[manbear]

This forum could use a reputation system like many other forums have -- any user can give others' posts positive or negative reputation points (subject to approval by a mod). These points determine a score for each poster. There could be restrictions to prevent abuse, such as user A can't give user B negative reputation twice in a row, without giving positive reputation to some other users first. This would greatly cut down on BS.

The current rankings only have to do with post count, which is useless in terms of measuring credibility. 

 

[billybob_jcv]

Head-fi runs on Huddler. http://www.huddler.com/

I think Huddler does have some capability for user reputation, but I don't know the details. What Huddler can do is the limit of what head-fi can do.

Personally, I think member reputation is fairly useless. Even on sites that have it, I never use it. I don't really care what someone else thinks about a specific member, and it's not going to change how I respond to what someone has posted.

 

[Radio_head]

Reputation should quickly become self-evident from the content of one's posts.  Too much bad blood can be made with a rep system on a forum of this size, and at the very least things become a popularity contest. 
 
Please give this post a thumbs up if you approve so it can make it to HF's front page.

 

[manbear]

I don't expect a reputation system to be a magic bullet. Of course, just the way a person writes says a lot about that person's credibility. However, I think rep could come in handy when I'm trying to sort out conflicting opinions about gear I haven't heard. And it could also give an incentive for people not to make dumb posts, as well as to try to be extra helpful when members have questions. It could also make people think twice about commenting on gear they haven't heard or "myths" that they can't really support logically. 

 

[billybob_jcv]

In my experience, a rep system doesn't stop the spreading of illogical fallacies & myths - the faithful simply up-vote the comments they agree with and down-vote the ones they don't.

 

[AxelCloris]

I can see an argument being made for a reputation system. There are members here who don't post often but have great things to say when they do; and there are those who are the opposite. Some posts I feel are just there to pad out a user's post number. I don't use post count as an identifier of any kind when taking someone's comments to mind. A reputation system could help there. But as mentioned before, the people who have groupies will constantly be upped, even for a single comment as stupid as "lolwut?" Honestly though, I kinda feel like a reputation system as a whole would be a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. I recognize the names of members on Head-Fi with whom I agree and those with whom I don't. Could it be interesting? Sure. Is it necessary? Not really.

 

[paradoxper]

The whole post count is silly and it's only a benefit for newcomer's who might think you know something because you have 3807 posts.
 
A reputation system is broken when you have a core group of people who are frat buddies. 
 
Leave the thing alone. It's already been done. Live with it now.