Tommy Points: Do you still hand them out?

[guava_wrench]

For me, I think the biggest downer was losing them to the Lakers of all teams. That will hurt until June 2011, for me.

I think they set this blog apart from others. What do the Laker Clowns have?

Kobe points? Nope. West points?

Now - "Magic Points"....I think Silver Screen and Roll could run with that one, IMO. I wouldn't mind being given a "Magic Point".

"Tommy Points" just has a nice ring to it.

Why does the Lakers series have any connection to Tommy Points? Was there some kind of ill-advised TP betting scheme?

The mods offered all posters a chance to risk tommy points on a celtics championship. If we won we got back double what we bet, if we lost we lost them and didnt get them back. So a lot of the regular posters lost all their points when we lost game seven. In some case people lost thousands. Its a good thing it was just tommy points and not money, although I lost some of that too on the game lol

Kinda obvious that doing so risks people people being demoralized about Tommy Points.

It really doesn't matter how many TPs someone has. What matters is the increase in count, meaning someone benefited from your comment.

The idea that someone would give less TPs to people who they surmise didn't bet TPs seems a bit misguided. Don't blame people for not reading threads about gambling or whatever means were used for the betting.

I especially don't get the idea of TP boosting that was mentioned in some posts. What is the point of artificially boosting points? Is it just another case of the squeaky wheel getting the oil?

[Snakehead]

You know, I was at 1800 Tommy Points when we lost to the Lakers and to tell the truth, the more I had, the less they meant (or so it felt). I remember when I got my first Tommy Point around three years ago, it meant the world to me (well, maybe not, but it was a really cool thing). I just feel it's a cool feature, even though it's not as cool as it used to be.

You're right, there's definitely a law of diminishing returns with these things.

Random story (nothing to do with your post, ACF):  Back in the very old days, when TPs first began, there was another poster (he no longer posts here) who actually argued he was a worthier poster than others because he had more TPs than me.  He and I were neck-and-neck for the TP lead for awhile (we're talking like 50 overall here), and I kept noticing that my TPs were staying level, or even declining.  Fast forward in time until fairly recently, and I was able to see that I was given dozens of negative TPs back then.  I bet, 10 to 1, that it was that poster, trying to keep my total down so he could "beat" me.

The minority of people just take these things too seriously.  Like Redz said, they're just meant as an attaboy, and as a way of making others feel good.  They're not a thing to be hoarded or collected, and certainly not something that people should fight or cheat over.

I miss the negative tommy points. i would have just given one out in the iverson thread....

I don't get why there would ever be a negative Tommy Point.  That misses the whole point of what a real "Tommy Point" is.

[Roy H.]

I especially don't get the idea of TP boosting that was mentioned in some posts. What is the point of artificially boosting points? Is it just another case of the squeaky wheel getting the oil?

I think either an overly-competitive nature or a low feeling of self-worth causes a small minority of people to "cheat" to boost their TP counts.  Now that everyone's count has been thrown out of whack, I think there's a lot less of that happening.

[guava_wrench]

I especially don't get the idea of TP boosting that was mentioned in some posts. What is the point of artificially boosting points? Is it just another case of the squeaky wheel getting the oil?

I think either an overly-competitive nature or a low feeling of self-worth causes a small minority of people to "cheat" to boost their TP counts.  Now that everyone's count has been thrown out of whack, I think there's a lot less of that happening.

Personally, I don't really care about anyone artificially boosting. If that makes them happy, whatever.

What I would like is to have a way to know what comments of mine received the Tommy Point.

Perhaps if there were a way for giving a TP to appear like "Like" appears on comments in facebook. That would be nice. It would also show if their is a mutual admiration club going on between 2 members.

I'm guessing our software doesn't have that built in.

[Roy H.]

I especially don't get the idea of TP boosting that was mentioned in some posts. What is the point of artificially boosting points? Is it just another case of the squeaky wheel getting the oil?

I think either an overly-competitive nature or a low feeling of self-worth causes a small minority of people to "cheat" to boost their TP counts.  Now that everyone's count has been thrown out of whack, I think there's a lot less of that happening.

Personally, I don't really care about anyone artificially boosting. If that makes them happy, whatever.

What I would like is to have a way to know what comments of mine received the Tommy Point.

Perhaps if there were a way for giving a TP to appear like "Like" appears on comments in facebook. That would be nice. It would also show if their is a mutual admiration club going on between 2 members.

I'm guessing our software doesn't have that built in.

Yeah, it's currently not available on our forum software.  I've seen other forums where similar things have been done, but not on one running our setup.