That is only on this forum and probably mainly from you. Oh yeah and this coming from a forum that created 18000 fake members!!! How accurate can the rating actually be if you have so many fake members. Why do we even need ratings in a forum? Haven't seen any other forums with freaking ratings! All I know is every single time I make a comment you are going against whatever I say no matter what it is!
Whatever, the ratings mean nothing to me considering there are 18000 supposed members on this forum, 90% or more of which are fake and created by Don and Alex, so how fair or accurate can the ratings actually be? Don't believe me, check out the UC, they have like 1000 members. Pretty weird that this place has to resort to creating members!
As of this moment, the home page at UC lists that there's 652 members there in total. On this forum, we have a little over 700 members who've made at least one legit post and a lot of lurkers who prefer reading posts to writing them. There's also double the posts here as well as double the topics and we recently had our ten-millionth page view. It's true that some of the accounts we have are made by spambots, and we knock them off the list when we catch them in action. But we don't "resort to creating members" as you claim. I have more than enough things to do around here and in real life that keep me busy, I don't need to add anything more to that list.
And before people start jumping on bandwagons, this is not a knock to United Cardists. It's a simple explanation of where there are at the moment. The current owner, Mike Ratledge, is a member in good standing of both this forum and the 52 Plus Joker Club and I have nothing but good things to say about him and his forum. There is room in the world for more than one card forum and variety is the spice of life. His board's membership and post totals were ravaged by the previous ownership, something he had no control over.
The reputation ratings are created by the membership in response to comments that people make on the board. It gives people a rough guide to how seriously a particular member's posts should be taken. It's not perfect by any means, but it's better than having nothing at all for the new member to help navigate his or her way around all the opinions and posts here. When one's rep begins to drop a few points, it can be a random thing, like someone being silly or waking up on the wrong side of the bed, but a steady, consistent or massive drop is a sign that you may wish to re-examine what you're saying. In the long run, despite my kidding around, rep numbers don't actually mean anything, aside from needing a rep of at least 1 to post on the STISO board. We do look into negative rep cases for people wanting to post who feel they were unfairly knocked.
I don't go against anything you have to say merely because you said it. If you say something I agree with, by all means, I'll state as much - my ego in such matters is shatterproof and bullet-resistant. I've knocked a LOT of the things that Russell/Sprouts has said in the past, but I was just as quick to point out when he said something that made a great deal of sense and that I agreed with.
To set the record straight, I almost never rate posts (or more accurately, posters) as good or bad. I'll often take the time instead to make a post much like this one, going into great depth when discussing such matters about what issues I have about what was said - it means a lot more than just an anonymous "thumbs up" or "thumbs down". Of all the posts I read (and I read ALL of them), I might rate one or two percent, tops. When I see BS, I call it out as BS, plain and simple.
When I'm wrong, I'm quick to admit it, and rather than being perturbed about it, I welcome it and I'm grateful for someone pointing it out to me, because I'm more concerned about being genuinely knowledgeable rather than merely appearing to be and using a bully pulpit to make what I say into something dressed up to look like the truth. I'm never too big or egotistical to acknowledge when I'm wrong.
Now, Victor, if you don't mind, I think we've cluttered this topic enough with this entire tangent. Should you wish to continue this discussion, we can move it to the Conversation Parlor if you'd like - I'll transfer the relevant posts there for you if you want. I apologize to Steampunk for letting this tangent run as long as it has. It was my fault for making a wisecrack in the first place.
