouldn’t consider using indeces of that order to work things out.

I thought about factoring in the time since a user’s most recent post, but then fantastically memorable, beloved, and contributive members who left us a long time ago would appear weak against those that left a long time ago but recently made a one‐off post.

Why do we need a change in how we use stars today? Does anyone even look or count how many stars one has when visiting the forum?

I just say keep it the way it is, so no one would get to stressed over it :p.

Nate's exactly right on what I meant, and I would know it happens alot, I was one of those people that had to leave for a long ammount of time, I'm basically less experianced than some of the younger (In terms of joining date) members, becuase of my absence.
Hobbo's right, everything is fine as it is, altough maybe a seperate system would be ok, but I think the join date being shown to everyone is good enough.
And Havoc the problem is, what if the person can't help being away? If there was a star sytem, I don't think you should be deducted, maybe your timer or whatever it is frozen untill you've came back.
Actually, instead you could install a timer if possible, which would track the ammount of time you're logged in to the OF, I doupt anyone wouild be keen enough to leave their computers overnight, so technically, you are graded for the amount of time you've spent on the forums, I can see how this can be abused though.
I'm not sure, I think my final judgement are things are fine as they are, but if Alcar manages to pull it off, I'm fine with that.

Yea but that would happen with almost any variable we put in. No system is perfect, especially not forum systems :p.

lets see...

(5.75 * 2354)^6 = 6149585147916068827971030,015625

ouch


(sorry didn't see the second page :()

You can make different users's stars: when an user will reach a tot of posts, he will have OWI symbols... for example

You forgot the !, which would make the number so much bigger.

I did not anticipate updating the function of the 'stars' (tiny OWI symbols) would be so much trouble. If anything, I would base it on the number of years registered, and pin it on a consistent number of posts per year. However, this means that those members who remain more reserved, but never-the-less respected and valued would be penalised.

Alcar...

I don't see why the stars should indicate one's level of respect. If you want to do that I'd do it manually since that's the only true way you can make that work.

I'd go with basing it on stars and if you want an indicator for respect I'd activate the built in reputation system or download a customized one. You can always fill in respect manually for those respected members who no longer visit.

I think you should replace the stars entirely with small pictures of Brad Pitt's head. Just my opinion.

I knew you were a filthy queer.

Your child is the product of a lie!

Alcar...

Maybe if you do one of the other methods, but when a user has been away for a while their stars are frozen as they were when they made their last post, and unfrozen again when they come back. That way newbies and infrequent posters would have fewer stars but old members would not be penalised.

Out of curiousity, how are the stars calculated? I don’t mean mathematically, I mean markupfully. Is it phped every time a profile page or postbit is generated, or is it stored in the database? If we knew how vBulletin does it, we could think more in terms of what it’s capable of.

BM’s idea is good, but I can’t think how the stars/rank could be ‘frozen’, much less how the software could distinguish between periods of activity and periods of inactivity. But you could effectively do such things if you never allow the rank to decrease. But to do this you’d have to have a rank pre‐defined in the users database, as well as frequent phping to keep that figure updated.

Do we definitely want stars to be incapable of going down over time, or are they strictly cumulative?

They are cached - only being updated if they need to be when a user posts.

Alcar...

According to the Forum Statistics at the bottom of the page, there are 176 active users. I suppose it is just who has posted before "so long" ago.

Instead of stars, can we have little rotating Moai heads?

Here's a little suggestion for you. You could change the system a bit, and let the stars represent rating... Then let the members rate each others posts... Or give positive or negative points. But this would work better if you need a certain amount of points/time active, before the points you give count. Otherwise people could make multis.
This could be very confusing too though, but cool too. You just have to trust the population of OWF enough, that they can take this matter in their own hands.

No because I would have no stars because everyone hates me.

I don't hate you.

A little suggestion: an OWI symbol and some mini-stars, then two OWI symbol and other mini-star. So, the change woul be just adding the mini-stars, maybe five for each OWI symbol.

Well The points should be given based on the quality of the post, and not how much people like or dislike one another.

I guess this system wouldn't really work for the trolls though. :-/

Which is prolly why Hobo doesn't like the idea :p. I like the idea though.

Of course you would, you dislike eachother :p

Alcar...

Wasn't that war ended a long time ago? :|

What's your opinion on it, though?

It's not a bad idea within itself but the potential for abuse will be hilarious.

Do it

Well that's the thing. This would only work if you guys trust the forum to be able to use this feature responsibly.

Well either way the majority of the forum arn't idiots. They'll vote for what's funny, constructive and witty.

Bad spelling, confusion and being a dick will generally cause negative voting

I've seen a system like this work on several forums but like anything else it requires a certain amount of moderation. For one being able to give negative reputation should not be possible as this is GREATLY abused between members who don't like each other. It's human nature, that simple :p. With that, the reputation system becomes somewhat of a record of good posts without any negative things in it (we can leave that to the moderators, who are afterall qualified to do exactly that, determine whats right and wrong. If we would have members do that us moderators would become useless.). The forum that has it in effect recently also made abuse of the system punishable by warnings and even bans. Users would for instance request reputation at the bottom of a topic or have a "Rep me and I'll rep you" sentence in their signature. This has since then stopped.