- Shai Hulud
- |
- Exalted Mythic Member
With B.B. gone, the passion of Bungie.net has lessened.
A ranking system?
<stretches and yawns>
Well that's quite complicated. Lets look just a bit at the good and bad.
Good:
-It will make the forums a bit more fun to be in.
-It will give an added amount of automatic respect (the sort of psuedo-respect you get with having a certain type of alias or signature on your account... or even the Member Since date).
-It could open up a new network of online friends... convenient for such things as online Halo 2.
-Bungie might get more hands to help out with controlling the forums.
Bad:
-The forums, as everyone hear knows, have more people who would abuse such a system than who would use it for good... to be a nerd, there are more Sith than Jedi.
-Some people would get jealous for no logical reason whatsoever.
-This sort of system is, in reality, meaningless to those who recieve benefits from it. The only people who would truly benefit from it is Bungie...
-Some people just wouldn't care. For example, lets say that the system implemented is very similar to the one currently being used on RvB. Although I am told that the mod points they use for their karma system actually have meaning, I've yet to see it. If post something that is funny or cool, people will give you a mod point(s) for it. If you do something bad or distasteful, they will give you negative points.
------>There are those who would give negative points just to be -blam!-s.
------>There are those who would give too many plus points out of the "goodness of their hearts" (bah...)
------>There are those, as I said, who don't care. They will give points out, or take them away, for no reason whatsoever... just out of boredom, maybe. I know that people do this, because I am one of them (and it amuses me to see how greedy people will get for those points). I've seen others do this as well.
In my opinion, the good of a ranking system is outweighed by the bad. There are ways that a ranking system could work really well... but only in theory.
IF a sort of karma or ranking system was implemented, Moderators should be in control... I think we have 9 of them now, yes? (I was blacklisted for the past two months, so I'm a bit out of date). They see most of the threads that pop up, and if it's something exceptionally good (an equivalent to sticky-worthy), then the Moderators would award the creator, as well as whoever makes a good replies to the thread, mod points. Accumulate enough points, and you go up in rank.
Going up in rank will earn you certain benefits... such as a custom avatar, perhaps (that alone would encourage me to be more active, in benefit, in these forums)... or maybe submod powers... to help the mods out with keeping the forums clean... but not enough power to ban or completely shut threads down, maybe.
If you go up enough in rank, maybe it will be possible to actually become a mod. There are a few here who seem quite willing to be moderators, since they basically try to moderate things without being able to lock threads and such. VII Toast helped out a while ago in the Underground, if memory serves me (which it sometimes doesn't, so VII, don't be too surprised if I'm completely wrong). Rip Saw also makes his useful guides to help people with community activities.
If someone starts abusing their newly gained powers, they get banned.
Negative mod points would be used for people who gain level, and not people who don't have any level... since those who don't have a level wouldn't really be affected by it. The only thing that could really affect them is a blacklisting or the ban hammer. For example: If someone becomes a helper-mod through gaining rank, and starts being an ass, they get knocked down a few points. Serves them right, hmmmm?
There are places where this ranking system shouldn't be implemented. The Flood, for one... although that would cause problems, too....
Any ranking system, to me, is a double-edged sword. It would be good and cool until someone finds a way to screw it up. Puting this system in the Flood might make the people that have gone rampant there do something productive for once... but it might also let people who just want to be a mod for the sake of power crawl up the ladder and screw things up until someone notices and knocks them down. It would also cause people to flame more out of stupidity and jealousy.
Perhaps I'm just analyzing things too much. But meh... this is just what I think would happen. That's enough for now, anyway...
<Stretches and yawns> Ah, the Septagon... the only forum that is still remeniscent of the old Bungie.net days.