BL'ers Star rating in DD forums, is this possible???

i remember when we updated the ubb software it had a feature where members could give other members a star rating out of 5, supposedly determining how worthwhile their contributions were. of course everyone who lives in social straight away registered a new member and gave themselves 5 stars and made the system useless, BUT, i think it could be rather worthwhile.
bluelight is here for harm minimisation, and social is just a malformed mutation of the drug discussion forums. so would it be possible to reactivate the star rating just for harm minimisation related forums? i think it only displays th star rating if a member has 4 or 5 stars, so basically if someone asks a question like 'should i rail 5points of k on my first time', the person would trust a response of 'no you idiot, take it slow the first time' from someone with 5 stars over a few people with no rating who say 'nah, do a gram you softcock'. also would it be possible that you can only rate people if you have a certain number of posts (50 or so i think). therefore the ratings would be real, and people would have a much better guide.
just a small thing that i think could make the forums a lot more focused on the harm minimisation thingy.
oh yeah, and BT can have 5 stars and a bonus 'my little pony' sticker cos he's so good

Just have it only settable by moderators.

people have to make their own decisions about the information/responses/comments posted on bluelight..
so i don't think a rating system like this is needed, nor would it make much of a difference.

Hmmm...
For memory (that's all I can go off, since my copy of UBB6 died with my last HD, and I havent got it again yet), this setting is not possible (ie, to have the stars forum specific).
The best you could do is to check out http://www.ubbdev.com/ and look for the appropriate mod (or request it if its not up there - it is a handy idea
If it exists, then ask for it with a new thread in the webmaster forum.

think we decided when this was debated for the whole board that the cons far out weigh the pros in using this system. i personally feel that good information will always drive out bad, and that I'd rather have a greenlighter post correct information, with references, that simply believing whatever comes out of the mouth of a Bluelighter with 5 stars...

I think the Star Rating system would be interesting to at least trial for a month or two, to see if it works. There are merits to a peer-review system, IMHO.
Besides, after the excitement wears off at all the increased social status and frequent oral sex, it would be nice for people to get some kind of recognition for posting good stuff
BigTrancer

^^^^
why post for recognition? It would turn it into a popularity contest. I believe the people who come in here and post great information dont particularly lust for a 5 star rating (besides bigtrancer )
The reward is giving accurate information to those who are not well versed in drug information and the such...
I guess we will always be divided with this
horsey

You could list me some names and I could tell you whether I trust their information or not... but I don't need a 5 star rating system to figure it out...
The problem is that if everyone can vote then you'll find people will rank their friends a 5 and the people they don't like a 1... not many people will give it the thought it needs to work properly, they'll just click a button and go about their day. It could potentially work if only the mods could vote, but then you've got the problem of having too small a sample of votes to give a fair indication.

if you think star ratings will be apopularity contest, perhaps your not the people i'm talking about that should be rating. this would just be for dd, forum specific. it doesn't talk half a brain to realise star ratings on dd are not a popularity contest. i for one know i wouldn't give most of my friends 5 stars. probably not even 4. i wouldn't expect myself to get 4 or 5 stars. the way i see it people should only be allowed to vote if they've done 50 or 100 votes or so, or perhaps 50 people in the forum are allowed to vote, basically anything so that any nuffie can't vote, and people can register a bullshit new username and vote for themselves. this is meant to be a hamr minimisation board, and its a serious forum, removed from the wankings of social. i would hope people would take it seriously and wouldn't think its a popularity contest. pretty fucking simple.

Random BB- The system you're suggesting would rely on people being totally objective all of the time and I just couldn't see that happening. Also, correct me if I'm wrong but you seem to be suggesting that people who have more posts under their belt are somehow more qualified to both judge others, and to give out advice, which is a real worry. Arguably, there are people who only make occassional posts that have made valuable contributions to this forum and there are some that post regularly that may make less of a contribution in terms of quality.
If we were to start rating people we would be setting certain people up as some kind of authority on this subject and IMO that would be both dangerous and elitist.
And on the subject of elitism, what is the problem some people seem to have with those that are new to DD? O.K, some new posters may make what could be seen as ill-informed or dumb comments, but instead of sledging them perhaps we should try and remember that there was a time in ALL of our lives when we knew nothing about drugs. If we really want this site to continue as a serious HM forum, maybe we all need to be a bit more tolerant otherwise the "I know more about drugs than you do" culture will probably see its demise.

That's just it though - I'd also hope that people wouldn't turn it into a popularity contest or a means to get back at someone you dislike. But I don't think it'd work that way. I know you wouldn't do it, and I know there are plenty of smart cookies in here that would get the point... but as far as in general, i think it might get a bit messy...
That is countered by the restrictions that you've specified, which I'll admit if nutted out properly would definitely increase the chances. In fact I'll go so far as to say with some proper thought it would work quite well. But the only problem with that is that doing a complicated system like that takes a lot of hacking of the software because it's not a standard feature to have ratings in such a complicated manner. This coupled with the fact that skydancer has decided to move on and won't be around to admin anymore means that there are other priorities at the moment for the remaining admins...
So I spose it'd be worth a trial in theory, but I don't think bluelight has the technical capacity (human power to implement) at the moment...
Maybe in the future...

My support for this system is part of a search for a positive reinforcement for posting well. At present, we have ample negative reinforcement in the form of ridicule, cutting and glib remarks, downright insults and aggressive sarcasm. I thought it would be nice if there was a favourable emphasis on making good posts, rather than merely a lack of negative responses.
BigTrancer

Whilst an interesting idea, I'm afraid that it might lend some sort of credence to information or advice that is not worthy of such attention. It may provide a false sense of security for someone seeking an answer to something, when infact a notice on a message board such as this should be only one facet of research,
While the burdon really is on the user ultimatly what they do with information, the fact remains that there are a lot or really really unformed people around that don't know anything about researching topics, and having a uniform approach to information dispersal may induce a healthy dose of scepisim which, in my opinion, is more important than a rating system.

After reading everyones responses I have to say I'm on the negative side here. But only because of the fact that I dont think the 'human element' of the equation would end up being value for money in this circumstance.
Ppl come to DD and read *everyones* responses and then go away and make an informed (hopefully) decision based on the information they have garnered from the board and other sources (again hopefully). The false sense of security thing would prevail, especially to the very people that are at the most danger, ie those that read a single post and go 'fuck thatd be sick'.
It's those people that would open a thread, scroll down for a 5'star answer and take it as gospel.
I wont sit and reinterate everyones past points, simply that its unfortunate but in this specific sense I dont see it as viable.
BUT WAIT!!!!!!!
This may sound gh3y (i love that) but if users had a little green disc or something under their name, and when moderators thought they had contributed something to the board that was worthwile / informative be it in whatever forum, they could add a number to this disc it would be very good for the users.
Moderators are the only ones allowed to add, and they dont have to sit and try and knock up points for ppl or scan everything - just if they see something that makes them think a bit of effort has been put in and bluelight as an entity has grown a little from it... give the poster some damn recognition.
Its not a popularity contest, I agree - but just staying out of the 'your going to receive shit for the day' spot-light as a result of being a constructive and genuine member of an online community isnt that great a reward...
And yes.. I know were not here to be 'rewarded' or 'being a part of it should be reward enough'... Its just the little things in life that make it worth living, and dont be flippant about that just because its an 'online message board'... You ppl spend hours whiling away your life reading this stuff, dont take it for granted that you just have nothing better to do...
I make a conscious decision to sit here and if I got nothing out of it I wouldnt be doing it

There are alot of reasons I think ratings are a BAD idea -- which I won't elaborate on here, but suffice to say that most of them go back to the popularity issue.
As for the necessity of a way of giving POSITIVE feedback for a person's post/contributions:
1) I feel this can be done, and is already done, by people saying things like " Nice post, BigTrancer" or "I totally agree, randomblondeboy" etc within a thread. This has the additional advantage of being thread-specific. Just because someone posts well some of the time does not mean they always post well -- but a rating system would imply that they are always good/bad posters.
2)I think that a bl'er and a post can both demonstrate their quality on their own -- and don't need a rating system to do so. It's already quite evident (IMO) when reading a post, how good the post is -- based on grammar, eloquences, originality, depth of thought etc. And when a bl'er becomes known for consistently posting in this manner, he awards himself stars automatically. This way, respect is truly earned.

LOL
k... not having stars shouldn't mean people automatically discredit you.
But some people obviously post every week or two, some post dodgy crap, some try to sell dodgy crap, and some post good reports. So those that post every week with good stuff people can know to trust them, the others they can bmake up their minds on, as they do now.

I think this could be good on pillreports.com so people know who to trust.

^^ i've been thinking about that lately and you know what? i used to agree but i've changed my mind. think of it this way, people should be careful what they post right? so if you want to be careful that you dont get a rep for having a lot of pills go thru your hands it would be best if you rotated your usernames... know what i mean?
put it this way, you never see any pillreports from me right? or do you?