Umbran said:
That works both ways. You can't give a second point for some longish while. So?
You've already told someone you've liked what they wrote. Doing it again, ("I really like your posts" or "I really really liked your posts") isn't adding a whole lot of new information to the system.
But the xp function is attached to a post, not the poster. Giving xp isn't saying, "I like your posts" [plural, general], it's saying, "I like this post" [singular, specific]. I figure the Friend function is for the poster.
As for "You can't give a second point for some longish while. So?" -- The so is: I can't give a second point for what is for my xp-awarding-rate a very long while. I can't say, "Good Post" to someone twice in a month. (Unless, of course, I make a post saying that, which is borderline spamming.)
Side effect: Plus, I've sometimes found an old thread/post that I find good, and I find I can't say "Thanks for the info" without thread necromancy.
I can think of cases where spamming the boards did become a problem. One earned the person a permaban. While infrequent, it has been a concern.
So spamming is a problem, yet we still have the post counter. (For the record: I have no problem with the post counter.)
When we were instituting the system, Morrus asked among the mods for input. A few of us had noted cases in other forums where, through abuse, the system had become meaningless, and had promoted behaviors that are not really in line with EN World's raison d'etre.
What resulted from the abuse? That's what I'm asking in all of this: What benefit can an abuser get, and what harm can an abuse do with this xp system? What bad behavior would be promoted?
And anyway, that argument goes both ways. We went for years without any such feature, and there was no "problem". Nobody was harmed in any way by not being able to give XP. No "problem" arises from having it be handed out slowly, either.
Well heck, that argument can be made for anything. We went for years without ENWorld, and there was no "problem." Nobody was harmed in any way by not being able to read news on a 3rd-party Web site.
Then we got ENWorld. We liked it. But what if we could only access the site once a week. Or only after visiting 50 other Web sites. When someone says, "We like this site, and want to visit a couple or so times a week."
Depends on what you call "significant" I suppose. Or, more accurately - what counts as "significant" depends on the limits in the system. If we raised the frequency with which you could give XP, the whole system would just rescale. Why bother?
Consider it this way - EN World is set up with slow XP awards, as a way to keep things in the Heroic tier. Being 10th level is very meaningful in this campaign world. It's the GM's style choice.
You could increase the XP needed to level, and then let people give XP more often.
It's like with D&D. The PCs need 2,000 XP to level up. The DM likes awarding XP, the Players like getting XP. But the designers say, "We don't want the PCs leveling up too fast, so you can only award and get XP for every 10th encounter." The Designers could simply have raised the level up number to 20,000 XP, and let the DMs and Players continue with their fun rate of awards.
Overall, I'm just saying, the XP system ENWorld has is a great thing. But its use is so restricted that it's near useless.
So, I ask, what bad happens if the restriction is lightened or removed?
I won't make any more comments on this subject. It's not that important to me. I just think it's a waste of a really good idea.
Bullgrit
