Okay, so we all know the rep system we have is dumb. It's arbitrary, easily abused, and if you're anything like me, its existence is forgotten 99% of the time. In the past an alternative was suggested, which was a like/dislike system for individual posts, rather than for just a member in general. Such an
SMF mod exists, but the notion was divisive because it's too Facebook-y (I agree).
Lately I've seen a couple of forums use a similar but BETTER and COOLER system, in which posts are given various positive or negative ratings, like this:
If a post has few different ratings, the name of the rating would be indicated, like this:
On a member's profile, a comprehensive list of their ratings are shown, like this:
This is a much better rep system than what we have, because it can't be as easily abused. You'd only be able to rate a post once, meaning if for some reason a person had a vendetta against someone for some reason, they could only troll them with negative ratings each time that person posted. Plus, at least on other forums, when someone rates one of your posts, you are given a notification telling you who gave you what rating.
It would be much less arbitrary because it's not just about random meaningless numbers. If a person makes a good or bad post, that is reflected in the ratings, and then a person KNOWS why they are getting such ratings. If they make a stupid post and get negative ratings, they know they're doing something wrong and should learn from that, assuming they have the mental capacity of such a thing.
Of course, the immediate problem with this is the fact Roph seems to barely be around anymore and I'm not sure he'd want to implement it. Even though, as stated above, there is a like/dislike SMF mod available, that is LAME and Facebook-y and doesn't offer various kinds of ratings, meaning a custom system would need to be made. I know very little about these sorts of things, so I have no idea how intensive the work to do so would be, or if it would even be possible. Or if people would even like such a thing! If everyone wants it, I suppose we could pester Roph, otherwise...