Re: Newbies and votes

[Rev_DrT]

Greetings, as I get my feet wet in a truly significant string: By not (downvoting) chastising improper behaviour immediately and without fail to a child that is clearly abusing the system is to fail the child and his or her classmates. It is important for both young students and even some adults to learn that misbehaviour has its rewards and that as surely as s/he misbehaves shall come the reward immediately thereafter.
If we fail our children by not providing them a brightly-lit path of "right", how then will they respond when they age and the rewards of their faults are very significant and will scar much more deeply than a word or two of gentle correction when they are children?
Receiving an "A" grade is something to be earned through diligent study and the anticipation of the success that follows it, peddling the value of that grade so the teacher can give himself the love and admiration of the pupils is so terribly wrong. He shirks his duty to the students in two very important manners: 1) he undervalues and makes meaningless that grade for the student that worked to earn it, and 2) he made meaningless the need to study for the others, failing them in that the behaviour of poor study habits is reinforced within the students that deserved much less. This is often seen in younger, inexperienced teachers that have difficulty handling their classes...... "I'll give you a good grade if only you will be nice to me. I want to be your buddy and pal," the teacher says to them by his actions. But what the students hear come out of his mouth is "I am so weak that I cannot control you and I am trying to bribe you with this grade. Please, come walk all over me and don't worry a bit about learning and studying." He is stealing their future with his laziness and cheating. He is flaunting his position and penalizing the good students and the good teachers that will come in his wake and by giving his students a stew of puke and piss instead of education to bring to their future lives. Dr. Al

[fraktalisman]

Given that a certain newbie was (like) a child, would downvoting necessarily be a (helpful) punishment?
It could be, but it could as well be, like already said, discouraging (newbie leaves and chooses "easier" community instead of learning) or give some sort of defiant pride to the childish newbie about having "upset" "elder" monks and gotten downvoted and had his/her node displayed in the worst nodes section.

Given that the vast majority of newbies are hopefully not childish at all, we should just tell them that votes should not be taken too seriously. (But voting should.) It should also be noted that the majority's vote is not necessarily the right vote. And finally, that the voting system here at Perlmonks is still some kind of indication / information about "good" (informative, new, important) and "bad" (incorrect, ignorant, trollish) content.