Hi,
Ok. I have just spent an hour or two wading through old threads to try and work out why the system is set up the way it is and made a few discoveries.
The main one being this is what the members told us they wanted the last time we asked.
Oh look - a member poll.
Note the date of the poll - almost two years ago. The actual date that the thanks system first linked with the rep system seems to have been at some slightly earlier point in 2009 ( probably a trial period ) but I can't narrow it down exactly yet. The thanks system seems to have been introduced in November 2007.
Members then complained it was getting used instead of the rep button and they were never getting any points. We tried making larger, more noticeable rep buttons ( something we lost in the last board upgrade ) but it didn't really seem to make a great deal of difference.
This was why thanks was tied to the reputation system. Because the members wanted it to be.
We considered removing the tanks system completely but nobody seemed to like that idea either when we asked.
There are also limitations within the software itself that set limits on what we can and cannot set up in terms of scaling rep etc.
On your suggestion we modify members rep to match thanks given before it was linked to the reputation system.
There are 17,763 registered users and 588 veterans at least ( there are quite a few other usergroups affected but those are the main two ) - do you really expect us to manually check and edit each one that joined before the change was introduced?!
Because manually is the only way to do it.
And of course even if we do that would be unfair on the earlier members who didn't get to take advantage of the thanks system when they were earning their rep.
There is no perfect system that I know of. If you know of one shout out.
Just pointing out something isn't perfect isn't all that helpfull unless you also have ideas on how to fix it.
dr del
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