It had been a while since i have visited the worst nodes page. So i decided to visit. Couldn't hurt, right? This actually happened a few days ago, i've been waiting so that i can think through. What struck me though, is that all of the top 10 worst nodes are owned by Nodereaper.

Please take a hiatus of reading to think about that. i'd rather you have an opinion before i say more.

My original thoughts were something like: Why are we covering up the past of the monestary? It is something we have dealt with and a reminder that we dealt with it and can now pass onwards to new things. It is a good thing so we try not to repeat the same mistakes.

To answer this i envisioned an analogy. After a war, one would patch the holes of a building to restabilize its walls. However, the patch is still apparent, despite the wall regaining some stability. This does not directly analogize the situation, but it's close i think.

After thinking about it more i drew these conclusions:

1) This is good, so that the owners of the bad node aren't named directly and given undue shame or vanity

2) This is bad, because it impedes shame and produces vanity

First of all, these are not absolutes. They are tendencies.

1a)  It seems that downvoting gives enough impetus for change without ever visiting the worst nodes page.^* The worst nodes page in this case gives extra shame to the person who can already realize they annoyed the community. Using nodereaper would then be a benefit.

1b)  On the other side of the same coin we have the problem that a troll may like to see his name up on the worst nodes page to try for the spotlight. This vanity does not seem to be a particularly large problem of the monestary.

2a)  On a completely different coin, there is the fact that some people don't like attention, and putting their name on the worst nodes page is far more effective than a downvote. In these cases it's probably better that the real name go on the page.

2b)  The other side of this coin being that certain people will troll multiple times so that they can try to "beat the system" and get their coveted position in the spotlight. By constantly being vigilant against this they should reaalize that we do frown on that and (hopefully) stop quickly.

Anyway, like the title says, is this of note? Should we worry about this? Do we need to discuss it? What are your thoughts on (any part of) the matter?

jynx

^* Albeit a name goes onto the page when the current count of bad posts for the day is less than 10, it's still a consideration.

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