Too much positive votes on questions (Seekers of Perl Wisdom)

[LordWeber]

[pfaut]

The general consensus seems to be to upvote questions if the person:

1. asked a question that wasn't a FAQ
2. put some effort into trying to solve the problem themselves
3. includes code and references in their post to prove they did #2
4. is trying to use perl in a novel way
5. worded their question clearly
6. has brought up a topic about one of perl's intricate details or inner mysteries

By voting for a post, you are indicating that you feel the person who wrote it is contributing something constructive to the site and showing respect to their fellow monks by putting some effort into their post. This goes for questions and replies. I doubt you're seeing 50+ rep on poorly asked questions.

Update: If we discouraged asking questions, people would stop asking them and we'd have no reason to be here.

90% of every Perl application is already written. ⇒

dragonchild

[Abigail-II]

If we discouraged asking questions, people would stop asking them and we'd have no reason to be here.

Oh, come on. You really think that people asking questions are seeking XP? I think they are seeking answers. They won't say, Gheee, my question got answered, but I only got 10 upvotes for my question, next time, I'll ask on Usenet, or I've asked 5 questions, I never got a useful answer, but I reached level 4 because of my questions. I'll keep coming back to this useful forum.

As for your list of points, it may be the consensus that that's the way people should upvote, but it isn't my perception at all. I get the impression that frontpaged questions get lots of xp, and questions about popular topics, like web questions. Regardless whether something is a FAQ, asked before, or whether they put in any effort.

Abigail

[pfaut]

That was in reply to the following from the base node:

please think about this otherwise people will be encouraged to write more questions than replys

90% of every Perl application is already written. ⇒

dragonchild

[perlplexer]

I personally don't see anything wrong with up-voting a question-type node if

• I think that the statement of the problem is well formulated;
• Question itself brings up an interesting problem, which may be encountered by many people.
I never up-vote nodes with questions that could be answered by simply searching the PM database.

--perlplexer

[pzbagel]

Also, please note that 50 Reputation != 50 XP. Checkout the Voting/Experience System to get a better idea of how it works.

Cheers

[Util]

pzbagel++, I was about to say the same.

The formula, and today's value for NORM, are taken from Voting/Experience System.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
# Average XP for a number of ++ votes, with no -- votes, given a NORM.
my $votes = 50;
my $NORM  = 10.7453;
my @val   = (0, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 1);
my $xp    = 0;
foreach my $rep ( 1 .. $votes ) {
  foreach (1..$#val) {
    $xp += $val[$_], last if $rep <= $_ * $NORM;
  }
}
printf "XP = %.1f\n", $xp;

XP = 31.7

[Aristotle]

XP gained from getting a single node to rep of when norm is

Makeshifts last the longest.

[Necos]

Hmmmm... I have to agree with the other monks that say questions add content to the site. When I reply to a node, I'm not really concerned about the rep that it will draw. If the reply is useful to the node starter, then my job is done. For example, in my last reply (before this one),the rep was 3.

I remember that I posted a golf node that drew a rep of about 90 in a matter of a day. It was a very simple (but new, or at least seemingly new) question of flipping a coin. It wasn't the most difficult question to answer, but one that a lot of people saw as a challenge (and began racking their brains). The reason I believe the node got such a high rep was that it was a node that forced those that replied to be creative. I also believe that is why certain questions also draw high reps. If you have to think about your response, then the person that produced the question should be rewarded. Not only are you increasing the node starter's knowledge of Perl, but reinforcing (and sometimes adding new knowledge) your knowledge.

I would go as far to say that the node starter deserves to have a higher rep than the replies (for the reason mentioned above). If we didn't have people starting nodes with interesting questions (or sometimes dull ones), Perlmonks would not be as interesting a place as it is.

Theodore Charles III
Network Administrator
Los Angeles Senior High
email->[e-mail]
perl -e "map{print++$_}split//,Mdbnr;"

[AssFace]

Perhaps you perceive more weight on the titles that are given here than they really deserve.
Don't think of their rating on here as an actual performance/knowledege rating and you might care less about questions getting points.
Peoples scores/ratings are more of a factor of how active they are on here than anything else - you can raise your level just by voting on others.

If it really bothers you, then I would advise you to really avoid places like slashdot, or any other web community that has a karma system.

You are far better off reading around the board and figuring out which people are useful resources and worthy of your attention than instead going by someone's rating.

That said, I hear that when one reaches the saint level, people in real life worship that chosen one publically on the streets. And on occasion they just throw money.
So saints got that going for them. Which is nice.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.

[LordWeber]

[chromatic]

One idea is to remove voting accoutrements from the Monastery Gates page. Would that encourage people to click through to actual threads before voting?

[tjh]

This is a bit of a tired debate (there have been many others...)

Frankly, I use what votes I see mostly as an indicator that the node elicited some level of response, but I don't use the votes to tell me that node was a "good" one. Front paging a node, or eliciting an active, non-technical debate can garner a lot of votes.

Let's face it, the voting system is an integral part of PM, one that various members find useful, and others that see it as a distraction. There are a Lot of Members here.

One value of the XP system that I think often gets overlooked is that it most likely is a primary driver of further involvement. It's a curiosity or chatchkie that in some way (small or large) helps members stay involved - which is very important to PM.

There are many reasons and ways to debate quality vs quantity in posts and replies, and the usefulness of votes. But quantity comes first, and I think the continuing activity, and the votes, bring members back more often, and keep them looking to contribute however they can.

That's a Good Thing.

[agentv]

> This is a bit of a tired debate (there have been many others...)

...but you know what? It's only a tired debate to you, and the others of us who've read (and contributed to the lengthy) discussions that have been held before.

But to someone new to the site, it's still an interesting thing. In fact, when you first encounter PM, one of the things that you learn before anything else is the XP system. So to a newcomer, this is an interesting debate. And, judging from the number of replies in just this discussion thread, others find it interesting enough to continue participating.

I spent a day at a middle school last week and was reminded that for some people, much of the knowledge that we (at PM, or as adults) take for granted is exciting and new to others. And it doesn't matter if it's because they're 12 years old, or because they just found an interest in this field.

So if you find it hard to stomach yet another discussion about XP, their value (or lack therof), and the means of acquiring them, then let others do it. A contribution with links to other discussion nodes (such as this one, or this one, and this one) near the top of a conversation such as this would be a wonderful way to give the newcomers a chance to jump right to other relevant content and perhaps stifle some wheel-reinvention. Otherwise, these sorts of discussions are easy to identify early, and then it's no trouble to move off to another part of the Monastary looking for fresh material.

To participate here as an expert is to be an educator of sorts. And the lot of an educator is to participate in discussions that we may have visited before. We must do this with grace.

...All the world looks like -well- all the world, when your hammer is Perl.
---v

[Your Mother]

Say... You have to vote a node to see its reputation, right? So you voted for the node with the 50 points that you're complaining about having too many votes? :)

[Util]

The monk may have seen it on Best Nodes, which shows the reputation of all nodes it lists.

[little]

It's nice to hear your opinion on that issue but please respect others opinions as well.

Don't even think about limiting me or others in any way to make own free decisions.

There where no rules for voting, there are none and there will be none! Period.

As a side note to your last sentence
...otherwise people will be encouraged to write more questions than replys.
cool, yeah , let them post questions and you come to think of that one will put a lot of work into his question. And oh yeah then - compared to other questions - he might have more precisely described the problem, documented failing attempts for a solution and even refers to sources he studies and reports about his problems using the one or the other module.

In the end it comes out as it is now. The vast majority of votes goes to nodes that give answers or raise questions. Why to limit voting only to those nodes who give answers? An intersting answer in my opinion raises at least one new question.

Have a nice day
All decision is left to your taste

[allolex]

I upvoted this node and saw that it had -8 rep at the time of my upvote. The question is valid, though---and give the guy a break, he's a 16 y.o. student, after all. An intelligent question doesn't deserve to be put into a trench and covered up.

--
Allolex

[belg4mit]

On the internet nobody knows you're a 53 year-old balding virgin (oops). The age of the interrogator is irrelevant.

Is it so intelligent a question? As others have pointed out, many of the facts and assumptions in this node are incorrect.

Besides, he clearly would not condone his node having a +50 reputation.

Other things to consider (mostly improbable, but nonetheless worth mentioning)

• Fellow monks may have been afraid to ask the question, and were thankful somebody did
• Other users are XP whores and trying to use up their votes
• A monk may upvote a (update: single) reply, and then consider themselves done with the thread.
• A monk may read the thread early on, and then consider themselves done with the thread; ignoring subsequent replies

--
I'm not belgian but I play one on TV.

[allolex]

I pretty much agree with the points you listed at the bottom, but...

I tend to look at people's home nodes to get an idea of who they are when a question seems a bit strange to me. And age, hence wisdom (one would hope), is not irrelevant; it's just often an unknown. I agree with you that many of the assumptions he made are incorrect, but that does not merit being buried because certain people enjoy the irony of downvoting someone because of their complaints/observations about too many upvotes.

For me, except in rarer cases such as repeated RTFM questions or ignoring previous answers, questions should be >= 0.

--
Allolex

[logan]

Recently, I posted a question because I couldn't figure out the answer for myself. I figured that I couldn't be the only one who'd faced this particular issue, and came to the monastary for advice. I was pleasantly surprised when I got some immediate responses. Apparantly, I had run into a common problem, as there were a lot of responses and some good advice. The next day, I logged into perlmonks again and got an unexpected message: "You gained 64 experience points!" I checked my profile and found that a lot of people had found my question worthwhile. As a matter of fact, I made the Best Nodes for the first time.

The point is that while I didn't have any answers, I raised a problem that many other monks had also experienced. By asking the question, I provided a place for people to weigh in with their answers. Can you honestly say that my question added nothing to the Monastary?

What we've got here is a different way of teaching. Instead of a lecturer holding forth on a topic for 45 minutes and taking questions for a few minutes, a large group of people make themselves available for questions and publish their answers. If you have a question, you can search to see if it's already been asked. With any luck, it has been, and there will be several answers waiting for you.

If you still feel that questions are voted too high, I recommend that you check out Worst Nodes. You'll see some real losers there. For example, here's Saturday's worst node of the day. Ouch.

-Logan
"What do I want? I'm an American. I want more."

[Aristotle]

You'll see some real losers there. For example, here's Saturday's worst node of the day.

A -- from me for that. I might have given a ++ for the rest of it, until I got to this part.

Makeshifts last the longest.

[jonnyfolk]

I think this is a relevant link:
Voting Guidelines (or 'How should I spend my votes?')

[Petras]

Above Monks are right, in that there are many valid reasons to upvote a question. What happens, though, is that there are Monks who go to the monestary gates, start at the top, and ++ as far down as they can because they get xp just for voting. (Goes to prove the point, "XP doesn't really mean anything!" I've made it into best nodes twice with posts that have nothing to do with Perl at all!) One solution might be to move SOPW from the top of the Gates node to the bottom, so those voting for experience gain only would have to start with the meditations or craft or even *gulp* poetry sections first.

The fastest way to get xp is to have your SOPW front paged.

But I can't say to my computer, "I don't care if I know nothing of Perl! I'm a level five, so write the friggin' script already!" :~)

-Petras


---

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

-Howard Aiken