Neutral Rep

[nick]

Well this has happened to me a few times now and I find it annoying.

Some new person joins and posts something, so I reply and try to welcome them to vt and give them the most honest & helpful answer that I can. I never suggest to them that they should give me rep, but several have tried to do so but it fails, or to be more accurate comes through as neutral rep.

Now I really want a higher rep score, because I do try to be helpful and honest,
and I'm not going to stop trying to be helpful & welcoming to newcomers, but its almost as if you should hold back & not be helpful too soon because if they appreciate what you've tried to do for you they cant give you any rep.

This seems silly and wrong. Dont know if its configerable, maybe the neutral rep should automatically change to positive once the originator reaches the threshold for postive rep.

[Oblivion]

As far as I know it's that way so rep can't be abused; people can't make 50 accounts and rep themselves 50 times, because it won't help at all.

Also, if someone has no reputation themselves, why should they have the ability to give it? That's like the blind trying to give a seeing person help with directions; it's nice they care, but they really can't help much because they can't see. Bad metaphor, but hopefully it shows my point.

[Underground_Network]

^^ Exactly what Nick said.

And if you think you're judged by your rep, you're not.

You're judged by your posts themselves.

Make impressive, high quality posts, and you will slowly see your rep climb.

[theOperaGhost]

Dude...don't worry about rep...It's quite often a biased system and kind of pointless to even have. If someone reps you for a good post, great, but don't expect it. Make good posts without expecting rep.

[nick]

As far as I know it's that way so rep can't be abused; people can't make 50 accounts and rep themselves 50 times, because it won't help at all.
I can see the point of that, but its still annoying. I dont give helpful answers in order to get rep, but I cant pretend I dont like it if someone takes the trouble to do so, its kind of rewarding. So its just frustrating when it doesn't count.

I guess my question has been answered, feel free to lock.

[Antares]

Well say there has been a person that was a great poster but made a few bad posts and was goign down in rep. That person doesn't like you but since his rep has been going down, its neutral at the moment and doesn't affect you.
Or a noob decides to neg rep everyone, but he cant because hes neutral. Yea, I think that the system is fine

[MoveAlong]

The reason that someone would give you neutral rep is because they have a Rep Power of 0.

People that have Rep Powers of zero are:
1. People that have less than 25 posts
2. People that have negative Rep Points.

The reason that they have a Rep Power of zero is because:
1. Let's say a person who is a spammer/troll joins and negatively reps everyone. It doesn't effect anyone because he/she is too new of a member. That way admins don't have to restore everything back to normal.
2. A person who is a new member hasn't established themselves enough to have any Rep Power. Once they have enough posts, they will get a Rep Power of 1 and then they can start contributing on a higher level!
3. If a person has negative Rep Points, that means that the person is not a very good contributor to the site because people do not like their posts. So this person who has a bad reputation (I mean actual reputation, not reputation points) should not be able to affect others because their opinions might be poor or biased.

Having neutral rep is just a safeguard against people who might abuse Rep. Don't worry about not getting all that Rep - it'll come in time! Also, you don't have to have Rep to know that you've helped somebody. Be proud of your posts anyway! :)