Originally Posted by
David Franklin
OK, as Gus isn't here, let me be Devil's advocate here:
Most of the people defending the -ve rep system are people who have shown themselves to be valuable members of this forum, and most of the ones attacking it, haven't (IMHO). It's an extremely small sample of course, but would it be reasonable to assume that negative rep comments are seen more, well, negatively, by people whose posts receive more of them?
I'd estimate that for every post I give negative rep for, there are at least 20 posts where I think the poster is an idiot, or offensive, but not so far over the line that I would neg-rep them. I also give at least 10 times as much +ve rep as -ve. So if the people complaining have stacked up as much -ve rep, (and so little positive rep), I have to wonder what the reason is.
I don't take the system terribly seriously, but someone makes 900 posts and gets so little rep for it, it does give an inkling as to how their posts are received.
The people thinking "Hey, no-one would neg-rep me if they had to do it publicly" might want to reflect upon that 20:1 ratio I mentioned. For example (and I hope this isn't seen as a personal attack given your wish for people to be 'public'), there are several of your posts where although I wouldn't neg-rep you myself, I would certainly defend anyone else who did so.
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