http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=30366


in reply to Reputation Viewing Option?

Since we're rehashing the issue anyway....
What is the point of reputation? If it is only available to those that vote on it, it seems mostly useless. It should be an indicator of a good post. If I have a question that I seek an answer to, and I find three posts answering it, how do I know which is best (since we're assuming I didn't know the answer to begin with)? I can't look at the reputations without voting, and I can't knowledgably vote.

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RE: RE: Reputation Viewing Option?
by tye (Sage) on Aug 30, 2000 at 22:23 UTC

    You can sort responses by reputation. See your user settings.

            - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")
      Oh crud. Nevermind my last post :) I looked and didn't see it, but now I do. Maybe adding the same thing to root nodes would be good though.

      Cheers,
      KM

RE: RE: Reputation Viewing Option?
by KM (Priest) on Aug 30, 2000 at 22:27 UTC
    I can't look at the reputations without voting, and I can't knowledgably vote.

    You can knowledgably vote by reading the posts and deciding on their own merit which you choose to ++ or --.

    However, I do think you raised a good point. How do I know what the most 'respected' answers to a question are? The trend is that good answers have higher reps than the noise, and bad answers.

    Maybe an option to sort answers based on rep (in User Settings (which it is in now), and a button on root nodes) would be good. We wouldn't see the reps (unless you voted on it) but you would know what others thought were the best.

    Cheers,
    KM

      You can knowledgably vote by reading the posts and deciding on their own merit which you choose to ++ or --.

      Since I'm asking the question, I presumably don't know which answer is better (I didn't know any answer, after all). I could try both, and then decide on my own, but that takes a lot of work when we have a perfectly good indicator of what everyone else thinks is best.

      I'm not suggesting that rep totals should determine my vote on a matter. I'm suggesting that you can't (or shouldn't) always vote on a post, but knowing the rep would be valuable.

      Update: Sorting based on reps isn't always the answer, since the posts might be in different threads (questions have been asked more than once, or perhaps the questions differ slightly). This is why I like the idea of giving up your ability to vote on a post to be able to see it's rep (the only time I won't vote on a post is when I have no -- or ++ opinion of it, or if I don't know if it is accurate)

        I could try both, and then decide on my own, but that takes a lot of work when we have a perfectly good indicator of what everyone else thinks is best.

        Hmmmm... I don't know about that. Simply because an answer has a higher rep than another, doesn't make it better and I would fear newbies making the mistake of thinking so.

        Whenever I have ever asked questions on mass forums, I would always try ones that looked best, or looked usable. I wouldn't use something just because a group of people (from which you don't know their skill levels) seemed to think it is best. I even try answers I see on this site before ++'ing or --'ing a post simply to make sure I see it work or not work.

        Anyways, I agree that knowing node X has more reps than node Y can be valuable, but I think that knowing node X has a rep of 20 and node Y has a rep of 10 can be a disservice to people using the site. Node Y may well be a better answer, a more concise answer, a more idomatic answer, etc... than node X and judging simply by vote count, IMO, would be bad.

        Although the Perl Slogan is There's More Than One Way to Do It, 
        I hesitate to make 10 ways to do something.  :-)
                    --Larry Wall in <9695@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
        

        Cheers,
        KM