Why don't most old members get high reputation?

[Propfam 2,288]

Hello,

I've seen likes of @Compdude787, @Turjan, etc don't get that much likes (pun intended) despite being very very active in the forum. I don't know what caused this. But considering at the time A Nonny Moose (RIP) had tons of likes, it should be possible for both to have at least my level or @Terring or @TheMurderousCricket level of reputation.

Hope I get the answers. Thanks.

[CaptCity 4,752]

Well, I won't pretend to know what determines who may or may not get 'likes', but it might depend on where and how often members post, and how they might contribute. Some might be more noticeable than others. Also, the 'likes' system hasn't always been part of the site's software. Long-time members may have been more active before the system was in place. Naturally, any contribution, either with ideas, assistance, or content, is always welcome and much appreciated by the community regardless of the 'likes' one might receive...  

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

I have to say I like to receive likes as an appreciation of my knowledge or viewpoint. I remember I earned my first "Most liked" by spending entire day helping one user out to understand the game. I received around 21 likes from that single thread and on that day it was enough to get 1st place. 

So yes - activity is indeed a huge factor in receiving this appreciation. I'm sure you know Simple Jack. He posts his screenshots and memes very often so even if they all receive a like or two, multiplied by several posts, this makes up for a fairly large number.

On the other hand, I also had an occasion to learn about a user named "Shadow Assassin". Member of the NAM team and a person with truckload of awards. Joined long before I did. And yet... they have a three-digit rep!

[Propfam 2,288]

2 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

my first "Most liked"

For me, it was the April Fools mod lol. Not the current one, but the 2 years ago.

SA is a weird scenario. They're really underrated. At least they got tons of awards, which almost none of us here have.

Regarding to CaptCity, that's why. I thought ST had a primitive likes system like we see in Devotion, and then upgraded to better one.

I also want to ask another question. Why don't new mods have 100k+ downloads and tons of ratings? Is the community stagnated at this point? Or is it just the good ol' accumulation(TM)? I saw fellow Indonesian guy, @roe99, has his mod, Menara Batavia, ranked among the most downloaded. And yet despite all of this inactivity, it's relatively easy from the old days standpoint to marked as popular. Old members would be shocked that I have like 3 and counting contents that are "popular" despite getting "only" like 1k views lol.

If I was Dirktator, I would replace individual content reputation with a single user reputation. So the user would just hit that like button aside of their names. Creators can still see where the likes come from, from their profile page.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

Really?! Are we doing the big "likes" discussion...AGAIN?!

If you divide my almost 8 years here by my post count, I have less than 2 posts a day. If you subtract all the posts I never got a response to, that number is probably around 1000. I've posted some really great stuff IMO, that never got noticed. And I've posted some total crap that got a bunch of likes. You can analyze this shiite till you're 100 and never come up with a formula for why things happen the way they do.

It's not like anybody gets a crown and scepter for any of this, you know. 

[Haljackey 17,302]

Some of the most reputable members on this site have the lowest reputation. Not saying those with high counts are karma whores, but most of the community legends came and went before the rep system was in place, or was in it's early stages.

 

Ex- the mid to late 2000s were a glorious time on simtrop, with 2008 being the high mark of activity if I am not mistaken. So many amazing city journals, mods, game breakthroughs, you name it... and yet most of these members have pretty lackluster rep counts. Just goes to show you numbers don't tell the full story here.

 

[Propfam 2,288]

On 11/4/2023 at 10:20 AM, Haljackey said:

Some of the most reputable members on this site have the lowest reputation. Not saying those with high counts are karma whores, but most of the community legends came and went before the rep system was in place, or was in it's early stages.

 

Ex- the mid to late 2000s were a glorious time on simtrop, with 2008 being the high mark of activity if I am not mistaken. So many amazing city journals, mods, game breakthroughs, you name it... and yet most of these members have pretty lackluster rep counts. Just goes to show you numbers don't tell the full story here.

 

Thankful we have Trixies to compensate them

[rsc204 21,808]

Ultimately there is no mystery to any of this, reputation is simply the result of users giving it where they feel like so doing. If you want to know why folks are giving Rep, you'd have to ask them directly, anything else is pure speculation.

But as with many things in life, some of the most deserving people get the least attention, it's just the way of things. I mean, if Rep counts were some indicator of achievement, the NAM team's long serving members should be right at the top of the scoreboard, right? But posting development news, continually contributing to projects and helping people with support just doesn't garner the same level of attention/reward as other activities. When it comes down to it, a site can decide on the systems to implement, but have no control over what users choose to do with them, there is no way to force this to be fairer or reward those who are more deserving. Whereas on the flip side, there are sadly pretty easy ways to conduct oneself in order to maximise your potential for such likes. It does all seem a might unfair personally.

I fear somewhere in this system has been forgotten that for every winner, there are many losers and a system that doesn't have the flexibility to provide a positive experience on a level playing field for all, is ultimately non-inclusive. I personally believe that part of the stagnation around the community can be linked to the likes system and this modern 'hustle' culture. There are plenty of us who simply aren't willing to shout from every corner in an attempt to get noticed, but none the less everyone wants to feel like their efforts are appreciated.

Still there are always winners and losers, it's a fact of life, certainly you don't get into the SC4 scene looking for fame, it's all too niche frankly. So when I see one of my downloads, take the SWN as an example, a mod I can say with no ego is the absolute best mod of it's kind ever created. I know this, because it started out as addon/fixes to complement established mods that existed and kinda snowballed from there. Yet in all the years since release, I've maybe 7.5k downloads, a fraction of the older less-complete mods. Do I then despair because of all the work put into it? or think that means it's not better, absolutely not, there just isn't the amount of activity anymore to sustain such. In a similar vein, my YouTube channel is hardly trending, but personally I feel 90k views isn't bad for a boring old git slowly talking through how to do things.

To sum up, I think a large part of the problem is people's expectations, if you see this as some sort of stamp of honour, odds are you'll be disappointed. But if you take the view like I do, that I'm just doing my hobby, hopefully some folks will appreciate that and the effort taken to release mods and make tutorials. I've always seen it more as a way to give back to the community, because I would never have been able to do any of this stuff, if others had themselves not similarly given things back.

Take the recent BTM updates I've been showing off, the RHW stuff alone is 200+ new models and 500+ new T21s which are not fun at all . Add to that the previous two times I have been through these mods in the past, it must be hundreds of hours of work. So yeah, I might post a few screenshots and it's nice to see some support, but you'd have to be a bloddy moron to think the work put in is worth the what, (high-balling here), 200 likes I may have gotten from that. That's the problem with likes though, in a world where everyone is chasing recognition at the expense of everything else, who'd put in work like this? In short I am not in it for the likes, if I were I'd just churn out a new skyscraper or model every day, no matter how generic it'd get noticed more than anything I like doing. And perhaps that's a good note to end on, if you aren't in it for the likes/recognition, you are going to be much happier. Not to mention, if everyone were in it for the likes, chances are we'd have less diverse content and niche items, which I personally think would be very bad.

[Propfam 2,288]

40 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

In a similar vein, my YouTube channel is hardly trending, but personally I feel 90k views isn't bad for a boring old git slowly talking through how to do things.

Not to be that guy but you should step up your editing. And btw, @Tarkus is ranked at the top.

[rsc204 21,808]

16 minutes ago, elfrjz said:

Not to be that guy but you should step up your editing

But why? To gain more views?, that’s a lot of additional work and unless it meets some objective I have in creating it, how does that benefit me or others?

Would the quality be better, maybe, but I’m neither a professional nor trying to be. The goal is to show how to do things, that’s priority #1 for me, I believe I achieved that, some minor issues aside.

[Shadow Assassin 336]

On 4/10/2023 at 4:45 PM, TheMurderousCricket said:

On the other hand, I also had an occasion to learn about a user named "Shadow Assassin". Member of the NAM team and a person with truckload of awards. Joined long before I did. And yet... they have a three-digit rep!

That'd be because I left ST wayyyyy before the rep system came in

The Trixies used to be a huge thing every year, back in the 00s.

---

2 hours ago, elfrjz said:

Not to be that guy but you should step up your editing. And btw, @Tarkus is ranked at the top.

I'd tone your attitude down a bit mate, not everyone's in it for the fame.

[Propfam 2,288]

7 hours ago, Shadow Assassin said:

That'd be because I left ST wayyyyy before the rep system came in

The Trixies used to be a huge thing every year, back in the 00s.

---

I'd tone your attitude down a bit mate, not everyone's in it for the fame.

Welcome to back to the forum again, SA!

To be fair, I'm not intending to offend anyone. In fact, my intention of "not to be that guy" was indeed to soften the tone. Sorry for misunderstanding.

[catty-cb 4,392]

To be honest I've never paid much attention to the rep points, but I do try and use it so if someone thanks me for a post then I'll "like" it or if I agree with a post or someone has put some time into an answer to another user I try and make sure I've used the rep points, I do know the rep points only used to work on some of the boards so you could be posting everyday and it wouldn't count towards your total rep balance.

There might be a better way these days of showing you appreciate someone's efforts, posts, hardworking, etc on the site, but then those people who really like the rep points they have wouldn't be happy at losing them

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

18 hours ago, Shadow Assassin said:

That'd be because I left ST wayyyyy before the rep system came in

Understood. 

20 hours ago, elfrjz said:

Not to be that guy but you should step up your editing.

It really depends on what you are trying to achieve.

I'd figure that instructional or DIY videos have a totally different goal and editing is a secondary if not even tertiary (yep, that's a real word ) concern in this case. The easier and clearer the videos are, the better it is.

Personally, I am always put off by videos which begin with a 40 second show-off of flashing, music-synced logos. "Presence over substance" as they say.

[Propfam 2,288]

1 hour ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

videos which begin with a 40 second show-off of flashing, music-synced logos.

MKBHD is nice tho.

[ilikehotdogsalot 308]

On 4/10/2023 at 11:20 PM, Haljackey said:

 

Ex- the mid to late 2000s were a glorious time on simtrop, with 2008 being the high mark of activity if I am not mistaken. So many amazing city journals, mods, game breakthroughs, you name it... and yet most of these members have pretty lackluster rep counts. Just goes to show you numbers don't tell the full story here.

 

I miss that era!!!

[catty-cb 4,392]

1 hour ago, ilikehotdogsalot said:

I miss that era!!!

Yes same here 

[RoddyUK 22]

On 4/13/2023 at 12:48 PM, rsc204 said:

In a similar vein, my YouTube channel is hardly trending, but personally I feel 90k views isn't bad for a boring old git slowly talking through how to do things.

 

I think your videos are great - helped me start out with the NAM. I wouldn't have been able to cope with the modded SC4 without your videos at first, and later Rob's, Haljackey's, Tarkus' and Ulisse Wolf's (in no particular order).

"In no particular order" is important.

It seems to me that as far as video tutorials are concerned, somebody always misses *something* out, because it must be impossible to condense *everything* into one or two, or even a series of videos. Plus, I imagine, it would very hard indeed for NAM experts to think down to the absolute cluelessness of a newbie.

So I see them all as symbiotic really - after watching them all several times I can now remember which one has its best qualities: when I'm playing and get stuck I can think "oh, so-and so's video is the place to go to for x, so-and-so's video is best for y, so-and so's video is best for z", if you see what I mean.

So I don't honestly think any is better than the others when facing *all* of the NAM fearures - roads, RHW, RRW, bridges, flups, streets, or whatever - there's just too much information to expect one person to provide.

Editing has **** all to do with the value of the videos if the content is helpful. It's not a technical competition.

When people are generous enough to spend the time preparing and then putting together tutorial videos, it seems a bit churlish to start judging them and even more so to criticise their work, which is, to all intents and purposes, altrustic in its nature.

So all I can really say is thanks for making your youtube content rsc, in particular;  but thanks to everyone else, as well.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

I'm stubborn, grumpy, loudmouthed and my few releases are full of bugs. Until today I can't understand how I could even get so far. Undoubtly it's the merit oft this kind and patient community. Not mine. 

[matias93 7,535]

On 7/18/2023 at 3:43 AM, Fantozzi said:

I'm stubborn, grumpy, loudmouthed and my few releases are full of bugs. Until today I can't understand how I could even get so far. Undoubtly it's the merit oft this kind and patient community. Not mine. 

Your farms, to say something, are absolutely gorgeous and probably the biggest overhaul of agriculture in the game ever. Don't underestimate yourself nor your work.

[kSlank 146]

Some aren't popular in recent times, so they stop getting points

[kschmidt 6,164]

On 9/22/2023 at 1:02 AM, kSlank said:

Some aren't popular in recent times, so they stop getting points

Except rewards and contests, it's hard work. Too hard dominate some thread will not earn you points, reasonable usefull and entertaining will do. I wasn't aware there whern't point before 2008, so bombard the forum with pictures it will annoy a lot of members, post weekly update no problem. As long its helping the cause of the community it's Ok, else refrain and you will be rewarded eventualy !