Well, here goes nothing (not literally I hope ;)


I've been a member for a few weeks now; and I had a thought that I would like to bring up before the monks. I've read several threads concerning XP and node reputation, certainly not all, but enough to feel there doesn't seem to be general agreement on their value. However, I would like to make a case that a node's reputation is proportional to its value. (Sometimes)

First off, I understand (I think) why a node's reputation isn't shown to you until you vote on it. It's to prevent sheep mentality where a node gains reputaion just because it has high reputation (if everyone else thinks it's good, I might as well vote on it, too).

But I try to take my own voting seriously, and only vote on nodes I really think are deserving of it, whether it's an OP with an interesting question, or a well written and thought out "easy" question (as encouragement to newbies), the best response(s) to a question (if I feel I can tell the difference), etc. Now making an assumption that this is how the majority of monks vote, I would think the reputation should be a good indication, to someone following a thread, as to which are the "best" replies. The most factual, the ones with the best advice, etc.

Now, is this assumption valid? Does it matter if it is?

If the assumption is valid, well, then a nodes reputation does have value. But even if the assumption is not valid, what that probably means is that some percentage of votes are made kind of randomly, and if that's true, they will add a little bit of "noise" to all nodes evenly. Well, probably not evenly, but hopefully what you're left with is still a relative indication of a node's merits. At least, this would hopefully be true for nodes that are technical/coding help responses. And by relative, I just mean, if a node of a technical nature gets only a few votes it probably isn't as good or accurate as the ones that get dozens of votes.

So my thought is, what if we let the original poster be able to see the reputation of all the replies, not just the ones s?he has voted on? Note that only the original poster would get this privilege. That would still keep the reputations hidden for everyone else, to minimize sheep mentality. The original poster probably wouldn't even be able to vote in the thread if this were implemented, so s?he wouldn't affect the reputations either. Although I just realized when writing this that they probably should still be able to vote, as a thank you to those who helped them out.

Anyway, to me (and perhaps others like me), with nowhere near the experience and knowledge of the more senior monks, it would be nice to know, when I ask a question, which of the answers is the "best", or at least to have a little hint. I think the reputation can give that hint.

Of course, I say all this without knowing at all how much work might be involved in implementing this idea, and therefore whether the cost/benefit ratio would make it worthwile.

I'll hang up now and listen to your answer(s).

TheEnigma