You're right in stating that this might be an old subject.
It seems to come up in one form or another about once a
week (most recent discussions of downvoting were
this and this), although
usually the discussion is about downvoting the individual
rather than the post--something I (and many others,
I think) find wrong--rather
than the suggestion that posts not be voted down.
It depends what you mean by 'just trying to help another
monk'. Someone might be 'just trying to help' but post
something which is wrong or dangerous. Good intentions
do not ensure good content, and what is being voted on
is the quality of the post, not the intentions of the
poster.
As far as downvoting opinions is concerned, I would say
that the current site design encourages that. Take a
look at voting guidelines and you'll see
that a reason to vote down a meditation is 'if you
strongly disagree with the idea'. For discussions it
says 'if it would make the site less enjoyable'. Voting
allows people to indicate approval or disapproval for the
idea. The alternative would be a mass of 'me too' (or
anti-me-too) posts as people jostled to make their opinions
heard to keep vroom from implementing something or
encouraging him to do something.
But those are just guidelines. If you personally feel
that you should only vote down things which are screwed
up, by all means do so. I imagine everyone would write
those guidelines differently. Mine, for instance, would
include something about improperly formatted posts made
by anyone over level 1, which is one of my pet peeves. | [reply] |
Not to be judgemental, but isn't the act of voting a judgement call? Now, it is agreed that some people vote poorly (just ask merlyn) but over time, I've seen that although the system has drawbacks and points of failure, it works evenly. Not every post of yours is going to follow the basic rules when getting voted upon, and that is a fact of life.
The monastery is a place for monks to share knowledge. There is room for opinion, when it is requested. Since TIMTOWDI, there is room for opinions on solutions. But what we all come here for is to learn how to be better Perl programmers, and that includes the likes of merlyn, chromatic, jcwren, and the other saints.
Sometimes a post in reply to a question is downvoted when you lead others down a dangerous path. (Hmm... maybe it'd be good to be able to see rep on child nodes to a top level SOPW? Thus, you, the author of the SOPW question, could see what replies are considered useful by your peers.) That's when replies to questions start getting downvoted. It'd be an ideal world if you got replies to your answer that stated why you were wrong in answering that way and got --. Sometimes we forget that if we -- an answer, we should back up why we feel this is The Wrong WTDI. I hope that this node reminds you the purpose of perlmonks is not just to be a community of friends, but to be a community of learning.
ALL HAIL BRAK!!! | [reply] |
I think the voting system here is fine. It'll never be perfect, but then what ever is? My only comment on this is that if you're going to down-vote someone's post, at least have the *'s to let him know why. It may not be appropriate in a reply post but you can msg him if it's short.
Mick | [reply] |
Yes, I, for one, agree. I think that for now on I am going to msg people and tell them why I --'d them. And while Im on the subject, Ill ++ you, mrmick for mentioning it, along with other good posts on this page.
Wanna be perl hacker. Dave AKA damian
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I agree with you as well. However, a lot of people are not a curtious as you and I. There are some out there that just don't give a s**t and down-vote people because they want to be mean. That is what I was trying to get across in my first posting.
curtisb
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