Building a killer forum reputation system
Joe is breaking apart his vision for Q&A forum reputation system into three phases. At Microsoft the common terminology for this is "crawl, walk, run". The current MSDN forum reputation system, as it exists today, is probably in the "yet to be born" stage.
Joe has outlined a plan to take it from simple post counts to something that sets our system apart. Its my hope that we'll get some of this stuff implemented so that we don't have to answer questions about forum reputation with "dodge, duck, dip, dive, and... dodge".
Most of the first phase of the forums reputation system is focused around "incenting and rewarding top answerers"--encouraging those key members of our forum community to contribute as much as possible. Without further ado.... ( read on )
Phase 2 of the reputation system aims at helping another group of key users of the forums--the question-askers... ( read on )
Of course I've read the spec and talk to Joe daily, so I know where this is going, but you'll have to subscribe to his blog if you'd like to find out. It's been a pleasure working with him so far and I'm sure it will be good.