Posts, The Front Page and Temptations

I've been a member since February. Since then I've seen posts of all different natures ranging from great to those that do not belong on the site and the author needs to go and hide under a rock somwehere till the rage and anger blows over. (I don't mind making controversy to promote a healthy debate amongst fellow monks but one should not make a regular habit of it in bad form) And no matter how good or bad a post is. There always seems to be an unusual number of posts that are badly written that make it to the front page. I'm sure that this has been discussed before. But there seems to be a basic flaw in the approval process as to what goes onto the front page. Apparently the post that is listed in the approval section is also shown to the monk who posted the article in the first place. Giving a chance for temptation to set in. I know we do have some monks who have approved of their own posts to show up on the front page and have given in to such a temptation.

I believe that this form of tempatation must be dealt with so that authors can't approve of their own posts to go on the front page so that we may cut down on the garbage that seems to be showing up on the gates.

There seems to be a lacking of any standard (loose or otherwise) of how to judge if a post is worthy of being put on the front page. Do we need something like this? Obviously one doesn't need to write an article that will win the Pulitzer prize but at least it needs a good amount of content than the some three liners or less that make it to the front. I think in order for a post to make it to the front, more than one monk needs to say it deserves that sort of attention.

BMaximus

Comment on Posts, The Front Page and Temptations

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(jcwren) Re: Posts, The Front Page and Temptations by jcwren (Prior) on Dec 27, 2001 at 06:02 UTC
I think the importance of the front page is overblown. But I think a larger problem is that if you require multiple people to approve a post for the front page, the front page will become very static. It's better (IMHO) to have material that doesn't deserve to be there for a short time than better material that's there too long. And as far as monks approving thier own posts for the front page? I'm sure it happens very occasionally. Often enough to warrant vrooms investment in time to fix it? I doubt it. --Chris e-mail jcwren	[reply]
Re: Posts, The Front Page and Temptations by grinder (Bishop) on Dec 27, 2001 at 16:11 UTC
These sempiternal questions are raised every now and then. And I know there is yet one more thread on the question, but I can't tease it out of super search. Last week I happened to look at TMG a few times, and noticed that nothing new had been posted. So I looked at SoPW to see what could go up, and guess what, I couldn't find anything worthy. Just standard run-of-the-mill questions. I ended up finding a couple of good threads, which, as an added bonus I had not participated in. Even more questionable than FPing your own nodes is to get in the first post to a question and then FP the node. Answers to questions tend to receive more votes than the question itself, especially if the question was posted anonymously. I have been toying with the idea that next time I frontpage a node I'll announce the fact in the CB. If that was a habit that caught on, we wouldn't need a mechanical solution. Part of what makes the site work so well is the amount of tacit agreement there is between participants as to what is The Right Thing to do. -- `g r i n d e r just another bofh print@_{sort keys %_},$/if%_=split//,'= & *a?b:e\f/h^h!j+n,o@o;r$s-t%t#u';`	[reply]
Re (tilly) 2: Posts, The Front Page and Temptations by tilly (Archbishop) on Jan 04, 2002 at 17:58 UTC
I like this idea. Whenever someone frontpages a node, I think it would be good if a message was sent to chatter: root announces that foo just frontpaged whatever. That would add some accountability to the process, and provide for immediate feedback.	[reply]
Re: Posts, The Front Page and Temptations by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Dec 27, 2001 at 14:07 UTC
I'm with jcwren on this one, the frontpage doesn't seem very important. It's the first place I go, but usually just a pitstop before Seekers of Perl Wisdom and Newest Nodes. Without wanting to turn the argument to ad hominem, I think you're losing out on a lot if you depend too much on the gates. (And you're not alone, it has been observed that many people do.)	[reply]
Re: Re: Posts, The Front Page and Temptations by defyance (Curate) on Dec 28, 2001 at 23:26 UTC
I as well don't believe the front page is as important as it is thought to be by some. I may be new to this site, but I can say that it is perceived to be a popularity contest. I'm quite offended by that as a member of this site. I believe we are all here for the same reason, the search of more knowledge of the thing that brings us all together. Not so important is the popularity of the posts. I'm not here to worry about weather or not I'm popular as a programmer, and or poster. No, I'm here to learn. The Voting/Experience system is just an added incentive to come back and learn more. Same with seeing my post on the front page.	[reply]
Re: Posts, The Front Page and Temptations by petral (Curate) on Jan 04, 2002 at 18:23 UTC
Just to complete the record, I don't think anyone mentioned When to frontpage a node? . p	[reply]


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Posts, The Front Page and Temptations

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