There are two aspects to voting. One, it gives the author an intangible but quantifiable bit of feedback on a node. Two, it helps to provide community ranking within a window of opportunity.

What kind of behavior would you like to encourage with each suggestion?

1. I believe this is a bit dangerous. For instance, a group of individuals (read: thugs) could get together and start referring to a number of each others' posts within their sig and use the tactic of repeating what is said in threads (as I've noticed some people do...not by a few minutes, but by a few hours).

2. I don't think the saints here walk on water. They need floaties like the rest of us. Nodes are voted upon by the inhabitants of the monastery. To say someone's opinion of a node is more worthwhile than another's just seems uncharacteristic of our community.

Furthermore, I'd like to say a few things. XP means nothing. It has taken me a while to recognize this. Just because you've XP-whored your way into sainthood doesn't mean you're as capable as tye, jeffa, Ovid, merlyn, tilly, Abigail-II, or any of the other valuable members of our community (trust me, I'd list you all if I could). If you've reached sainthood without ever paying attention to what's going on here at the monastery, then you've lost a great opportunity. The most valuable thing that PM offers isn't a symbol of status (I don't know of anyone who puts that they are a saint at PM on their resume). The most valuable thing about PM is the ability to learn from your peers. These are the people who do what you do. They enjoy the same thing you do. They've run into problems that you run into on a daily basis. They are experienced, knowledgeable, ready and, most importantly, willing to see you through your problems. XP is just a hook to attempt to get people to participate. Our hope is that at some point, they realize what is the true value of being here.

Hope this helps.

antirice    
The first rule of Perl club is - use Perl
The ith rule of Perl club is - follow rule i - 1 for i > 1

I don't know of anyone who puts that they are a saint at PM on their resume).

 It's probably happened before - I'd do it for fun if I were a saint.

 Mind you're listening to somebody who updated his CV to include the phrase "Decorative around the office". shortly before landing my current job!

 I'd like to think that's because it's true, but maybe it was because they thought I had a sense of humour, or some entirely different reason ...

Steve
---
steve.org.uk

#1 a node already gets more votes because it's linked, you needn't enforce that effect. In the end, a node is upvoted when someone thinks it's good. A link has nothing to do with quality, it's a link. It's the decision of the one who follows the link whether he thinks the node is good or not. You see we're walking in circles: You cannot improve the way nodes are being up/down-voted as it is perfectly fair.

#2 Nope, that's against my sense of democracy, sorry. XP does not mean anything and if it does, it doesn't make your vote weigh more.

Have the votes of experienced users carry more weight in voting. ie. when a saint votes ++ on a node it has a 100% chance of XP increase, whereas for a Monk it is 50/50, and a low-level user is the usual 33% chance.

Arg. Here's another suggestion: let's get rid of XP alltogether. There are too many people think that if you got some high level you are more capable than someone else. Being "saint" doesn't mean you are better than someone who is a novice. It could just mean you're flooding this place with useless postings, or that you have voted a lot yourself.

Postings like this, that force saints on some silly pedestal make me contemplate retiring my id, and start afresh with a new one, or post anonymously.

Abigail

But let's not get rid of noderep. Although then people might start inventing other silly metrics (sum of all your nodereps or whatever).

Makeshifts last the longest.

But what does noderep measure? Nothing useful. The largest correlation noderep has with anything is "number of times viewed". Just look at your own nodes, see which ones got a high noderep. I bet most of them are in threads that have been frontpaged, and are posts that you posted relatively early in the threads. Almost all the time when I look at my list of writings, and spot a node with high noderep, it's in a thread that was frontpaged, and that I had an early reply in a thread. Replying in a thread that's two days old will hardly give you any XP, no matter how good it was.

Another factor that plays in role in making nodereputation useless is the pressure to vote. People seem to eager to vote, get rewarded with XP to vote, and lots of people even use up all the votes they get on a day.

I can see merit in having somekind of node reputation. I don't seen any merit in the system we have now.

Abigail

We could just rename XP to Lastitude. As in that dude has lots of lastitude....he's been around forever! :-)

I have to agree with getting rid of XP. Although its a nice way to judge someones probability of being right, its not realy a measure. As a fairly new monk myself, its kinda a barier to entry, as i'd like to participate in the design of the site but am not allowed until a higher level. Then agian maybe barriers to entry are needed, i'm not sure though :-)

___________
Eric Hodges

I have to agree with getting rid of XP. Although its a nice way to judge someones probability of being right, its not realy a measure.

You misunderstand. XP does not, in any means, give any clue whether the poster is saying something sensible or not. There is no correlation between having a high XP and having Perl knowledge. XP is not a nice way to judge someone.

Abigail

I'm with Abigail on XP being mostly silly. I've been programming Perl in some capacity or other for about six years, but I only made my first PM post a couple of weeks ago, and consequently only have a few hundred XP. Right now I'm trying to hurry my way up to Friar just so I can get the site abilities that come with it, but after that I could care less about XP.

The only reliable heuristic you can use to preemptively judge the quality of a post is the user id of the poster, not their corresponding XP. The only way that a user id will be of use to you is if you've been poking around on the site long enough to start recognizing handles and associating talent with them.

It is for this reason that I would consider it unfortunate were Abigail were to to give up the screen name and post anonymously or under a new account. I've come to recognize the screen name and associate it with quality posts, not because of the thousands of XP, but because of the actual posts I've read coming from that account. Were a new account created, I would eventually associate the new screen name with posts of high quality, but there would be a lag. Were Abigail to go the anonymous route, I would not ever be able to build up a mental handle heuristic.

So, learn names, and forget about XP.

I think there is some correlation between having XP and having Perl knowledge, statistically speaking anyway. And I don't think it's about judginge people, but rather about judging content.

What I find informative is how people have voted on a particular node, to find out the "Reputation" of that node. This, together with the XP of the author of the node, is a good indication to me of whether what was said in the node, makes sense or not.

Now, currently, the only way to find out the Reputation of a node, is to vote for it, either up or down. But if I don't know whether it makes any sense, how can I vote in a sensible way?

I would therefore be in favor of being able to "ask" for the Reputation of the node. Such a request would cost me one vote and never change the Reputation of the node. In the end, I should learn because I get an indication of the node's reputation from my peers. So therefore it makes sense to me to have a the same chance of increasing my own XP as I would have if I would have voted up or down.

So for me, the options would be:

    --  tell me  ++

Liz

liz,
Don't confuse XP with a node's rep. They are different things. You will often hear monk's say that XP is meaningless. It isn't. XP allows you to consider nodes, add a picture to your home node, post questions to Categorized Questions and Answers, etc. The correlation between a monk's XP and their Perl knowledge is meaningless.

When you talk about correlating a node's reputation to the authors XP, you have to consider a lot of things.

• Was it front paged - automatically skewed numbers
• Was the author one that gets popularity votes?
• Was the author one that gets hate votes?
• Was it one of the first replies?

  And then there is the story of the Saint that has 0 writeups. Yes, you heard me correctly - not a single node.

  Now there is no argument that some of the very high ranking monks are there because they are also very good at Perl. There are some that are there because they are very prolific in writeups which may or may not be of great quality. As long as they are not bad they will likely get one or two ++ from people trying to spend their votes in hopes of getting XP.

  I have personally received many ++'s on a node that was wrong. Why - because of my ranking. Evil begets evil.

  Ok - rant over. I see nothing wrong with casting a vote for the ability to see a node's reputation without affecting it's current value. It is not an original idea - it has been brought up before. I would care to wager that the reason it hasn't been done because the benefit doesn't seem to outweight the work. The people who are doing the work probably feel that there are "bigger fish to fry". Now, you could ask to become a PM devil. See what work is involved - volunteer to take it on yourself.

  If any of this seems inflamatory, I apologize, it is not meant to be.

  Cheers - L~R

...When you talk about correlating a node's reputation to the authors XP, you have to consider a lot of things...

Indeed. As with everything in life, make up your own mind. So there is no XP * Rep = Sense formula, it is only an indication. But knowing the Rep of a node gives you more to decide on, that's all.

...And then there is the story of the Saint that has 0 writeups...

Which is probably a votebot. At least that votebot will be able to get XP without skewing the reputation of nodes with the "tell me" option. And fortunately, nobody will need to correlate its XP with any writeups, so who cares? ;-)

... Now, you could ask to become a PM devil. See what work is involved - volunteer to take it on yourself...

Where do I sign up? Actually, I don't think the actual implementation would be such a big problem. The work will be in the proper documentation and the "cultural" change that needs to follow to make it a success.

Liz

What I find informative is how people have voted on a particular node, to find out the "Reputation" of that node. This, together with the XP of the author of the node, is a good indication to me of whether what was said in the node, makes sense or not.

I disagree.

I have a node with a reputation of 14. What useful information can you deduce from that number?

Update: Exactly. All of the other information is available already. I'm not sure the reputation of any single node adds significant data.

...I have a node with a reputation of 14. What useful information can you deduce from that number?

By itself? Nothing.

Together with your XP? Something.

Together with knowing you're doing stuff on quite a number of Perl projects outside of PerlMonks? Still a bit more.

Without reading the node in question? Nothing.

It's all about content and making (!) an opinion about it.

Liz

I would therefore be in favor of being able to "ask" for the Reputation of the node. Such a request would cost me one vote and never change the Reputation of the node.

I have to say that this is one of the most interesting twists on the voting/rep/xp subject that I've seen in a long time. There have been many nodes where I would have gladly given up my ability to vote for the node (and a vote from my store) to see the rep. In a sense its like casting a "no-vote" or spoiling your ballot.

I hope this idea gets implemented and if I find the time I'll be sure to look into making a patch.


---
demerphq

_{<Elian> And I do take a kind of perverse pleasure in having an OO assembly language...}

I believe I suggested that before in one of the recurring "null vote" discussions.

Makeshifts last the longest.

Interesting ideas. I had some others to add:

1. Don't give XP for votes AT ALL. I think it encourages people to vote when they shouldn't.
2. Provide another voting option of 00 to forfit your vote on the topic. - Sometimes i don't want to vote, but want to know how much other monks agree/disagree with a post. Most times this can be told by comments but occasionaly it would be nice
3. Provide ++ + 00 - -- as voting options. Maybe decide based on a monks level how wide they can vary there vote. This way if one person realy aggrees, and another one kinda doesn't you get more of a feel for that. Also it would allow for an average, Average Vote: 1.2 it would also allow for weighting based on a the voting monks level
4. If the above is done, expereince could always be based on the old model, but the average vote could be nice.

Don't give XP for votes AT ALL. I think it encourages people to vote when they shouldn't.

I disagree. Giving XP for votes encourages new users to start voting. As you rise in ranks, XP becomes less important (for most, I'm pretty sure at least - especially as it makes less and less difference to the total) but by then you have gotten into the habit of voting.

Of course people vote when they shouldn't, but generally, good nodes rise and bad nodes doesn't just the same. The votes on frontpaged nodes and the first posts are another matter however. ;-)

---

You have moved into a dark place.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

I'd like to see voting scores as a way to compare posts to each other. If you search and get several responses, it would be nice to think that there is a correlation between the votes and how good the answer is. So if you had 20 responses you could say well that ones average vote is higher so its at least more likely (thoeriticaly) to be a better, more thought out answer. I suppose now you have the same thing, but people can only vote ++ or --, so you don't get a feel for quality, just overall weather it okay or not.

I think that at least removing XP from the equation would stop people form ++'ing just because and only vote when the post realy screams "I'm good!' or "i suck!"

___________
Eric Hodges

One thing is sure, it may encourage users to dig deeper in monastery to link existing wisdom while answering a new node to give a richer answer. There are potentials for side effects.

artist

But if you really wanted to prove the insignificance of XP and stop people from mentioning their rank in their resumes, then I would suggest creating a bot that gave away XP in a random order. Some sort of mechanized monk that went around making people feel good. We need more positive vibes in the world today and based on how serious people take XP, this monk would make many people feel happy. And is that such a lame ass thing? I think not. How many times have I asked a question and just wanted to yell at some idiot who flamed or downvoted me without carefully reading my OP. Have the bot randomly message people with short but warm comments as it told them that they were getting an extra heaping of XP just for being themselves. No other reasons. Just for being who they are. Do you know how many lonely people sign on to AOL everyday after coming home late at night to an empty house and just hope, pray, that someone has sent them some email. Maybe an astranged family member or a former coworker who just wanted to say hi. There's a lot of people out there who use the internet because they hope they can connect with someone and feel better about themselves and their situation. So why not use the almighty joy of receiving XP in a positive manor? I think such a move would be within the ideals of Perl and its community.

...a bot that gave away XP in a random order..

You already have 25% chance of getting +2 XP for each you logged in, so to an extent, it already exists.

... Have the bot randomly message people with short but warm comments...

I would be against, unless it's an option you can switch off:

<input type="checkbox">Don't listen to the "happy" monk
[download]

But seriously, you would have to be very careful in your wording, because interpretation can be very culturally determined.

Anecdote alert
I used to know an (American) interactive teaching program that would ask questions as 4-choice multiple choice questions. No matter how many tries you would need to get the right answer, once you got the right answer, the feedback would be "Great!". Apparently this was considered comforting and reassuring in the States. Over here in Europe, that feedback was considered to be very cynical, especially if presented after 4 tries.

So what might seem reassuring to you, might be construed as very cynical and downputting by others.

Liz

u already have 25% chance of getting +2 XP for each you logged in, so to an extent, it already exists.

Actually this only applies for the first few levels. I dont remember how long for, but it doesnt last for ever.


---
demerphq

_{<Elian> And I do take a kind of perverse pleasure in having an OO assembly language...}

I am much more in favor of Slashdot voting methods

Well, we've seen how well that works.. now let's take another look at how well PerlMonks works..

Sorry, I'm cranky this morning. Need to get some coffee and/or more sleep (not necessarily in this order)..

Makeshifts last the longest.

While I hope the PM way is better then Slashdot way - we cannot deduce that from the current state of affairs. On slashdot you have more than 20 times more users, we cannot guarantie that the PM system would scale to that level. Additionally judging on some programming subject is much easier then in more political matters - you can usually verify it by executing relevant code, or by checking the documentation.

I believe the shlasdot zoo system has much potential.

But if you really wanted to prove the insignificance of XP and stop people from mentioning their rank in their resumes...

People really do this? Wow. I wonder if employers value that sort of thing.

In defense of the experience system, it does encourage participation. As other monks have pointed out, the incentive to gain XP at the lower levels means that you will learn how to vote and post, and get in the habit of doing so.

Granted, the longer you have been around, the less you probably care, but in the short term, it is encouragement for newer people to participate.

I agree that it isn't perfect, but it really it ain't so bad.

</ajdelore>