Why downvote nodes without commenting on them?

[danmcb]

This node falls below the community's threshold of quality. You may see it by logging in.

[xdg]

Why do people upvote without commenting on them? Part of what makes voting work is that it's a quick thumbs up or thumbs down without spamming a discussion thread or inciting flame wars between board members.

If you're really curious, try a super search for titles containing "downvoting" to read the many, many posts on this topic.

[jeffa]

Did you bother to Super Search?

• Encouraging comments for downvotes
• What's with all of the unnecessary downvoting?
• A modest request of Merlyn
• Why upvote a node?
As you can see, this issue is not new. It wasn't "resolved" in the past and guess what? It's more than likely not going to be "resolved" anytime soon in the future. Why? Because it is a non-problem. Do i get a bit perturbed when someone downvotes me? Sure i do -- but so what? That has nothing to do with the fact that i have learned more about good Perl programming from this site than any other resource. And it's free.

Did you bother to read any guidelines on how to compose effective subject titles? I'll wager no. Your subject title was changed from 'downvoting' to the much more informative 'Why downvote nodes without commenting on them?' Take the time to learn how the site works before you complain about it, lest you receive no sympathy.

Do you really think you are going to convince anyone of your case by calling them "children" and making boisterous claims that people who do not comment for downvoting do not possess common courtesy. Nope, you aren't. You are just going to make "enemies."

The voting system is Anonymous. If a user wishes to state why they upvoted or downvoted then that is their prerogative. I for one believe that Anonymous Voting prevents flame wars. Think of it as the crowd of spectators rooting for their favorite team. If everyone in the crowd is booing you, perhaps you need to address your own attitude and adjust accordingly.

And yes, posting nodes about XP is a Bad Idea™. Ask in the Chatterbox -- update the node in question with a question asking why it received downvotes if you can't figure it out for yourself. Don't whine about. Move on and learn more Perl. And you know what? I'll bet you know deep down inside why it was downvoted, that is of course, if the XP of the node is in the negative. One or two stray downvotes on an otherwise postive XP node shouldn't mean anything other than there exists a few people who will never agree with you or a few people who just happened to press the wrong button because they didn't have enough coffee that hour.

[gellyfish]

Because most of the time a simple downvote is just as instructive as posting "I'm really irritated that I spent the time reading this annoying pointless node". Of course if the OP is just plain wrong then a downvote and a correction is usually necessary.

For future reference I always downvote nodes about XP.

[jonadab]

For future reference I always downvote nodes about XP.

I don't always downvote all XP-related nodes, but I do fairly consistently downvote nodes that complain about various aspects of the XP system, nodes that complain about people's voting behavior, and the like, especially if the complaints are fundamentally silly and the suggested changes are pointless. Is there *anybody* who really wants to see a bunch of nodes that just say, essentially, "I disagree", so that the person posting it can -- the thing?

I downvote such nodes because they add nothing of value to the community, and I'm tired of reading the same old complaints over and over and over and over and over and over again. I usually don't add another comment, either, and almost didn't this time, because I'm tired of being dragged into the same argument again and again and again, the argument where I say "complaining doesn't help your XP *or* your Perl competency, discuss something useful instead" and the complainer completely ignores any reasoning I might provide and either continues to complain, or goes off on some inane and bogus tangent about how without complaining nothing would ever get fixed. I don't want to have that conversation again.

If the person doing the downvoting feels that explaining what is wrong with the node will benefit anyone, then he's free to explain it. I personally don't generally bother to downvote a node if I'm going to reply, because I feel that in such cases my reply can be more instructive than the downvote. Put another way, if the node is good enough to warrant an explanation, then it's often too good to downvote. For instance, I usually don't downvote nodes that make incorrect statements about how some feature of the Perl language works; if someone hasn't already done so, I reply and correct them; if someone has, I upvote the correction. This is useful because it helps people to understand Perl better. At the other end of the scale, if the original node is just trolling (e.g., "Perl sucks because it's unreadable and slow, we should all use C instead"), a reply would actively aggravate the matter ("feeding" the troll, as it were) and a simple downvote is better. Complaints about XP are somewhere in between, but I tend to think they're closer to the troll than the factual error.

[marto]

Hi

"For future reference I always downvote nodes about XP."

For me this statement is perplexing given the argument you are making.
Perhaps I am being silly and missing the point, but someone may post an interesting node on the topic of XP.
Could you explain why you will take such a course of action given your point of view mentioned in this thread?

Thanks

Martin

Update: I typo'd danmcb's name in this post, I have resolved the mistake and fixed the formatting of the node.

[gellyfish]

Er, the OP didn't say that, I did. I find whining discussions about XP irritating and largely redundant.

/J\

[marto]

Hi,

When I was first downvoted I took a look at The Role of XP in PerlMonks which put my mind at ease :).
However I dont think that your request to make posting a comment in order to downvote would solve the 'issue'.

Martin

[cchampion]

I will answer indirectly to your question, by explaining why you've been downvoted. Yes, I did that also. I downvoted most of your nodes in this thread, because you're acting like a whining child.

But, that aside, I would have overcome your behavior in this thread, if it weren't in this particular section.

See, we at Perlmonks enjoy the game as it is.

Now, try to put yourself in our shoes. You are enjoying the game, and somebody pops up and says "let's change the rules," what would you say?.

True, this same request (you call it a problem, I don't see it that way) came up several times, and several times the proposing monk got the answer of a angry beehive disturbed during its peaceful work.

What you call "a problem" I define "someone who doesn't understand the game."

The solution to your "problem?" Easy enough. Don't get downvoted. Write polite and sound nodes, and people will love you. Somebody will downvote you anyway. It happens to everybody. But the main rule of the game is: take it easy.

If, instead, you go looking for negative recognition, this is exactly the place where you're gonna get it.

[bluto]

(Of course, it's also a fact of life that not everyone possesses basic common courtesy ...)

If someone is misinforming people I will downvote, and if they haven't been corrected by someone, I'll comment. The poster deserves downvotes, but piling on comments doesn't help much. There are plenty of cases where it just isn't worth the time to reply when downvoting (e.g. the poster is flaming; the poster's comment adds no content). In that case, no comment will help them since they are already determined to lack common courtesy (i.e. they already know why they are getting downvoted).

And yes, the downvotes on thos node are fully expected. Have it your own way, children. Let's see if we can get this into "worst of the month/year/whatever".)

Case in point -- no content, flame away with a broad brush. In this case though I'll use some common courtesy and not downvote.

[kutsu]

because then we'd get a bunch of empty replies or a bunch of generic and general replies. "Stop whinning", "Your code sucks", etc...and personally I prefer the quiet.

 

the above empty space is my explaination for downvoting this node.

[tomhukins]

I like to understand why people like what I write as well as why they dislike it, but I don't expect an explanation for either.

Why do you care more about the reasons behind criticism than the reasons behind praise? How does understanding criticism help more than understanding praise?

[danmcb]

because if you want to get better at something, you try to work on your weaknesses, not your strengths.

[tomhukins]

if you want to get better at something, you try to work on your weaknesses, not your strengths.

If you take this approach, you'll end up average at everything and exceptional at nothing, unless you're one of those rare, special people who excel in many areas. I'm not, so I focus on what I'm good at and what I enjoy. I don't mind improving my weaknesses, but I try to focus my effort on the areas where I'll achieve most.

For example, I gave a talk a few days ago and got some positive feedback. I asked people what they liked about the talk and how I could have improved it. By knowing what people like, I know what to keep, both in terms of the content and they way I presented it. If I only listened to negative feedback, I would only know what to change but not what to keep.

[blazar]

It's just basic common courtesy to say not just that you dislike something, but why you do so. (It's fine to say something is good without going into details, however.)

I agree with you; in fact I generally do write informative comments to nodes I downvoted. But I doubt that that would be a practice that could be enforced. Just consider nodes of trolling content or otherwise good-willing but definitely annoying users to whom other monks already explained what's wrong with their posts. One may just want to downvote them too - if he feels the content is so bad...

[blue_cowdawg]

What do people downvote nodes without commenting on them?

I can think of two valid reasons for downvoting a node without comment. Although in some respects they are not mutually exclusive reasons and maybe both conditions should be valid before downvoting.

1. A call to have a node deleted for one reason or another has been made. A certain number of downvotes has to exist before that will happen.
2. Commenting on a node will add fuel to a flame war. If a node is a flame or trollish it could be legitimately IMHO downvoted without further comment.

[gellyfish]

So what about the case where a particularly stupid and misleading answer has already received sufficient rebuttal? Are we to downvote and waste space with "what he said .." ?

/J\

[blue_cowdawg]

I said I can think of two reasons... that doesn't mean there aren't more. :-)

Preventing waste of bandwidth is always a good idea.

[bradcathey]

/me yawns.

[Anonymous Monk]

Well, if downvoting, or some other annoyance has got you down, and you're not quite willing to give up on perlmonks altogether, may I suggest a fine alternative. Join the ranks of us Anonymous Monks. The benefits are mostly the same (ask questions, answer questions, show-off, trade insults, etc.), all without worrying about XP or having to give your consent about how the monastery is run. Yes, young monk, the higher your rank becomes, the uglier the monastery appears (just wait 'till you can see what 'consideration' consists of). Cast off the shackles of vanity which drag you down. Harken back to a simpler, more ascetic experience. The few. The proud. The Anonymous Monk.

(P.S. It would almost be worth it to log-in so I could downvote you for this node, but my former psudeonym has such a long streak of not logging in, it'd be a shame.)

[eric256]

In case non of the previous posts answered your question. I generaly downvote and upvote without comment or personal message. It is like anything else in life, try, see the response, try differently, see the response. Judge based on the change in response how your tries where recieved and how they could improve. This is the simple way the world runs and the way everyone learns at some level or another. In life you seldom get clear answers teaching you *exactly* how to improve. You simply have to keep trying and see the different outcomes to figure out all the elements involved. Being in the process of raising a 2 year old daughter this becomes very obivious for me. She isn't trying to be bad, she just doesn't understand, so you see her continualy try different things until the response she gets improves. Of course sometimes she decides the bad resposne is worth whatever trouble she is causing (thats when life gets hard). To some degree this is how we all learn, and the easiest way for me to picture the ++ and -- game here at PM.

In the vote case you might get downvoted for a number of reasons (bad code, incorrect code, bad tone, random chance, bad luck, rainy weather, etc). I think the most common for me is tone. If a persons tone feels negative to me then I will downvote, if it feels positive I up vote. Is this right/wrong/correct/bad? I don't know. All I can say is that is the way I go. To me good intentions are often better for a community than right answers. This is all just my humble opinion and is not meant as either fact nor governing rule.

Following that rule of thumb I downvoted many nodes in this thread just based on the tone of the person. There is no need to argue or name call, or *YELL* in a forum such as this. In the same vein I upvoted many votes in this thread that had a positive tone and add something constructive. As for who got the ++'s and the --'s I actualy couldn't tell you because I seldom look at the names when voting (and my memory is bad enough it wouldn't matter much 'whats your name agian?'). Well thats enough yabbering for me.

[CountZero]

Voting and commenting are quite separate as far as I'm concerned.

When I vote (for or against) a political candidate, I don't feel compelled to comment on the way I have voted. The same goes here. I have commented a lot of nodes without voting for or against them and I've cast a lot of votes without comments.

The whole idea about voting being anonymous is that you cannot be held accountable for your vote. If that seems strange, go and live for a while in a dictatorship without secret voting and see if that makes you happy! Whatever the downside of not being accountable for your downvotes, a lot of worse issues rear their heads if you can be held accountable for your votes: "OK, let's all sue the voters who where in favour of the Government which made such a mess of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort."

[radiantmatrix]

And why exactly should I comment when I downvote a troll? Doesn't that just add to the problem? It's much more polite to the server and the team that spend their time keeping it up and running to just downvote a trollish node a couple dozen times instead of having two dozen "look! it's a troll!" replies.

A downvote is a comment. Yeah, it's a terse one that says "I don't like your node", but it's a comment nonetheless.

As for "common courtesy", you'll find that most things some group thinks are common courtesy are not that common and considered by at least some to be discourteous. If I ask you "do you like Chinese food?" I don't want an essay. I want to know if I should remember you next time we get Chinese take-out. In fact, I'd probably just avoid you if I got much in the way of explanation.

The vote buttons are a simple "do you like this node?" -- and the options are "yeah!", "no!", and "meh." (the last being abstaining).

I know, lets fix a system that is performing its function well by adding an arbitrary rule for no other purpose than enforcing some sub-group's idea of "common courtesy". That always makes things better.

For the record, I did downvote your node because of this little gem: "well, we made not just worst but most of the 10 or so 'worst threads of the week!' I'm quite happy about that." That looks like a troll to me.

[BaldPenguin]

A lack of comment might be construed as "Read what everyone else said", why should it be said over and over until there are 30-something replies all saying the same thing.

[robot_tourist]

I'm quite apathetic and usually the only time I check the reputation of any nodes is when I see a change in my XP. I'm one of those cases where XP really is a sort of random number, because I get more upvotes from non-Perl discussions like this than the the Perl stuff (although my non-Perl posts, probably outnumber the Perl ones).

If you get downvoted these are probably the reasons:

• The voter doesn't like you personally
• The post/thread was unnecessary
• The information is incorrect
• Slip of the mouse

There may be more reasons, but I don't think an explanation is always needed. If your post is purely technical and it gets negative reputation you need to look into what is wrong with it.

If your post is not technical, or is about design decisions, I think we're all big enough to agree to disagree.

As a side-note, if I get a well-written critical reply to a write-up, I tend to up-vote it and reply saying thanks.

[talexb]

Why downvote nodes without commenting on them?

I think you're having problems seeing the forest for the trees. This site is for the discussion of Perl. The whole XP thing is a meta-issue. Forget XP. XP doesn't exist. It's an imaginary number.

But, to answer your question, I downvote nodes for the following reasons:

• Flaming, trolling or other impolite rhetoric, either on topic or directed at a Perl Monks member
• Completely wrong answers
• Continuing to worry the bone long after the marrow's gone (that's a metaphor)
• Whining about XP
In your case, I did not downvote the parent node, but I did downvote a few of your more frantic replies.

XP is a game. Leave it alone. Spend more time learning and understanding the world of Perl and less time obsessing over XP. Please.

[Roy Johnson]

The post was about downvotes, not XP. They are related, but there is a difference. Also, the question was not why you downvote, but why you downvote and do not supply an explanation. In other words, the poster is concerned about learning and understanding Perl, by receiving some useful guidance when he posts something that is deficient.

[ady]

...question was not why you downvote, but why you downvote and do not supply an explanation

Quote wikipedia "A vote, or a ballot, is an individual's act of voting, by which he or she express support or preference for a certain motion... A secret ballot, the standard way to protect voters' political privacy... The act of voting in most countries is voluntary..."

Voting in a democratic system is thus by definition typically secret and voluntary. The reason for this is to promote honesty and freedom in the casting of votes, -- no explicit or implicit ties, agendas or consequences. Only the raw statistical summation of pros & cons. This data in itself is of great value.

Looking back i've been downvoted relatively few times, and never were any reason given. Likewise i've downvoted only a couple of times, and not myself given any written explanation. That said, it was always clear to me WHY i was downvoted: i had not done the basic homework expected and needed to ask fellow monks to spend time working over my problem description and insufficient code examples. I learned from that, and improved in future posts, and thus the raw downvoting had an immediate effect. Yes, if i/you have the time to explain a downvote, i agree that may be recommendable, but we can't demand and not even expect this, given the limited time we all have. And my experience is, that an explanation is hardly ever necessary.



sub z{$_[13]^=' ';ucfirst("@_\n");}print z(map{(split//,
   'lash jerk thereunto carp,'
)[$_]}map{ord(uc($_)^'@')}split//,
'eobjdaprqcfgiwlm@skuthnvx');


===========================================================
As the eternal tranquility of Truth reveals itself to us, this very place is the Land of Lotuses
-- Hakuin Ekaku Zenji

[spiritway]

I agree with your comment about basic courtesy. However, I disagree with your idea of making obligatory. If people choose to downvote without comment, attempting to force them to comment will be futile. You can't legislate good manners.

Consider - how do you enforce such a thing? You require that the person enter some text. OK, so (s)he enters some random keystrokes, and you're no better off than before, except perhaps knowing who it was who dissed you. And then what? You downvote anything they write? That could lead to a whole lot of feuding over nothing. It just opens up a whole can of worms, without attaining the desired result.

Still, I agree that it's not particularly helpful to downvote someone without explaining what it was that you found objectionable. That doesn't give you the opportunity to correct your behavior.

[bart]

IMO an improvement would be effected if it was not possible to downvote a node without offering a reply to it.

I disagree. All you would achieve is a skewed, biased voting behaviour: people just wouldn't bother downvoting on a node any more if they have to comment on it. And you'd get more nodes with a higher rep, and the associated higher XP level of their respective authors, as a result. Undeservedly so, if I may say so.

[bradcathey]

Maybe we need a button on User Settings that turns off all nodes about XP...in less, of course, I author it and it get's lots of upvotes.

[Anonymous Monk]

I usally just downvote cause I feel mean and anwry. I like downvoting euro-dorks from An-twerp, Belch-land.