Points System

Can't say I disagree. Many Lounge participants agree as well, and already expressed their concerns months ago.

You can find many examples of replies with the most "upvotes" that are completely wrong and decidedly unhelpful.

What's worse is that replies from the distant past clearly labeled and easily identified as "this solved my problem" no longer have that distinction.

I agree that the new up/down vote system removes clarity about what actually solved a problem. On top of that, the points incentive for users to help has been been greatly diminished. I personally have not changed how often I offer help to solve people's problems, but the up votes/points received have been minuscule. I used to be amused by the dopamine hit I'd get from receiving a Solved from another user and the corresponding jump in points. I guess I'll now be stuck forever at Level 4.

I don’t work in the same forums that you do and most times I am just directing traffic not doing the dig down heavy lifting that you are. For what it’s worth I think you should be recognized much more for what you do. 🙏🙏

I definitely agree with your point about threads being marked as solved more often in the “Pro” forums. I also found it to be applicable to the Numbers, Pages and Keynote forums. On the other hand, the iDevice forums had an incredibly low solved/posts ratio.

The low solved rate I posted about above was based on a couple informal reviews of 4100 posts on all sub-forums, over the span of two separate 24 hour periods, only  255 posts were marked as solved. Even more disheartening than that low number, is the even lower number of 152 actual “solved” replies. The remaining 100 “solved” are distributed between nonsensical replies from the OP, me too replies, thank you marked as solved, and removed replies marked as solved. 

Some may think, I have too much time on my hands …they may be right.

Unfortunately, the issue is and always has been, that very few people asking questions ever follow up with a reply or an acknowledgement of the help given. Fewer still marked a thread as solved, and if they did, it was quite often marking their own reply. Changing the system to an up/down vote system will not change the behaviour of those people asking questions. The only result of this change is that the points are approximately 10% or less of what they were 3 months ago.

Am I missing something with the new system?

Points.

I don't have access to the underlying data of all the Communities here to discuss the percentage increase or decrease of awarded points since the change. As a level 10 Jedi perhaps you do. In my personal experience, the Solved thread marking behavior in the more technical forums, such as Final Cut Pro or Motion, was quite common.

In Response to Badunit

My issue is that I am at level three when the change takes place … there won't be a level

seven or 26,000 points for me . I don't believe that the upvote / downvote brings out the best in the users . The previous system was fun & competitive , now most of us will not have the opportunity to be in the lounge or the " special community " .

It feels insulting & non-inclusive to me .

SteelCityAnne wrote:

My issue is that I am at level three when the change takes place … there won't be a level

seven or 26,000 points for me . I don't believe that the upvote / downvote brings out the best in the users . The previous system was fun & competitive , now most of us will not have the opportunity to be in the lounge or the " special community " .

It feels insulting & non-inclusive to me .

One thing I can tell you is that, in the twenty-odd years I've been in this forum, there have been numerous different systems for accumulating points. So, this probably isn't forever.

Hello ~ Keep right on as you are. You are an inspiration to me for sure!! Thx so much!!

~Katana-San~

Right there with you as well. I'm not sure what the upvotes are doing. I don't see them updating my points, and it has gone a long time without updates, but there are lots of upvotes.

Am I missing something with the new system?

Hello again ~ Just to let you know I think your work in numbers is quite impressive!! Much learned from you!! Please keep up your hard work??🙏🏻🙏🏻

~Katana-San~