Bugs and Suggestions

3-Jul-21 0:16

Although I understand the point of removing the rep points from deleted items... the guy below could have a point.

If an article has been downloaded and upvoted and so on, but it gets so old that is really not worth to keep it online anymore... shouldn't the legitime reputation points awarded back in the day remain in the authors account?

If an article gets nuked due to spam, plagiarism or whatever other choice... then yes delete the reputation too.

In my opinion there should be a possibility to keep the points for something that just "aged" bad, without incurring in anything wrong with site policies.

I could imagine a button for the owner and / or staff that appears after X minimum time online and allows deletion without removing the reputation.

What do you think?

M.D.V.

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Wendelius3-Jul-21 3:27

Wendelius

3-Jul-21 3:27

I agree there is a point. However, if points are kept, it should concern both negative and positive points.

However, that's only the authors side. I believe that a mechanism that would allow to close an article and clearly state it obsolete would be a good idea. All the article text should remain but the article would contain a clear statement that this idea/technology/approach is obsolete. This way the search engines would still find the content but when a reader comes in, she/he sees that this is something that should be avoided these days.

I think this approach would greatly help people that come in touch with something 'old' and don't yet know what to think about it or how to use it.

Richard MacCutchan3-Jul-21 5:06

3-Jul-21 5:06

Wendelius wrote:
but when a reader comes in, she/he sees that this is something that should be avoided these days.

And how would that work? Spend a little time in QA and see how many "developers" are proliferating, not just bad, but seriously dangerous, code. If an article is not valid then it should be deleted for ever.

I do take Nelek's comment about the reputation points.

Greg Utas3-Jul-21 5:37

Greg Utas

3-Jul-21 5:37

Quote:
If an article is not valid then it should be deleted for ever.

I would hope it wouldn't get through moderation in that case. Now, there's "not valid" for being dangerous and wrong, as you mentioned, and "not valid" for being obsolete, as Wendelius mentioned. The latter shouldn't be deleted, because legacy systems have remarkable tenacity. A few readers might even find such articles interesting from an historical perspective. But a comment noting their obsolescence would be a helpful warning to those doing new development.

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Richard MacCutchan3-Jul-21 5:50

3-Jul-21 5:50

But when the only text in the article is, "obsolete", it serves no purpose.

Wendelius3-Jul-21 6:51

Wendelius

3-Jul-21 6:51

I agree that article without the original text servers no purpose. I also agree that if the article is initially bad it should not pass moderation or if it does, voting hopefully shows how bad an idea is.

What I mean is that over time things become obsolete and while I understand Nelek's initial post was about rep points (as was the first paragraph in my answer), I think it would be worth while to have a discussion what to do with obsolete articles.

Just an example, what about an article discussing about new features of a product version which nowadays is end-of-life and the features do not necessarily exist in newer versions. What if there would be an option to report such article as obsolete and if enough reports have been given, an 'obsolete' watermark would be added. Probably not the best way to handle such situation but some food for thoughts.

Nelek3-Jul-21 7:36

3-Jul-21 7:36

Wendelius wrote:
What I mean is that over time things become obsolete and while I understand Nelek's initial post was about rep points (as was the first paragraph in my answer), I think it would be worth while to have a discussion what to do with obsolete articles.

To be honest... My original thought was about the complain below of losing the points for an obsolete article.

But to be honest I like the idea of keeping a good article with the warning "this is old stuff" or even "obsolete" if the content deserves it.

M.D.V.

Nelek3-Jul-21 7:32

3-Jul-21 7:32

Richard MacCutchan wrote:
But when the only text in the article is, "obsolete", it serves no purpose.

That's why the article below got correctly deleted, and noone is saying anything about it.

M.D.V.

Nelek3-Jul-21 7:30

3-Jul-21 7:30

Richard MacCutchan wrote:
If an article is not valid then it should be deleted for ever.

Obsolete != not valid.
I still read things from MSDN from 2005 or so, on totally obsolete parts of the .Net Framework but their content is so good that for me is very relevant today.

There is crappy / middle things that wouldn't be missed if deleted at all, but there still exist items where you can still learn about how to do things correctly, even when you can't exactly use that code because it got obsolete.

M.D.V.

Richard MacCutchan3-Jul-21 8:24

3-Jul-21 8:24

In the context of the article referred to the expression "not valid" means that there is no content that has anything relevant to technology. As the article that he wanted left on the website containing just the word "obsolete", there was no point in keeping it.

Nelek3-Jul-21 8:50

3-Jul-21 8:50

You are still speaking of the article below...

We are one or two steps ahead and speaking about possible suggestion / new functionality for the site...

M.D.V.

RedDk3-Jul-21 8:22

RedDk

3-Jul-21 8:22

I don't see how rewarding a poster that allows his code to become old should usurp any tendency o f the site, with all it's "editors" (you and I), to decide to punish him by retracting points from his ORIGINAL score; the score he receives for enlightening the community, and passing the censors (you and I, again), once his article/tiptrick/blog/project/etc squeezes through the moderation pipeline and ends up rattling around in new-CP-space.

Certain riding thoughts accompany this probably true scenario. One being that writers of ARTICLES know that their content is being downloaded. And I'll stop there because ... obviously they already have more knowledge about the point system than I do so further discussion would make my additions purely conjectural.

On that second thought then, there have been attempts by the authors of CP (not you and I, not members; whatever creature is running in the wheel at the time of it's appearance) to make light of the fact that much of the scoring is tallied in realtime and available at the touch of that coding wizard's paw, and I'd submit that you and I actually have little say at all when it comes to scores commensurate with identities and therefore shouldn't bother to care about such things.

What is happening?

CodeErgoSum28-Jun-21 12:09

CodeErgoSum

28-Jun-21 12:09

Strange things happen!

This morning my reputation scored 4.332 points. Now my reputation fell to 4.193
(look at the picture below)

I lost 140 points in just one day!

But, looking at the "Reputation History" there isn't any clue about that loss: What??
(again: look at the picture below)

Furthermore:

I Published two articles, one was 'marked' as obsolete and the community accepted the idea of publishing it anyway
(I have the confirmation message. We agreed that it was better don't delete the article to avoid that all the bookmark to the article became broken links)

Now the article doesn't exist anymore: Who deleted it? And Why? Why an article of mine was deleted without my consent?
(If I had had the chance, my choice would have been to keep the old article and add a link to the new article)

Years ago I had a chat with one of the big bosses (Chris)
He said that CodeProject is a free service and we don't pay to have an account: That is not true!

CodeProject exists thanks to people like me that write articles, and articles are 'paid' with "reputation points".

"Reputation points" are the currency for this site, and an account on CodeProject is like a bank account.

What if your bank loses your money?

Sorry to say that I am absolutely unhappy about what is happening.!
(That's not all, lots of other strange things happen last few days, but that is another story)

Cheers

Vincenzo

modified 29-Jun-21 2:12am.

Richard MacCutchan28-Jun-21 21:23

28-Jun-21 21:23

When your article was (rightly) deleted, any reputation points attaching to it were also deleted, hence the changes. I am not sure what you are so unhappy about, there is no point in leaving a non-article (i.e the one marked obsolete) cluttering up the site.

CodeErgoSum28-Jun-21 22:01

CodeErgoSum

28-Jun-21 22:01

Sorry Richard

I disagree 100% with your argumentation
(and honestly: sorry, seem you do not read carefully the message)

The article was bookmarked. The bookmarks stay (at least) on the browser. now any bookmark is a broken link. (Error 404 is never a good thing)
As I said: «If I had had the chance, my choice would have been to keep the old article and add a link to the new article» And the chance was not given to me. At all.
When you buy handkerchiefs then, do you ask to be refunded when you throw them away after using them? (why should I lost my points after an article was deleted?)
I wrote the article then is somehow I am the owner of that article (in the good and in the bad). Don't you think I have the right to participate in the decision to cancel it?
If I had been aware that deleting an article means losing the relative points. I would never have deleted it. (this is cluttering the site !!!!)

I write some messages and participated to others, what I observed is a large percentage of people participating in the "chat" just to get "reputation points". I think that is a big limitation of this site!

Cheers

Vincenzo

Richard Deeming28-Jun-21 22:12

Richard Deeming

28-Jun-21 22:12

The decision to remove your article was taken by one of the site admins, after discussion with you:
Re: Obsolete article? - Article Writing Discussion Boards[^]

Based on Sean's comment, you did have the chance to participate in that discussion. But the eventual decision on whether or not to leave a non-article published on this site rests with the site owners.

Your suggestion about redirecting links from the old article to the new article has some merit, and is worth discussing in this forum. I suggest you concentrate on that, rather than complaining about your non-article being removed.

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

Richard MacCutchan28-Jun-21 22:28

28-Jun-21 22:28

CodeErgoSum wrote:
I disagree 100% with your argumentation

Well that is your free choice. But I doubt that the site is going to change the rules because one person disagrees with them.

CodeErgoSum wrote:
now any bookmark is a broken link. (Error 404 is never a good thing)

Well that holds true for any bookmark anywhere on the internet.

And if people wish to read your article it is easy enough to find, via the search facilitiy, or by going to your home page.

And out of all this we come back to the question: Why did you mark the article as obsolete rather than just updating it with whatever new information you wished to add? That would have resolved all your questions without any difficulty, and you would keep your reputation points.