Mr. Perigo:
You wrote: >>Personally, I'd just as soon see the [Atlas points] dumped altogether. But then the problem remains - how to give genuinely deserving contributors feedback?<<
Simple. This is a message board. If a person cares enough to reward what he believes to be good or to condemn that which he believes to be bad, he will take the time and trouble to post a message to that effect.
The only utility I have found in the Atlas point system is obtaining unmoderated status. But why shouldn’t that be the judgment of Solo’s administrators instead? And if the administrators are going to make that judgment, why not have them periodically judge the contributions of participants if they believe special notice of merit is warranted?
A sad fact of voting systems like this, in which little is at stake, is that they will be abused. That is what happened yesterday. A couple of the forum’s participants who have routinely disagreed with me used the Atlas system to greatly INCREASE my score in a perverse protest to one of my posts. I then, for the first time, used my new-found “point power” to thank Mr. Stolyarov for his support of my participation in this forum, to reward Ethan Dawes for switching from sniping to argument, and to raise to unmonitored status two non-Objectivist participants that I regard as worthy contributors to this forum – namely Regi Firehammer and Daniel Barnes.
In light of these sudden shifts in several participants’ Atlas point scores, it appears that Solo’s administrators acted to minimize the impact of such large changes. Fair enough. I think we can agree that using the Atlas system to increase my score to in fact condemn what I have written is improper. Using the system, as I did, to generally acknowledge the worthiness of certain participants is not improper. However, I was on record that I did not see the value of the system, so in hindsight I should have been true to myself and continued to abstain from its use.
In hindsight I also recognize that I was the catalyst for yesterday’s events, which I believe constituted a genuine disruption to the smooth operation of SOLO. I played upon what I knew were certain human weaknesses and instigated a bit of mess here. For this I wish to apologize to Joseph, Jeff, and you. I don’t think everyone appreciates how much work is involved to keep a website like this running smoothly, but I do. So I sincerely regret my role in disrupting its operation.
As for being provocative or simply annoying in what I post, that’s another matter. I can’t help but be right in what I write.
Regards,
Bill a.k.a. Citizen Rat
(Edited by Citizen Rat on 4/22, 1:35pm)
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