Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
Just another Perl shrine
 
PerlMonks  

Possible changes to Voting/XP

by theonetwo (Beadle)
on Jan 22, 2004 at 06:09 UTC ( [id://323100]=monkdiscuss: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

Hello, all. tye has been taking a good, long, look at XP, voting, the relationship between them, the problems caused by the current relationship, and how to best solve them, for quite a while, and this is his plan, as posted on the wiki. It seems to have passed review by the gods, and I thought it was time to ask for feedback from you-all. I told him that it was probably time to post it here, and he said "feel free", so I am. Remember, this is not my work. If you want somebody to thank, thank tye. (If you want somebody to blame, blame ar0n.) Without futher ado:

Here is my take on how the voting system should become. Much of this I worked out talking to vroom. Some details I finalized on my own. The main changes are:
  • Less XP bonus for casting all votes (many seem to feel that making Saint w/o write-ups was too easy)
  • No XP bonus for casting a down-vote (we have just a few people casting almost all of the downvotes being cast)
  • No XP loss if your node is only down-voted once (noise reduction)
  • Less XP loss if an *old* node is down-voted (we forgive you for your old sins, and it makes it much less effective for someone to "attack" someone by downvoting all of their nodes or their lowest-reputation nodes)
  • High-reputation nodes that are *old* earn XP for up-votes more like regular-reputation nodes (Reduce the effect of Best Nodes on XP)
Between the HRs is the likely next replacement for Voting/Experience System.

Once each day, all monks are given their daily allocation of votes. So, once you have reached Level 2 (Novice -- see below) and waited upto one day for the next batch of votes to be given out, you can vote on nodes.

If you have any unused votes, then the XP Nodelet will appear telling you how many votes you have left and, on most nodes, you will see radio buttons labeled "++" and "--". You use these radio button to vote on the node, then press the "Vote" button toward the bottom of the page to cast the vote(s).

Use these votes wisely! Up-vote (vote "++" on) nodes that you appreciate and the author may gain experience points (XP) and you may gain XP for helping to rate nodes. You can down-vote (vote "--" on) nodes that you feel deserve it and the author may lose experience points. The details are below. (Also see vote-related preferences in user settings.)

You will receive a certain number of votes each 24-hour day. The higher your level, the more votes you receive. As you go up in level, you may also receive special powers.

All details are subject to change as we see necessary.

LevelXPVotesTitle
10 0Initiate
220 5Novice
350 8Acolyte
4100 12Scribe
5200 16Monk
6500 20Friar
71000 25Abbot
81600 30Bishop
92300 35Pontiff
103000 40Saint

Other ways to alter XP:

  • 1/4 chance of +1 XP every time you up-vote a node
  • 1/4 change of +2 XP each day if you were logged in within the past 24 hours
  • +1 XP if you use up all of your votes for that day while you are Level 2 (Novice) or Level 3 (Acolyte).

There is roughly a 1/3 chance of you gaining 1 XP when someone up-votes one of your nodes. The odds increase the higher your node's reputation is "above average," but this effect fades as your node gets older (returning the odds to closer to 1/3 even if your node's reputation has become quite high).

There is roughly a 1/3 chance of you losing 1 XP when someone down-votes one of your nodes. The odds decrease the higher your node's reputation is "above average". The odds also decrease the older your node is.

For the first week after you post a node, the odds do not change (based on node age, but they may change as your node's reputation changes or as $NORM changes -- see below). This is called $week==1. At the second week, the odds of a down-vote resulting in you losing 1 XP reduce quite a bit (by about half). Each week after that, the odds of losing 1 XP when your node is down-voted approach zero while the odds of gaining 1 XP when your node is up-voted approach 1/3 (that is, your node's reputation has less effect on raising the odds above 1/3).

For each of your nodes, the first up-vote cast and the first down-vote cast have special odds.

Odds of gaining 1 XP when your node is up-voted:

    First up-vote:   Always
    Later up-votes:  (2+$bonus/$week) / 6

Odds of losing 1 XP when your node is down-voted:

    First down-vote:   Never
    Later down-votes:  1 / (3+$bonus+$decay)
    (Except that the odds are set to 0 when $bonus is 4.)

Where the variables are defined as:

$bonus
int($rep/$NORM); but 0 <= $bonus <= 4
$week
1+int($nodeAgeInWeeks)
$decay
0 the first week ($week=1) and 2+$week in subsequent weeks; that is 0 then 3+int($nodeAgeInWeeks)
$rep
your node's reputation (count of up-votes minus count of down-votes)
$NORM
The average reputation of all of the nodes created within the past week. It is only calculated once each day, at the same time as votes are given out. The current value of $NORM is 10.0813.

Your node's reputation Bonus Odds of gaining 1 XP Odds of losing 1 XP
Week 1 Week 2 1 year Week 1 Week 2 1 year
           $rep < 1*$NORM 0 1/3 1/3 1/3 1/3 1/7 1/58
1*$NORM <= $rep < 2*$NORM 1 1/2 5/12 0.3365 1/4 1/8 1/59
2*$NORM <= $rep < 3*$NORM 2 2/3 1/2 0.3397 1/5 1/9 1/60
3*$NORM <= $rep < 4*$NORM 3 5/6 7/12 0.3429 1/6 1/10 1/61
4*$NORM <= $rep           4 1 2/3 0.3462 0 0 0



theorbtwo in a Coat of Many Colors. I may be a god, but I'm not infailable. Smack me up if I'm wrong, just like anybody else.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by CountZero (Bishop) on Jan 22, 2004 at 07:17 UTC
    I find it a good proposal, except for the "0" odds of loosing 1 XP for the nodes with high rep. Shouldn't there be a little risk involved? As it now stands there must be sufficient downvotes to reduce the rep of the node to below 4 * $NORM before you again run the risk of loosing XP.

    Nothing should be cast in concrete and nobody should be above criticism.

    CountZero

    "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law

      The "0" odds of losing XP for nodes with high rep is the way it works now, no? I'd rather not see that change. Update: I think my brain was on vacation when I wrote the following sentence; I have no clue what I was thinking. (One effect is to make it harder/impossible to try to move other's nodes down on the best nodes list.)
Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by Limbic~Region (Chancellor) on Jan 22, 2004 at 14:12 UTC
    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.

    Cheers - L~R

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

      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.

                      - tye
      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

        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

        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*

        yours,
        Michael
Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Jan 22, 2004 at 15:23 UTC
    {A gazillion rules to determine whether a vote has δ chance of modifying someone's XP or δ + ε for some small ε}
    Can't we just give everyone 1000 XP/day? Wouldn't that be much simpler, and reduce the load on the servers?
    No XP bonus for casting a down-vote (we have just a few people casting almost all of the downvotes being cast)
    Man, this sucks. Now I will never get to level vroom.

    Abigail

      Sorry to jump in this thread so late, but the following statement really jumped out at me.

      (we have just a few people casting almost all of the downvotes being cast)

      Perhaps it's ignorance on my part, but I would not have expected that information to be tracked/knowable. Is there no anonymity in voting on PM? I know you must be logged in, but are things being logged showing how everyone has voted?

      If that information is/can be known (by some/few/any)does that not leave one open to a reprisals?

      If I believe a node deserves a --, I'd like to be able to do it without wondering if they will try to get back at me.

      FWIW: If --s are truely small in number, perhaps there could be some way of optionally adding a comment for that case (annonymously of course). I'd be interested to know why someone thought a node was -- worthy. Of course the same could be interesting on the ++ side but that's obviously not feasible. Besides I think most can easily aceept "they liked something" so great; however, with the neg some info/reason may serve to mitigate.

        Of course voting is tracked. How else could we know you've already voted on a node (and thus show you the reputation instead of voting buttons).

        The fact that most of the down-votes are cast by a few users was based on the results of a query that showed recent down-vote counts per user ordered from most to fewest. I did it a while ago but I doubt I went to the extra effort to display monk names so the query probably just showed user ID numbers.

        In any case, I was looking at the counts not the users and I don't recall any monk names nor ID numbers. I don't really care how any user votes. I sometimes care about how the voting system is working or not working (usually when someone complains).

        Pretty much anything you do on a computer can be monitored by some administrator somewhere. I've administered computers in some capacity for two decades.

        One doesn't abuse privileges to go poking around at information one has some personal issue with as that could lead to finding it, which just sucks (you can't do anything with the information and there is a point to the phrase 'ignorance is bliss'). It has been many years since I made that mistake (and even worse is *having* to deal with personal information of non-strangers as part of your job).

        - tye        

        I'd be interested to know why someone thought a node was -- worthy.
        A non-significant percentage of the votes I cast are --. There are several reasons I -- a post:
        • Off topic posts.
        • Postings that are badly phrased, badly formatted, unclear or ambigious.
        • Questions that ask to be spoon-fed, or contains hundreds of lines of code and a "it doesn't work".
        • FAQs, or questions whose answers could be found easily in the documentation.
        • Answers that are wrong.
        • Replies that don't answer the question.
        • Followup questions of the form "that answers the question, but my real problem is..."
        • Posts with misleading subjects.
        • Opinions that are presented as facts.
        • Posts that make wild claims without backing them up with some proofs.
        Now, the majority of the posts that I read and fall in one of the categories, I don't give any votes for. But there are reasons enough to vote --.

        Abigail

        The gods can view votes cast by and upon any individual user. Only the gods can view this and it's not shown by default anywhere.

        I wouldn't worry about any of the other gods smiting you for some perceived slight. (I wouldn't worry about me either, but all I'm saying is that I trust the other gods to act responsibly and maturely.) You don't get to be a god by worrying about your own XP fluctuations.

Alternatives to XP
by zby (Vicar) on Jan 22, 2004 at 11:58 UTC
    Some time ago I proposed A feature for Personal Nodelet. The rationale for this idea you'll find in the thread. Here I'd like to add one more - by counting how many people have a given node in their Personal Nodelet we could have some alternative Best Nodes classification. The advantage of this schema is that it's based on a more natural and objective measure - the number of how many threads of discussion one can and want to follow.

    Since I don't think this will be developed in the PM engine - I've started to code my own mechanism for checking web pages, something like active bookmarks - a list of web pages that actively check if there is new content on any of them. The application is nearly written and this weekend I'll post a link to my personal web server for those that would try to check it. I code it as a general as possible - but I'll add some Perl Monks extensions - like downloading pages from thepen instead of the live database. Is anyone interested?

    By the way is there an XML ticker for Personal Nodelets? I would like to have this as an alternative mechanism for filling my database.

Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by demerphq (Chancellor) on Jan 22, 2004 at 16:29 UTC

    This all sounds great. I have two minor contributions to add: First, I would really like to see the contention on a node. So once ive voted on a node Id like to see its rep and the number of votes cast. Second, I believe that if the last_node variable was used so that you plain and simply couldnt vote on nodes you reached from best nodes. If you stumble on the same node from somewhere else then fine, but I dont think Best Nodes should be votable on. (There are probably a host of ways to do this beside the last_node variable.)

    Anyway, I think reviewing the XP system at this time is a good idea. Ideas that work when the user population is small may not work when they are as large as they are now. Especially given the 200 odd saints with a total vote power of around 8000 votes everyday XP and rep inflation is going to be more and more of a problem.

    And I vote for downvotes having 0 change of XP gain. If you want to be nasty then do it to make a point, not to get XP.


    ---
    demerphq

      First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
      -- Gandhi


      Especially given the 200 odd saints with a total vote power of around 8000 votes everyday XP and rep inflation is going to be more and more of a problem.
      That assumes all saints use up all the votes every day. More often than not, I cast less than 5 votes a day.
      And I vote for downvotes having 0 change of XP gain. If you want to be nasty then do it to make a point, not to get XP.
      Why not extent it to if you vote, then do it to make a point, not to get XP. Otherwise, you are suggesting that it's ok to vote ++ to gain XP. Which is odd considering your concern of XP and rep inflation.

      Abigail

        That assumes all saints use up all the votes every day. More often than not, I cast less than 5 votes a day.

        Yeah me too. But my point is still valid, there are far more votes available in th system now, but without a corresponding increase in volume.

        Otherwise, you are suggesting that it's ok to vote ++ to gain XP.

        Well, actually I was thinking of the people who mass downvote or the like as was mentioned in the OP. But you're right: One should vote to make a point and not to make XP.


        ---
        demerphq

          First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
          -- Gandhi


Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by ysth (Canon) on Jan 22, 2004 at 08:40 UTC
    Do "first up-vote" and "first down-vote" mean that literally? update: yes. Or do they mean transitioning from rep 0 to 1 or -1, whether or not there have been previous up/down votes? Or do they mean "first time entering a reputation range > 0 or < 0"?

    Update: thanks for clarifying, tye. I was indeed reluctant to assume more than reputation was stored, since I saw nothing else needed under the current system.

    I'm glad to see such minimal changes; the system seems to produce good results, and it's far better to change too little than too much.

      Strangely enough, yes, I used "first up-vote" when I meant the "first" "up-vote". I'll try to be less literal if it will be clearer to you. ;)

      I don't see how your other interpretations make much sense as ways to do things, though. It sounds like you were trying to guess at the implementation and reluctant to consider that it might be easy to distinguish the first X-vote.

      The current system already tracks first up-vote by having a separate field for 'post bonus given yet?'. Since then we started tracking total number of votes cast for each node, which can be used to detect both 'first' votes even without that other field.

                      - tye
        Thanks for putting in all the work on this, tye.

        Are the ++ and -- votes simply summed as the votes come in or is there a "voting history log" kept? Alternately, are the up and down votes tracked as separate values? (eg $rep = $upvote - $downvote)

        -Theo-
        (so many nodes and so little time ... )

Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by coreolyn (Parson) on Jan 22, 2004 at 15:23 UTC

    Well I've been here almost as long as the sites been up, and I too agree with the majority of the proposal. My only disagreement is with "No XP bonus for casting a down-vote". Regardless of type of vote it is a reflection of the readers opinion and should be of the same value. I also feel that if downvotes after a period of time are no longer counted toward XP upvotes shouldn't count either. This would allow the reputation of the node itself to have a life of its own as it should.

      The proposed lack of XP bonus for casting down-votes is not a reflection of down-voting being discounted as a contribution. Casting appropriate down-votes is a contribution, but you will have to be motivated to make that particular type of contribution for reasons other than gaining XP.

      Casting up-votes only for XP isn't much of a contribution (but is also probably part of why the system works), and if you manage to do that for very long then I'd assume you must have an amazingly boring life. Perhaps the typical voting contribution is "casting up-votes for several reasons, only one of which is gaining XP". And that is a fine contribution. Over time, the typical human adds more weight to these other reasons and the site benefits.

      And the change isn't meant to discourage people from casting the occasional down-vote. The change is meant for people who cast a large number of down-votes. They shouldn't get a large reward. No, I don't think this minor change will result in much change in behavior. The effect will probably be subtle. But I do think the large reward for the large number of down-votes is a flaw in the current system, even if just from the point of view of sanity of the system. It just feels wrong.

      I often think it'd be even better to have casting a downvote have a chance of costing the voter 1 XP (for quite a few different reasons) and some have agreed with me on that point. If you cast a down-vote, you should have a good reason (as it can be a distruptive action), and should be willing to accept the same punishment that you are dealing out. That might even change the attitude of those who get down-voted. Instead of whining about how unfair the down-vote was, they might realize that 1) the down-voter got much of the same punishment and 2) someone felt strongly enough about something that they were willing to take that punishment.

      I currently think losing XP for down-voting makes more sense. But I also see potential down sides to such a proposal (one big one being that it would be tough sell). So I think it makes sense to "compromise" on this point and to also take the more conservative route.

      I also feel that if downvotes after a period of time are no longer counted toward XP upvotes shouldn't count either.

      The proposal does make many up-votes count less over time, and I could see it going further in that direction. But I think it makes sense to allow people to be "forgiven" for their past "sins" without preventing them from being rewarded for past accomplishments. It can be quite fun to get XP, look to see what for, and discover that some old node of yours was rediscovered.

                      - tye
        If you reward people by giving them XP for up-voting, and punish them for down-voting (this is, assuming people care about their XP), on top of the already existing social pressure of prefering up-votes, you make up-voting even more meaningless. Votes have meaning if casters have choices, with equal gain for each choice.

        It can be quite fun to get XP, look to see what for, and discover that some old node of yours was rediscovered.
        How do you do that?

        Abigail

        I see your logic and appreciate the thought you've put into this, however, I do see it being problematic over time weighting XP differently for --||++ votes. Just one monks opinion though :)

        As for the ". . .discover that some old node of yours was rediscovered." It'd be nice to have it easier to detect that discovery. It is nice to realize something you wrote a couple years ago was appreciated by someone.

        I often think it'd be even better to have casting a downvote have a chance of costing the voter 1 XP

        Perhaps losing the XP should be subject to similar odds as the chance of the OP losing XP. What I would like even better is tracking the number of downvotes per 24 hours and start the XP loss when the total exceeded some nominal value.

        -Theo-
        (so many nodes and so little time ... )

Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by xenchu (Friar) on Jan 22, 2004 at 15:08 UTC

    Since I have been here a lot less time than most of the other responders I will keep this brief: I like it.

    Thanks for the work, tye.

    xenchu


    The Needs of the World and my Talents run parallel to infinity.
Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by BigLug (Chaplain) on Jan 26, 2004 at 11:45 UTC
    Thanks for all this Tye, it looks really good. But while you've a finger stirring the Voting/XP Pot, can I make a couple of suggestions:
    No front page voting
    Take the ability to ++ or -- off the front page. That way you have to actually be interested enough in a post that you have to follow it to a page with replies before you can vote either way. I know I used to vote occasionally on the front page, only to follow the thread to the replies and wish I'd not voted as I did. For example the front page tells of a great discovery. I think 'that's a great idea'. I ++ it and then read onto the replies only to discover wiser monks have torn it to shreds!
    Reduced votes across the board
    With so many monks, it it necessary to have so many votes per monk? I rarely, if ever, use my total allocation, but I do read a fair bit of what goes on. Someone else, on the other hand may not read too much but will throw their votes around just to use them up, thus voting on things they don't really care two hoots about. Decreased supply means an increase in value.
    Show reputation as Reputation: 40 - 30 = 10
    This will tell me a lot more than just learning that the post has a reputation of 10. It tells me that nearly half the voters didn't like the node. Thus I'll re-read the post and the thread to see what I might have missed.
    Allow a 00 vote on a node
    This is not the same as not voting. This means "I'm neither here nor there on this one, but I'm interested in what other people think". Once you cast a 00 vote you'd see the reputation but you can't (obviously) then change it to a ++ or --.
    When a -- is given, ask the voter why
    When I -- something, I often would like to drop a quick note to explain. But I'd like to do it privately and annonymously. So, rather than logging out and posting publically as AnnonyMonk or posting privately but as myself via the chatterbox, I'd like to leave a message tied to the node (just under the Reputation) that only the poster can read
    View a history of a node's reputation
    Maybe only for one's own posts, or maybe for any post, I'd like to see an indication of change. I'd like to be able to sort my nodes by activity date. This would mean I'd see that a post I made a year ago just made someone happy. I used to have a bot that logged in each day and retrieved the rep of all my nodes and would tell me what happened to any that changed. Would be good if the site could do that
    Thats my $0.02. Thanks for reading. Thanks for the work Tye.
      I chose BigLug's node as the placing of my reply because I'd like to note that I agree with pretty much everything therein. As a matter of fact, it seems everything {BigLug] said is thought through pretty thoroughly. I've had some of the same ideas. I also have some things to add.

      I agree with Abigail-II that weighting the experience differently for upvotes and downvotes will lead to spurious upvotes. Personally, I often upvote root nodes even if they aren't necessarily that helpful in themselves so long as they bring about helpful answers or discussion. I often pass by using a vote in a case in which I'd like to downvote or upvote something because it's so close a call that I don't want to tip the scales. I only downvote nodes I consider to be more harmful than helpful either to someone's understanding of a problem or to the community itself.

      I half agree that the age of a node should diminish the XP gained or lost through new votes to it. At the same time, though, the main purpose of the reputation of the node isn't to generate the associated XP. It's to represent what monks thought of the node when they read it. So I'd keep the XP per reputation the same, and make the reputation effect change with age or somesuch. Even better, if we're mostly worried about the Weekly Best or Daily Best nodelets causing an undue rise in reputation and XP, then those nodes which are in the Best nodelets shouldn't be capable of getting new votes while in the nodelets -- or at least not through the nodelets. Maybe nodes should be archived altogether after a certain period, although that they aren't is one thing that I like about the site.

      How about getting rid of the experience gained by voting in both directions? I don't vote for experience. I'll admit that when I was in lower levels and near a level boundary I did sometimes. I'd much rather, though, get experience through my writeups. That's always been the case for me. I have a feeling most monks feel the same. Or perhaps there could be an XP gain of one point every day that you cast two or more votes, with no additional bonus. That way, there's still some motive to contribute for those interested in the XP.

      As far as personality-fueled attacks, that's part of life. It's sad, but it happens in the best of fora. It's also common that well-known or well-liked people receive extra positive feedback based on who they are. Is there really such a bad thing about those who want their XP not to suffer trying to get along as best they can with the other monks?



      Christopher E. Stith
Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by rir (Vicar) on Jan 22, 2004 at 16:35 UTC
    Update: This is not a criticism of earlier replies in this thread. I got called away and posted this hours after drafting it.

    tye has been taking a good, long, look at XP, voting, the relationship between them, the problems caused by the current relationship

    The quality of feedback might improve if you share what problems these proposed changes are meant to address.

    Be well.

Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by Bukowski (Deacon) on Jan 24, 2004 at 00:43 UTC
    I would just like to ask what timescales are set for the implementation of these new measures?

    I visit perlmonks every day, I cast all my votes as I like to express my interest in what is written here, I post when I have problems and I am grateful for what help I receive. The majority of my XP probably comes from voting. I tend to upvote nodes on the front page as they make me think, I upvote interesting nodes in SoPW as they come through. I rarely downvote, unless I see something is blatently wrong and *I* can see it. I think my useage pattern is reasonably typical of a monk here.

    Make the changes, but let us know when :) There doesn't seem to be much opposition ;) It would take an awful lot of changes to stop perlmonks from being a site I check every single day.

    Bukowski - aka Dan (dcs@black.hole-in-the.net)
    "Coffee for the mind, Pizza for the body, Sushi for the soul" -Userfriendly

      Thanks for the insight/mini-profile. (:

      I don't ask volunteers for schedules as it rarely does any good and it tends to annoy the volunteers (and these are especially true when I am the volunteer).

      The work required to make these changes is fairly small so I hope we can get them implemented in the next month. Perhaps much sooner, perhaps things go poorly and it'll be later.

      I wasn't planning on announcing them this soon and I was expecting a lot more resistance to some of the proposed changes, so I hadn't started looking for a slot when I could make the code changes yet (and I'm finishing up some rather more important work at the moment, not counting trying to stay employed and keeping the dishes/clothes/children clean).

      - tye        

Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by Nkuvu (Priest) on Jan 22, 2004 at 20:40 UTC
    One small suggestion -- perhaps add a clause to the bit on most nodes, you will see radio buttons labeled "++" and "--". mentioning something like "(and a radio button for the null vote if you turn it on in your user preferences)". Maybe it's just faulty memory, but I feel like I've seen a few nodes recently that were talking about the lack of a null vote.
Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by talexb (Chancellor) on Jan 22, 2004 at 17:21 UTC

    First, a typo: in the list headed with Other ways to alter XP:, change 'change' in the second point to 'chance'.

    Secondly, I like brother demerphq's suggestion that would indicate how many votes were cast. There has been discussion of node tension before, and I think number of votes would be an interesting statistic to include (Were there 40 people who liked a node, or were there 50 who liked it and 10 who hated it?). Apart from that, great ideas!

    Alex / talexb / Toronto

    Life is short: get busy!

Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by OfficeLinebacker (Chaplain) on Jan 04, 2007 at 08:14 UTC

    Hmm, I would like to think about this more deeply. The idea of time playing a factor is most intriguing to me. An analogous and perhaps irrational thought that comes to mind is the concept of famous artists who are underappreciated during their lifetimes and die penniless only to have their art recognized as sublime long after it does them any good. Sometimes, while doing a search, I come across a really good discussion on a topic in which I am interested. If anything, a GOOD thing that remains relevant and helpful for a long time, it seems to me, should be rewarded even MORE than when it is new and there is a "buzz" about it, if you will. I do agree however, that downvotes should have less impact as time goes by since that seems like a common MO for spiteful monks, and the shortcomings of a node seem to be picked out and addressed fairly quickly. It's the great nodes that I stumble across weeks or months after they've been created that are kind of "jewels in the rough," if you will, that intrigue me. At the very least, I don't think that a positive vote a year after a node is created should count less than one six hours after it was created.

    I'm no expert and this is kind of off-the-cuff, but I really love finding great nodes in super search that address my issue very well, and I feel like just because I didn't see the node when it was new shouldn't mean my positive feeling about the node should be discounted.

    Does this make sense or am I perhaps being too nostalgic?

    tye, thanks for the hard work, and I enjoy thinking about stuff like this. I know you also think deeply about this and have a strong desire to be fair and honest and it's truly appreciated, at least by me.

    I like computer programming because it's like Legos for the mind.
Re: Possible changes to Voting/XP
by helgi (Hermit) on Jan 23, 2004 at 13:12 UTC
    Sounds OK, but I don't really care.


    --
    Regards,
    Helgi Briem
    hbriem AT simnet DOT is

Log In?
Username:
Password:

What's my password?
Create A New User
Domain Nodelet?
Node Status?
node history
Node Type: monkdiscuss [id://323100]
Approved by Roger
Front-paged by rob_au
help
Chatterbox?
and the web crawler heard nothing...

How do I use this?Last hourOther CB clients
Other Users?
Others chilling in the Monastery: (3)
As of 2024-03-29 06:08 GMT
Sections?
Information?
Find Nodes?
Leftovers?
    Voting Booth?

    No recent polls found