Why I miss old clickies: a lament...

[The Coil]

Let me preface by saying that this post is not really a complaint (or at least not meant to be), nor a plea for any sort of return to old clickies (although, if you read on you'll see why that would be a good idea), and certainly not as a criticism of the moderators, who I think do a generally great job, and spend way more time than I'd probably be willing to keeping stuff running than I'd be willing to, and certainly do much that I'd be unable to (my "computer guy" expertise being limited to turning the computer off and back on again when something isn't working). However, this post by Leto got me pondering the old clickie system vs. the new clickie system:

Coil M8, the clickies are dead man. And so is all our fun. I think you have to wear black for a month, eat beans out of a can for awhile, and then straighten your tie and come back to the real world knowing that it is no longer fun to post here about clickies...

...the clickies are dead man. They are dead.

Here's what I miss about the old clickie system - the ability to give multiple clickies to one person. Now, I'm sure some of you are already forming in your minds certain responses to this, such as: "With one clickie per customer, it curbs abuse of one person giving zillions of clickies to another" or "This way, your rep depends on what a wide variety of people think about you" or "You can give mulitple comments to a person, it just doesn't add to your rep" or "It's just a meaningless number anyway, who cares" or "Shut the heck up about the clickies already, dude...what is your problem?". But I think all those responses miss two valuable aspects of the old clicky system (and I say this (mostly) in seriousness):

1) Clickies serve a valuable purpose in providing feedback to forum conversations. When you post something about tactics, or an AAR, or just some thought you had about CM, you never really know if other people are reading it, or what they think about it. One of the problems with a forum like this is it's hard to judge how other people are reacting to something you post, particularly because most people read way more than they post. Clickies were a valuable way to provide and receive feedback - when you post something, and 2 or 3 people green clicky you for it, it gives you a way to judge people's response to it. With the new system, there's really no motivation to clicky someone, especially if you already have in the past, so you (or I, anyway) tend to not give out clickies at all anymore, thus robbing the boards of a feedback mechanism that I think is pretty vital to lively interaction. Now, you might say that there is still feedback - you can (and people do) post their responses in the thread. Sure, but nobody wants to read a bunch of posts that say "Yup, I agree" or whatever. Clickies were an efficient back channel way to provide feedback with a minimum of effort and clutter. You might also say something like "they still function that way, you can keep adding/changing your clicky comment," but without having it affect the recipient's rep, it feels kind of hollow. To which you might respond "who cares about the stupid number?", which would lead me right to point #2...

2) The number matters. Ok, not really matters - I think we all know it's just a silly reputation number based on people we don't know clickying us for writing about a video game (well, all of us but one recently departed member). It doesn't matter like starving children in Africa (or whatever) matter. But it's not insignificant. It's kind of like playing poker for pennies (or whatever passes for insignificant currency in your country. Like if you were from Canada, you would read "dollar"). It doesn't really "matter" to me if I lose 27 cents or whatever, you could rightly say "why even play for money at all, a few pennies don't matter". But if you play without the pennies, the game gets a lot less fun. Same kind of situation if you are playing a pickup game of basketball...it doesn't "matter" what the final score was in any significant way, but it's way more fun if you keep score than if you don't. The fact that someone is counting makes you play a bit harder, even if it really is a bit silly that I care if my team wins some pickup game that doesn't really matter (It's also the same reason people want endgame stats in CMSF - who cares which pixel tank killed which? I bet you do...). In the same way, clickies don't really matter, but it was a fun, meaningless motivation to post, and to try to post worthwhile stuff that other people cared about. It was just a little inducement to do an AAR or run a test. And an entertaining side channel to amuse, annoy, and entertain, with something meaningless at stake (but something meaningless that is being counted). Ok, so you can still get clickies, but only one per person. As I argued previously, the real effect of this is that nobody really give out clickies any more - or at least much more infrequently. And consequently, gone is an inducement to post, and gone is an opportunity for more engagement and interaction between posters. Net effect = less people posting, way less interesting board. Since the clickies have been changed, the CM forum has started to look a lot like the other forums at the blitz, namely, sort of boring...an occasional post looking for a game, or asking some techinical question, but gone is the witty banter, the taunting, the merriment, the amusing AARs. Some may not miss the clicky chatter, but in amongst it all were some darn intersting conversations, tips, and info. Maybe people thought all the clicky talk was unbefitting a "serious wargaming forum", to which I'd reply, "there's dozens of 'serious' CM forums out there, and they all have one thing in common - they're pretty much dead". Most of what can be said about CM has been said, there's not much motivation to post anymore, except to look for an odd game. If all the clicky talk did nothing else, it spurred conversation and innovation, it set the Blitz apart as a CM forum that was entertaining and fun to read. At least I thought so...

Anyway, like I said, not really complaining, nor do I realistically think it'd ever be changed back, just waxing nostalgic on why I miss the old system, and why I don't really bother to post much any more. Maybe you think it's stupid to even think this much about clickies, to which my only defense is: You're still reading this post? Don't you have anything better to do with your time?

It seems to me like the current rep system is pretty much useless, as I don't think many really bother to use it much anymore. And the fact that it counts old multiple clickies while excluding new ones renders it even more meaningless as any sort of real rep scale. Seems like we might as well not have a rep system at all (ironically, POS got his wish for the death of the rep system, right before he left...). Anyway, that's my thoughts, do what you will with them - my posting days are drawing to a close anyway, there's a little Coil on the way in a week or so, and I don't anticipate having any time to think about clickies, whether of the yummy old variety or the tasteless fat-free, sugar-free New Clicky variety (did you catch the incredibly veiled "New Coke" reference?).