Re: Looking for "random upvote" script

[OfficeLinebacker]

AFAICT, Randal, like you, I've made what one might call an "enemy" on here. It seemed for a while that every time I posted a new node, the first thing that would happen to it was a downvote. It seems to have abated and/or been absorbed by whatever other voting activity is going on. Frankly I think I brought it upon myself whining about it in the CB and in a msg or two. I think the first downvote was legit--bad title or too long or something. I was even more of a newbie than now, excited as a puppy about this whole deal and just as clumsy, and I asked in the CB what was up. I think I did that twice. Pretty soon, every post I made was getting a negative vote almost immediately. I assumed it was someone who was in the CB at the time but didn't investigate further. I didn't know the trick (it seems to me like a 'trick' since I didn't think of it) of checking who's on every time you get downvoted. But I don't know that I'll use it since I'm comfortably in Friar-land (and yet to use my moderation powers--need to lurk in that regard for a while longer) and whatever level of significance that would be next is so far out of reach as to be useless to think about. But I remember being pretty upset at the time, so I grok. I dunno, I think that a good attitude to take is that we're all adults here and disagreements and personality conflicts arise. Big deal. Whatever it is I am or was doing that offended one or more people, at least I'm getting it out of my system on an internet message board and not with my colleagues at work or my family (imagine some person who would discredit you to your boss and company management at every opportunity just because she didn't like the tone you took with her in a meeting once).

Who knows, every one of my posts has something that will offend somebody--sometimes I don't post follow-ups in a timely manner, sometimes I'll get say five responses to a question and I will only mention four of the posters' names in a subsequent reply, out of laziness or because maybe most of what one person said was covered by the other responses, even if that person's answer was pretty good. These things happen. Life goes on, for better or for worse.

Don't know exactly what I am trying to get across other than letting you know it appears you're not alone (I see another responder had a similar situation as well).

UPDATE: a) for misspelling and b) I spoke too soon about the "situation" having "abated!"

[tye]

I've made what one might call an "enemy" on here.

That appears to be a fairly common belief. I see it claimed rather regularly, and for nearly exactly the reasons that you have presented. You may well have made one or more "enemies". However, as usual, the evidence that you based this conclusion on doesn't actually support your conclusion. If you have enemies here, they aren't systematically downvoting your nodes right after you post them. (When I see complaints of potential abuse, I often investigate in part to make sure that I understand what problems there might be and if there are ways to improve things.)

Human brains are great at seeing patterns. So good that they can often see patterns where there are none, which leads many humans to see conspiracies where there are none. It is also human nature to blame others before blaming oneself. So it is pretty natural to see yet another downvote and eventually come to the conclusion that some other single person is responsible and thus that they have some personal grudge against you.

When (rarely but still too frequently) someone forms a grudge and starts systematically downvoting another monk, claims start approaching a real conspiracy, inventing an army of downvoting robots. (:

The downvotes against you have been cast by a wide variety of monks. I did see that the frequency of downvotes against you was higher a while back, but they were being cast by a wide variety monks both then and now. So it seems more likely that your nodes have changed over that time (or perhaps your extra-node presence has changed, as you suspect).

It is still true that (thankfully) most monks rarely downvote. But when someone downvotes a node, it is rare to contemplate the node and then come back and cast the downvote later. A downvote is more likely to be a snap decision or at least a fast reaction while upvotes often take longer. So nodes getting an initial downvote or few and then moving to a positive rep appears to rarely have much to do with who wrote the node.

[apotheon]

However, as usual, the evidence that you based this conclusion on doesn't actually support your conclusion. If you have enemies here, they aren't systematically downvoting your nodes right after you post them.

I know there must be instances where vindictive downvoting occurs, however -- and I know this for two reasons. One, human nature just makes it too unlikely that everyone in an online community is too benevolent for that. Two, it has happened to me on a temporary basis.

I don't know that I'd use the word "enemy", but there have been a couple discussions here at PerlMonks wherein I clearly upset some people (the hazards of having controversial opinions, being willing to share them, and being reasonably good at defending them, I guess) after which I received too many downvotes and XP losses to be a coincidence. One case in particular that comes to mind is a discussion on a root node I posted that went wildly off-topic with gun control debate. For a couple days, I actually lost XP faster than my nodes in that discussion were downvoted, as I recall.

I pretty much shrugged it off -- no biggie. I'm not saying that something should necessarily be done, especially since the downvotes on other nodes of mine were probably cast by a number of people who were just looking for reasons to disagree with me, and who quickly lost interest. It's not like it affected my livelihood. My only point is that it's not always just "conspiracy theories". Sometimes, even if the "victim" exaggerates circumstances in his/her own mind, there is a definite kernel of truth to the vindictiveness (s)he senses.

Overall, I think the XP/voting system works well enough as is, as long as someone like you is dealing with anything like bots that might crop up from time to time. I don't know how common that might be, but it's good to know you have a way of dealing with it. It's not perfect, but I don't expect it to be.

All that having been said, I think I've rambled more than necessary and said less of worth than I intended. Back to doing actual Perlish stuff for me.

[OfficeLinebacker]

Thank you.

[demerphq]

Your signature reminded me of something I had been thinking when I was recently looking a bit deeper into forth than I had before. It very much reminds me of "lego for the mind". C on the other hand doesn't make me think of lego in the least, and Perl is kinda in the middle. Sometimes its like lego, sometimes its more like tuning a very complex machine.

[Anonymous Monk]

"Human brains are great at seeing patterns. So good that they can often see patterns where there are none, which leads many humans to see conspiracies where there are none. It is also human nature to blame others before blaming oneself."

This simply means that your brain is excellent at rejecting anything that cannot be answered. Otherwise you are leading others to think as you wish them to like some kind of Judas goat. The irony is that while you can see behind the curtain, you cannot show the rest of us. So you really have become some kind of Pope. With great power ...