Bugs and Suggestions

12-Nov-14 4:34

After reading this Your article sucks, where's part 3 already?[^] and several others like it, might I suggest that we curb who can vote an article with a mark less than 3.

In order to vote an article with a mark below 3 the user needs to have acquired some basic level of recognition on the site e.g. have at least 500 reputation points for example. They can still vote on articles, downvote/upvote and do everything else, just limit how they vote on articles until such time as they have proved themselves.

Is this a good or a bad idea?

"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare

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Chris Maunder12-Nov-14 9:49

Chris Maunder

12-Nov-14 9:49

It's not a bad idea.

I'd like some debate on this.

cheers
Chris Maunder

Nelek12-Nov-14 14:17

Nelek

12-Nov-14 14:17

I find the idea at least worth to think about it. I don't know how complicated would be to implement, but if something in that way has to be done, I would not only use the reputation, or in case of reputation something higher. It is easy to post some items and get points fast.

Maybe mixing usage time as well? I don't only mean registered at XXX, but number of logins or things like that. At least that would reduce the number of puppets or the quick "create account and revenge"

M.D.V.

If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.

DaveAuld13-Nov-14 7:48

DaveAuld

13-Nov-14 7:48

I think anything that can help numb the pain of dealing with spammers etc. is a good thing, those who don't understand or object probably are a spammers.

e.g.
1) Members who do not change their default display name from "Member XXXXXXX" should not be allowed to post articles/tips/replies.
2) Members who have not replied to at least "x messages", i.e. interacted with others cannot be allowed to post New Topics / Articles / Tips etc.

There are probably other constraints that can be considered to help.

Note: OnePlus[^] use the 5 message replies rule before creating new topics in their forums as I found out when I went to post a query and this forced me to read around the site, look at other conversations and get a feel for the place and engage. And in doing so answered a few other queries I had in my skull, no longer needing to ask them.

Dave
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Folding Stats: Team CodeProject

modified 13-Nov-14 14:43pm.

OriginalGriff13-Nov-14 8:32

OriginalGriff

13-Nov-14 8:32

Problems are that most of the flood spammers we had recently do change the default name: partly to make themselves look more "respectable" I suspect.
And Articles / Tips aren't a major problem - they don't get out into the "live" world without moderation, and they are pretty slow to post. It's QA that gets hit, and hit hard - because it can't be moderated (without a level of manpower we probably don't have) and it seems that it's really, really fast to post to (a dozen or so all timestamped to the second with the same author!)

I'm also not convinced that a "you must post n messages before you do this" would do any more good than harm: if they can post questions seriously fast, it wouldn't be difficult for them to post a dozen "Thanks for a great article!" messages at random before starting with the fun-and-games. And I can see it scaring off genuine noobies - we already know they don;t want to learn to read! Laugh | :laugh:

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...

Grasshopper.iics12-Nov-14 14:52

Grasshopper.iics

12-Nov-14 14:52

Quote:
In order to vote an article with a mark below 3 the user needs to have acquired some basic level of recognition on the site e.g. have at least 500 reputation points for example. They can still vote on articles, downvote/upvote and do everything else, just limit how they vote on articles until such time as they have proved themselves.

If you see around the down vote, Most of the Downvotes are generated by Noobs who has never written an article themselves. I feel the the reason for downvote is to force the voter to tell where Author has gone wrong. That option is already available as "Your Alternative" which the downvoter won't ever use, as the reason for Downvoting is not letting author know but to troll ( in most cases).

However when you observe the Downvoting used by members having enough reputation is that they exercise downvoting rarely when something is really not at par the site.

Check out the amount of Downvote this noob of two months old account has dished out without any significant elaboration in most cases.

http://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Messages.aspx?fmid=11101272[^]

So in my opinion unless and untill some one has gain that respect to downvote, disallow a downvote. He can always point a fault in the article.

Personally it is very irritating when some retards without any article in CP downvote my article about 200 pages of word document that had taken two weeks to work and compose because there was somewhere I used a "Hard Coded string for db connection".

Dominic Burford12-Nov-14 21:41

12-Nov-14 21:41

Certainly in my own personal experience, the down-votes and unsubstantiated low marks have all come from noobs, so I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect this level of power to be acquired having undergone some basic level of standing on the site (whatever that may be).

I think (as someone said earlier) that a combination of factors is a good idea i.e. reputation points in combination with participation on the site (which is also logged as part of your professional profile).

"With great power comes great responsibility" - Uncle Ben (Spider-Man)

BillWoodruff13-Nov-14 3:26

BillWoodruff

13-Nov-14 3:26

I would down-vote this post based on the fact you do not include a correct link in your post. The correct link is: [^]. But, down-voting is not allowed on this forum Smile | :)

For article voting, I don't have any issues with the current situation. Newcomers to CP's down-votes cause a small loss of rep points ... yes ? And, at least the person down-voting on articles has to give a reason, and can be identified.

Whether it is worth CP dev time to implement a mechanism to monitor/control possible patterns of revenge/bitch/trolling down-voting: I think only CP staff can answer that.

But, if you observe a pattern of down-voting that seems suspicious, you can post a message to the Spam and Abuse forum and trigger review.

«At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is
...
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance»

T.S. Elliot, The Four Quartets: "Burnt Norton"/xml>

Dominic Burford13-Nov-14 3:45

13-Nov-14 3:45

Whoops silly me Smile | :)

It's not so much the loss of rep points, but by voting an article with 1 they also force that article further down the search ranking, whereas in actual fact it may be a perfectly good article. As articles on here are crawled by search engines such as Google then we shouldn't allow good articles to be down-voted unless they are of genuinely poor technical quality.

In the links I provided at the outset, the voter gives a 1 and leaves the comment "meh". This is hardly a technical criticism.

The only basis an article on this site should be judged is on technical merit, and IMO we should strive to ensure that anything that disrupts that process is removed.

Petty voting has no place on CP.

Richard MacCutchan13-Nov-14 4:57

13-Nov-14 4:57

Dominic Burford wrote:
Petty voting has no place on CP.

True, but as long as people are allowed to "downvote" it will remain.

Dominic Burford13-Nov-14 5:39

13-Nov-14 5:39

Richard MacCutchan wrote:
True, but as long as people are allowed to "downvote" it will remain.

Not if we limit the ability of noobs (the main offenders) to cast low votes on articles, as I'm suggesting here. Once they have established a basic level of participation with the site, then they can vote as they please.

Richard MacCutchan13-Nov-14 5:40

13-Nov-14 5:40

Dominic Burford wrote:
noobs (the main offenders)

Given that most of this voting is anonymous, what evidence do you have to support that assertion?

Dominic Burford13-Nov-14 5:42

13-Nov-14 5:42

By those that leave comments against their votes.

Richard Deeming13-Nov-14 6:50

Richard Deeming

13-Nov-14 6:50

Richard MacCutchan wrote:
Given that most of this voting is anonymous,

Not on articles - you can't down-vote without leaving a comment.

"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer

Richard MacCutchan13-Nov-14 7:30

13-Nov-14 7:30

Mea culpa.

Richard MacCutchan13-Nov-14 5:44

13-Nov-14 5:44

Those cycle rides of yours look totally awesome Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:

. Even when I was quite fit I don't think I ever did more than about 60 miles in a single day.

Re: OT

Dominic Burford13-Nov-14 5:55

13-Nov-14 5:55

Thanks. I have three bikes and ride regularly, and go running too. My passion is for cycling though Smile | :)

OriginalGriff13-Nov-14 8:36

OriginalGriff

13-Nov-14 8:36

But it generally doesn't, does it? Isn't there a mechanism which removes "spurious" votes which are wildly outside the normal range for that article? I've seen "15 votes (and 1 removed)" on my tips: DateTime Extensions to Make Some Simple Tasks a Little More Readable[^] has it.

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...

Dominic Burford13-Nov-14 21:16

13-Nov-14 21:16

I think there are two strands to this. The first is curbing spurious low votes, in which there may already be a mechanism in place for dealing with this. The second is a low vote where an unproductive comment has been added. A vote of 1 with the comment "meh" does not help either the author or the reader.

BillWoodruff14-Nov-14 6:54

BillWoodruff

14-Nov-14 6:54

Dominic Burford wrote:
It's not so much the loss of rep points, but by voting an article with 1 they also force that article further down the search ranking, whereas in actual fact it may be a perfectly good article.

Hi, if you are completely sure that is the case (is it ?), then I agree with you, and I find your point of view a compelling argument for article/tip nugatory-downvote purging !

«The greater the social and cultural distances between people, the more magical the light can spring from their contact» Milan Kundera, "Testaments Trahis"