I suggest changing the point system, to a rating system

Question

Replacing them with "user ratings" in a 5-star scale.

Heres how it works: A user can go to a another post there instead of up votes and down votes there is a "rate this post!" thing (best answers are still included but doesn't affect rating). However you cannot rate a single post more than once unless deleting the previous rate. All this rating slowly accumulates to your general rating meaning if you are a maker of bad posts you'd probably have a lower rating such as 2 stars (Like me) or if you're a better user you might have something like 5 stars (DT). You can also go into someones profile and rate them too. To prevent spammy fake rating editors and experts can see what rates posts are getting and who is doing it.

This is better than the point system because if you have a low general rate then you have to make better posts to get that rating up then all of pokebase will get better (this is a situation where vaugeness is good).

Comments

EH, l don't know...
If you got 5 starred ONCE you would have 5 stars.
I don't know if this would work.
ALSO, points are much more fun!

Answer 1

I have to agree with Sam. You could look like a highly-rated member, but only have 3 or 4 ratings. Averages usually aren't the most reliable source of information in low numbers, especially when only 5 options can be given as values (1-5 stars).

If anything, the rating of the member would have to be hidden on their member page / answers until they've allocated many ratings (10-20, maybe?), which would probably be more trouble than it's worth to try to work toward, since quite a few people overlook even voting on answers frequently.

Points are instant, easy to rank, and proportion well between other members, the user's number of answers, and the length in which they've been on the site; there's simply many more factors included in points that can make you think, "Is this user a reliable source, or not?".

You can wait until Captain answers, of course, but I have a funny feeling that his answer will be similar to something like this.

Comments

I love last sentence...it makes me rememeber... :D