Greetings All:

Well, now you have a way to weed out the bad users from the good users, while at the same time building your own reputation on this community.

Welcome To The AntiPoints System!

If you post high quality and thoughtful messages, your fellow members will approve of your posts. By their approval you gain AntiPoints. If you post incorrect, misleading, harassing, or messages against the guidelines, they will disapprove and you will lose AntiPoints.

Your "AntiPoints Rating" will be displayed underneath all of your posts. Only you will know your exact number of AntiPoints -- you can view this by clicking on the AntiPoints icon on the right hand side of your own post or through the "Account Overview" link under the "Your Account" box on the main page. For every 100 points positive or negative, you will gain another "AntiPoints Rating" light. After 5 lights, they will take twice as long to appear.

What Does this Mean For You?

This will allow you to quickly see the resident forum idiots. It allows you to sort the signal from noise by checking the user's "AntiPoints Rating". It will also encourage more thoughtful posts from other members as the AntiPoints will serve as a reward for helping others.

The amount of AntiPoints that you give or take away is determined by a number of factors -- if you're an old respected user, you might give 7 AntiPoints with each click, while a newbie may give only 1.

You also can earn AntiPoints by rating other user's posts, visiting the forums on a regular basis, and a host of other "undisclosed ways". In short, the more you contribute to other members in this community, the more AntiPoints you earn for yourself.

In the future, you will be able to "spend" your AntiPoints on additional site features and gear.

We have dozens of checks and balances installed, that will help limit abuse and fraud of this system. If you are caught attempting to abuse the AntiPoints System, your account will be removed. Period!


I hope that everyone makes use of this exciting new feature. Your suggestions and thoughts about it are always welcome!