Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP

[Limbic~Region]

All:
Since I will likely carry on for a bit, let me just say upfront that I support all the proposed changes. Feel free to continue reading or not. I only have one concern and I will put it in bold for those skim reading.

There is a distinct difference between XP and a node's reputation.

A node's reputation is, for the most part, a reflection of how your peers view what you have written. In a single quantitative number, there is no way to convey exactly why you voted for a node:

Good of Perl community

Ability to solve problem as stated

Creativity factor

Readability/Understandability factor

Accuracy
The number also doesn't distinguish "popularity" voting (both of the monk and the node itself), front page advantage, or the monk who is randomly casting votes in hopes of gaining XP. We would hope that the upvotes and downvotes for these things would cancel each other out, but I am not sure that is the case.

A Monk's XP is a different story. For a lot of monks, it is a badge of honor or a status symbol. I found the whole idea of gaining rank very exciting when I first joined. As you gain levels, you also gain abilities. For this reason alone, I argue that XP is not meaningless. While it is a reflection of how the community views you, it is also a reflection of how much you contribute back to the community. Unfortunately, it does not distinguish between being the first one to reply to a node (right or wrong), casting your votes without thought in order to gain XP, monks who vote on your nodes because of popularity, etc. Afterall, it is a single quantitative number - not a discriminating qualitative review.

A lot of monks take pride in their work and are disheartened when their nodes are downvoted - especially without explanation. Others use downvoting as a means of retalliation for something said in the CB. I have often heard a monk mention in the CB that they just received a half a dozen downvotes. Still others use their writeups as a guage as to how well they are doing in their progress with the language. They have Faith in the system that it works ideally and they are truly dumbfounded when a node is downvoted that they can't find anything wrong with. My only concern with the proposed changes is that the monks who casts their votes strictly to gain XP will no longer use them to downvote. This will disrupt the assumed balance of voting for reasons other than the nodes content. On the other hand, it may deter the would-be retalliations?

If I were to add anything to the proposal, it would be to re-examine the number of votes given at each level. I feel that if far fewer votes were given out that much more thought would be given before spending them so freely.

In closing, I want to again extend my thanks to the Perl community at large and especially to PerlMonks. No one makes any money off of this site and a lot of volunteers spend large portions of their personal time and effort to make it enjoyable for everyone else. It frustrates me to hear all the suggestions being made to change the site when I take a look at the sparse number of people who contribute to the Offering Plate. The Node Reputation/XP system isn't perfect and probably never will be, but I think the proposed changes are a step in the right direction.

Cheers - L~R

PS
I am wondering if the spelling of infallible was intentionally wrong to illustrate the point of the statement.?

[tye]

My only concern with the proposed changes is that the monks who casts their votes strictly to gain XP...

I think you may have a "straw man" here. I hear lots of claims of people casting votes just to get XP (and I usually hear these when someone is complaining about getting downvoted), but I don't see a lot of evidence of it. I'm sure lots of people have played that game, but it gets pretty boring pretty fast (especially compared to other "games" you can play), so I personally doubt that such accounts for much of the voting.

And I'm quite convinced that "casting downvotes strictly to get XP" is currently extremely rare. I would have liked to spend some time discussing such issues (especially this point) when announcing the plan, but I wasn't given that opportunity, and I don't have the time nor inclination to try to craft those words at the moment.

...will no longer use them to downvote. This will disrupt the assumed balance of voting for reasons other than the nodes content.

The number of downvotes cast compared to upvotes is currently *tiny* (and this is a good thing). Even completely eliminating downvotes would have little effect on average node reputation. So any reduction in downvoting will be "in the noise" as far as node reputations are concerned.

On the other hand, it may deter the would-be retalliations?

I doubt that part of the plan will have much impact on retalliation. I had hoped that it might reduce the duration of some retalliations, but I that was a rather wan hope. But it doesn't matter much to me because some of the other changes should make retallition much less of a problem.

[Abigail-II]

A node's reputation is, for the most part, a reflection of how your peers view what you have written.

Peers? Peers? "Peer review" usually involves (careful) selection. Academic journals have "peer reviews", and that doesn't involve letting anyone with a subscription vote on a submission. Instead, a (hopefully) knowlingly board selects people to review the submission. Unlike the situation at Perlmonks where anyone and his dog can create one or more accounts and vote. Now, I'm not going to argue about the rest of your article, but a node's reputation isn't decided by peers.

Abigail

[Limbic~Region]

Abigail,
You are correct. To be honest, I do not feel that a lot of the monks here are my peers. Quite the opposite, I feel that their capabilities are far above my own with you included. I struggled with the right word to use there. I guess I could have said "members of the PM community" in lieu of peers. But while we are not all on even footing in regards to our abilities as programmers, monks level 2 and higher are all able to vote.

I will leave the original text as is though I agree with your point of contention.

Cheers - L~R

[herveus]

Howdy!

Yes, "peers". He didn't say "peer review", but "how your peers view" -- a more colloquial statement.

Everyone here is, in one sense, my peer, in the same way that a jury panel is drawn from "my peers".

At the risk of seeming pedantic, I agree that "...a node's reputation isn't decided by peers." It's decided by "my peers", not some collection of Earls, Barons, and Dukes. *grin*