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In preparation for the soon to be implemented change in the rep system, and the necessary global rep-recalc and the ensuing onslaught of WTF!?! Where did all my rep go?? questions that are bound to be asked. What is the best way to prevent dozens of duplicate questions here on MSO?

S Mark suggested in a comment to the original proposal to put up an alert bar on all the sites announcing the change. Jeff declined saying that it would just be an invitation to support requests.

I suggest toning it down a bit. How about an alert bar only here on meta?

It can be assumed that anyone on meta already knows about the changes and recalc and will just accept the notification and continue on their way. Any other SOFU users who come here for support will get the notification as the first then when they log into MSO and hopefully have their question answered immediately. Perhaps the bar could point to Jeff's original question proposing the idea or the blog post announcing it.

Is there a better way to handle the hordes of questions that are imminent?

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    This seems like a pointless question just to get rep. I want to cut the rep you've earned on this in in half and then make it retroactive to all of your other pointless questions... Oh wait, there were some good ones there...
    – RSolberg
    Commented Mar 19, 2010 at 19:00
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    I've got to find some way of making up all that rep I'm going to loose! The answer? 2x pointless questions!
    – heavyd
    Commented Mar 19, 2010 at 19:07
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    Free the rep! Free the rep!
    – mmyers
    Commented Mar 19, 2010 at 19:14
  • I understood his point on the declination though.
    – YOU
    Commented Mar 20, 2010 at 8:56

7 Answers 7

Reset to default
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Big orange bar on the top of the screen, "Where did my rep go!?"

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Thank you for your ongoing contributions to Stackoverflow. We may have previously overvalued said contributions, and have recently corrected this oversight by reducing your reputation score. We hope that this will help you better understand the diminished value of your work.

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  • Could always double every other rep number (including moderator thresholds), because we undervalued those actions, and leave question upvotes the same.
    – Gnome
    Commented Mar 19, 2010 at 20:42
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  1. Write a "rep recalculation FAQ".
  2. Close all questions as duplicates of that FAQ.
  3. Beer.
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    I think things would be more interesting if you added "0. Beer".
    – gnostradamus
    Commented Mar 19, 2010 at 18:40
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    can we just skip steps 1 & 2 and go straight to step 3?
    – quack quixote
    Commented Mar 19, 2010 at 18:45
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    4. Profit​​​​​​?
    – fretje
    Commented Mar 19, 2010 at 18:53
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    ... In fact, forget the recalc.
    – perbert
    Commented Mar 19, 2010 at 18:55
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    meta.stackexchange.com/questions/42904/…
    – Gnome
    Commented Mar 19, 2010 at 18:55
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    ... and the blackjack!
    – quack quixote
    Commented Mar 19, 2010 at 21:30
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Every user should be sent a message whenever a recalc is done on his account, letting him know about the recalc, and how much rep was lost or gain.

It's just a small matter of scripting.

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    Why oh why do people insist on stating how big or small a job they believe something should be? Nothing annoys me more than when a client says "How come we can't get x added to our report? It's just a single column! It should be 5 minutes, how come you're billing us for 2 hours?" - when they've got no idea how the reports are calculated, and that it might be a single cell in a spreadsheet but it's not a single row in the database it is in fact dozens of calculations that all add up to be the value AND IT NEEDS DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING SO DON'T TELL ME HOW "EASY" IT SHOULD BE!
    – Mark Henderson
    Commented Mar 21, 2010 at 22:24
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    @Farseeker, it's an old computing in-joke I learned in the 80's, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_matter_of_programming
    – Lance Roberts
    Commented Mar 22, 2010 at 17:11
  • oh, right. Sorry was just having a bad day that day with a client and a dispute over the billing of a report.
    – Mark Henderson
    Commented Mar 22, 2010 at 19:32
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You can refer them to

see: How do I audit my reputation?

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    Wow, this rep-report is cool
    – YOU
    Commented Mar 20, 2010 at 8:55
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I'd cheer them up with some waffles.

waffles!
(source: mightysweet.com)

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    I'm so hungry right now...
    – Shog9
    Commented Mar 19, 2010 at 21:22
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I agree about the alert bar only here on Meta, and would additionally suggest to show it only for users who are new to Meta or who haven't been to Meta in over x days. (x=30 ?) You could have the "first time here? check the FAQ" bar as well as a bar saying "Are you here because you suddenly lost a lot of rep? Read this article"

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