Rescind mandatory comment on article low votes
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I read ( and sometimes write ) articles here and I actually think the opposite of mark merrens. The voting on articles works well in the sense that most articles have enough votes to indicate a general consensus. This is a really useful indicator. However, I guess people are reluctant to cast low votes now an identifying comment is mandatory - even when that vote is appropriate. The new standard deviation filter is great and does a pretty good job of ignoring unwarranted votes. So, how about going back to anonymous ( to the public ) voting again?
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I read ( and sometimes write ) articles here and I actually think the opposite of mark merrens. The voting on articles works well in the sense that most articles have enough votes to indicate a general consensus. This is a really useful indicator. However, I guess people are reluctant to cast low votes now an identifying comment is mandatory - even when that vote is appropriate. The new standard deviation filter is great and does a pretty good job of ignoring unwarranted votes. So, how about going back to anonymous ( to the public ) voting again?
I like your suggestion but at the same time, since it is an article, if someone thought of it as a "1" then wouldn't you want to know why or what inspired the vote?
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) -
I like your suggestion but at the same time, since it is an article, if someone thought of it as a "1" then wouldn't you want to know why or what inspired the vote?
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)Sure, the author has rights, but so do readers and there are many more of those. What I don't know is what balance is best for the site. I thought it was worth thinking about though. Nick
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Sure, the author has rights, but so do readers and there are many more of those. What I don't know is what balance is best for the site. I thought it was worth thinking about though. Nick
Nicholas Butler wrote:
I thought it was worth thinking about though.
and it is. I feel that the author should not be allowed to vote on reply threads to their own articles. That way if you vote a one on a poor article, the author can't turn around and one vote you back out of revenge.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) -
I read ( and sometimes write ) articles here and I actually think the opposite of mark merrens. The voting on articles works well in the sense that most articles have enough votes to indicate a general consensus. This is a really useful indicator. However, I guess people are reluctant to cast low votes now an identifying comment is mandatory - even when that vote is appropriate. The new standard deviation filter is great and does a pretty good job of ignoring unwarranted votes. So, how about going back to anonymous ( to the public ) voting again?
Probably worthwhile weighing in on this thread.[^]
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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I read ( and sometimes write ) articles here and I actually think the opposite of mark merrens. The voting on articles works well in the sense that most articles have enough votes to indicate a general consensus. This is a really useful indicator. However, I guess people are reluctant to cast low votes now an identifying comment is mandatory - even when that vote is appropriate. The new standard deviation filter is great and does a pretty good job of ignoring unwarranted votes. So, how about going back to anonymous ( to the public ) voting again?
Nicholas Butler wrote:
The voting on articles works well in the sense that most articles have enough votes to indicate a general consensus. This is a really useful indicator.
Actually, I disagree. In the old days of the voting system, it was common for some authors to vote 1 to push articles out of the "latest best picks" articles so that their articles would be at the top. Now, a single vote of 1 is enough to push an article out of site, and consequently it never gets read. Also, your approach presumes that there are enough selfless people willing to vote 5 to compensate. One of Nish's recent articles was viewed over a 1000 times before anybody bothered to vote at all; something that greatly irritated me because the article was an outstanding one. The standard deviation filter is useless in cases like this. So, I vote no to the anonymous voting.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
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Nicholas Butler wrote:
The voting on articles works well in the sense that most articles have enough votes to indicate a general consensus. This is a really useful indicator.
Actually, I disagree. In the old days of the voting system, it was common for some authors to vote 1 to push articles out of the "latest best picks" articles so that their articles would be at the top. Now, a single vote of 1 is enough to push an article out of site, and consequently it never gets read. Also, your approach presumes that there are enough selfless people willing to vote 5 to compensate. One of Nish's recent articles was viewed over a 1000 times before anybody bothered to vote at all; something that greatly irritated me because the article was an outstanding one. The standard deviation filter is useless in cases like this. So, I vote no to the anonymous voting.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
Actually, I disagree. In the old days of the voting system, it was common for some authors to vote 1 to push articles out of the "latest best picks" articles so that their articles would be at the top. Now, a single vote of 1 is enough to push an article out of site, and consequently it never gets read.
It is annoying when someone votes on an article for reasons other than the merit of the article, but that's just the way of the world. People do all sorts of strange things for strange reasons. When I write articles, I accept that this is going to happen to a certain extent, but my experience is that most people vote on merit and that the overall score is a pretty good indicator of quality. When mandatory comments were introduced, it reduced the number of low votes and I think that is a bad thing. It reduced the scale from 1-5 to 4-5, which made it harder to differentiate articles by quality and also skewed the ratings of all new articles relative to ones that were rated under the previous rules.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
Also, your approach presumes that there are enough selfless people willing to vote 5 to compensate. One of Nish's recent articles was viewed over a 1000 times before anybody bothered to vote at all; something that greatly irritated me because the article was an outstanding one. The standard deviation filter is useless in cases like this.
Again, my experience is different. I wouldn't call people who vote "selfless", I would call them polite. It takes a lot of effort to write a decent article and I think the least a reader can do is form an opinion and press a button. The problem has always been that there is not enough incentive for the reader to vote. Perhaps this needs some attention, but that's another discussion. The point here is that making it harder for people to vote is exactly the wrong thing to do. If you look at existing articles, most have about 1 vote per 1,000 views. That's not great, although I don't know how many of the "views" are by site spiders. It might not be immediate, but over time a consensus is reached and with the new standard deviation filter ( a fantastic idea ), any anomalous votes are discarded. I think this is more valuable than the risk of being knocked off the "Latest Best Picks" by a single low vote. Even then, it doesn't take many 5's to filter out a 1-vote.
Pete O'Hanlon w
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
Actually, I disagree. In the old days of the voting system, it was common for some authors to vote 1 to push articles out of the "latest best picks" articles so that their articles would be at the top. Now, a single vote of 1 is enough to push an article out of site, and consequently it never gets read.
It is annoying when someone votes on an article for reasons other than the merit of the article, but that's just the way of the world. People do all sorts of strange things for strange reasons. When I write articles, I accept that this is going to happen to a certain extent, but my experience is that most people vote on merit and that the overall score is a pretty good indicator of quality. When mandatory comments were introduced, it reduced the number of low votes and I think that is a bad thing. It reduced the scale from 1-5 to 4-5, which made it harder to differentiate articles by quality and also skewed the ratings of all new articles relative to ones that were rated under the previous rules.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
Also, your approach presumes that there are enough selfless people willing to vote 5 to compensate. One of Nish's recent articles was viewed over a 1000 times before anybody bothered to vote at all; something that greatly irritated me because the article was an outstanding one. The standard deviation filter is useless in cases like this.
Again, my experience is different. I wouldn't call people who vote "selfless", I would call them polite. It takes a lot of effort to write a decent article and I think the least a reader can do is form an opinion and press a button. The problem has always been that there is not enough incentive for the reader to vote. Perhaps this needs some attention, but that's another discussion. The point here is that making it harder for people to vote is exactly the wrong thing to do. If you look at existing articles, most have about 1 vote per 1,000 views. That's not great, although I don't know how many of the "views" are by site spiders. It might not be immediate, but over time a consensus is reached and with the new standard deviation filter ( a fantastic idea ), any anomalous votes are discarded. I think this is more valuable than the risk of being knocked off the "Latest Best Picks" by a single low vote. Even then, it doesn't take many 5's to filter out a 1-vote.
Pete O'Hanlon w
Nicholas Butler wrote:
It might not be immediate, but over time a consensus is reached and with the new standard deviation filter ( a fantastic idea ), any anomalous votes are discarded
While the sd filter is a good idea, it only works if an article gets sufficient votes. My point is that a 1 vote can push a new author so far down the ratings that their article is never read; and this means they won't have a chance to recover. Consider how offputting this is for a new author who has spent an age slaving over an article that they are rightfully proud of, (and no, it might not be the greatest quality, but at least they have had the guts to have a go), only to see one selfish vote demolish their article. In this, I think that mandatory comments have been a good thing. More importantly, they give other users a chance to disagree with the vote (and in cases where it's obvious that the 1-vote has no value, they can vote to remove the vote). Again, this is a positive thing. I say, let's keep it with the mandatory comments. They do serve a purpose (even if it is only to identify HWSNBN's sock-puppet accounts).
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
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Nicholas Butler wrote:
It might not be immediate, but over time a consensus is reached and with the new standard deviation filter ( a fantastic idea ), any anomalous votes are discarded
While the sd filter is a good idea, it only works if an article gets sufficient votes. My point is that a 1 vote can push a new author so far down the ratings that their article is never read; and this means they won't have a chance to recover. Consider how offputting this is for a new author who has spent an age slaving over an article that they are rightfully proud of, (and no, it might not be the greatest quality, but at least they have had the guts to have a go), only to see one selfish vote demolish their article. In this, I think that mandatory comments have been a good thing. More importantly, they give other users a chance to disagree with the vote (and in cases where it's obvious that the 1-vote has no value, they can vote to remove the vote). Again, this is a positive thing. I say, let's keep it with the mandatory comments. They do serve a purpose (even if it is only to identify HWSNBN's sock-puppet accounts).
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
My point is that a 1 vote can push a new author so far down the ratings that their article is never read
I don't know the stats about how articles are found and read, but I suspect being on the "Latest Best Picks" isn't as important as you assume. The list of all new articles is on the front page, there is an RSS feed of all articles and CP articles rank pretty highly on Google. Nick
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Probably worthwhile weighing in on this thread.[^]
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
I posted a reply to Pete on this thread and didn't want to repeat myself in Nish's thread. Is this discussion useful? You have access to a lot more information than any of us! Nick
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
Actually, I disagree. In the old days of the voting system, it was common for some authors to vote 1 to push articles out of the "latest best picks" articles so that their articles would be at the top. Now, a single vote of 1 is enough to push an article out of site, and consequently it never gets read.
It is annoying when someone votes on an article for reasons other than the merit of the article, but that's just the way of the world. People do all sorts of strange things for strange reasons. When I write articles, I accept that this is going to happen to a certain extent, but my experience is that most people vote on merit and that the overall score is a pretty good indicator of quality. When mandatory comments were introduced, it reduced the number of low votes and I think that is a bad thing. It reduced the scale from 1-5 to 4-5, which made it harder to differentiate articles by quality and also skewed the ratings of all new articles relative to ones that were rated under the previous rules.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
Also, your approach presumes that there are enough selfless people willing to vote 5 to compensate. One of Nish's recent articles was viewed over a 1000 times before anybody bothered to vote at all; something that greatly irritated me because the article was an outstanding one. The standard deviation filter is useless in cases like this.
Again, my experience is different. I wouldn't call people who vote "selfless", I would call them polite. It takes a lot of effort to write a decent article and I think the least a reader can do is form an opinion and press a button. The problem has always been that there is not enough incentive for the reader to vote. Perhaps this needs some attention, but that's another discussion. The point here is that making it harder for people to vote is exactly the wrong thing to do. If you look at existing articles, most have about 1 vote per 1,000 views. That's not great, although I don't know how many of the "views" are by site spiders. It might not be immediate, but over time a consensus is reached and with the new standard deviation filter ( a fantastic idea ), any anomalous votes are discarded. I think this is more valuable than the risk of being knocked off the "Latest Best Picks" by a single low vote. Even then, it doesn't take many 5's to filter out a 1-vote.
Pete O'Hanlon w
Nicholas Butler wrote:
When mandatory comments were introduced, it reduced the number of low votes and I think that is a bad thing
In my experience, it mostly reduced the malicious and immature down-votes. Sub-par articles still get down-votes and from regular/senior members.
Nicholas Butler wrote:
If you look at existing articles, most have about 1 vote per 1,000 views.
The views don't really make for a good stat unless you know how many of those were from guests and how many were from members. Guests can view, they cannot vote or comment. I requested a new feature to see separate veiw-counts for this here[^]
Nicholas Butler wrote:
It might not be immediate, but over time a consensus is reached and with the new standard deviation filter ( a fantastic idea ), any anomalous votes are discarded. I think this is more valuable than the risk of being knocked off the "Latest Best Picks" by a single low vote. Even then, it doesn't take many 5's to filter out a 1-vote.
The way the site receives tons of new articles these days, an article gets visibility for about 2-6 hours after it's posted. After that it goes off the front page and there is a steep decline in view count. The really good articles (usually when authors have put enormous effort into it) make the Top-5 list thus giving them more visibility for a few more days (often up to a week). It's these articles that are adversely affected when a malicious 4 is cast to knock it off the front page. Once that happens, it's extremely unlikely that enough people will view the article for enough 5s to be cast to kill the effect of the 4 vote (assumption here is we are talking about a high quality article that deserves front page attention). At the personal level this is quite frustrating to the authors. Talk to Pete or Sacha or Marcelo and you'll see that they've all experienced this many times here. From CP's and thus Chris's perspective good/interesting articles that improve the utility value of the website are being knocked into oblivion by one single 4 vote. I am sure Chris will want to take steps to prevent th
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Nicholas Butler wrote:
When mandatory comments were introduced, it reduced the number of low votes and I think that is a bad thing
In my experience, it mostly reduced the malicious and immature down-votes. Sub-par articles still get down-votes and from regular/senior members.
Nicholas Butler wrote:
If you look at existing articles, most have about 1 vote per 1,000 views.
The views don't really make for a good stat unless you know how many of those were from guests and how many were from members. Guests can view, they cannot vote or comment. I requested a new feature to see separate veiw-counts for this here[^]
Nicholas Butler wrote:
It might not be immediate, but over time a consensus is reached and with the new standard deviation filter ( a fantastic idea ), any anomalous votes are discarded. I think this is more valuable than the risk of being knocked off the "Latest Best Picks" by a single low vote. Even then, it doesn't take many 5's to filter out a 1-vote.
The way the site receives tons of new articles these days, an article gets visibility for about 2-6 hours after it's posted. After that it goes off the front page and there is a steep decline in view count. The really good articles (usually when authors have put enormous effort into it) make the Top-5 list thus giving them more visibility for a few more days (often up to a week). It's these articles that are adversely affected when a malicious 4 is cast to knock it off the front page. Once that happens, it's extremely unlikely that enough people will view the article for enough 5s to be cast to kill the effect of the 4 vote (assumption here is we are talking about a high quality article that deserves front page attention). At the personal level this is quite frustrating to the authors. Talk to Pete or Sacha or Marcelo and you'll see that they've all experienced this many times here. From CP's and thus Chris's perspective good/interesting articles that improve the utility value of the website are being knocked into oblivion by one single 4 vote. I am sure Chris will want to take steps to prevent th
Hi Nish - thanks for your reply :) If the "Latest Best Picks" isn't working, that is a separate problem to anonymous voting, surely? If an author down-votes someone else's article to promote his own, then his article will attract more attention. If his article is not most excellent, it should be voted off the list by people voting properly - on merit. I think the underlying problem is that not enough people vote properly. Mandatory comments exacerbate that. Nick
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Hi Nish - thanks for your reply :) If the "Latest Best Picks" isn't working, that is a separate problem to anonymous voting, surely? If an author down-votes someone else's article to promote his own, then his article will attract more attention. If his article is not most excellent, it should be voted off the list by people voting properly - on merit. I think the underlying problem is that not enough people vote properly. Mandatory comments exacerbate that. Nick
Nicholas Butler wrote:
If the "Latest Best Picks" isn't working, that is a separate problem to anonymous voting, surely?
It's related. The issue with best-picks surfaces only when someone wrongly casts a vote to knock an article off the list.
Nicholas Butler wrote:
If an author down-votes someone else's article to promote his own, then his article will attract more attention. If his article is not most excellent, it should be voted off the list by people voting properly - on merit.
It's not just authors who do this. Sometimes people just do it because they don't like a particular author (mostly because of completely unrelated comments the author may have made in say a Lounge thread on politics or sport or some such thing).
Nicholas Butler wrote:
I think the underlying problem is that not enough people vote properly.
I agree to that. I don't agree that this is because of mandatory comments (btw you don't need to actually write a comment, the site auto-posts a message with a default subject of my vote of X). There needs to be better incentives to voting.
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Part 2 in my WinRT/C++ series : Visual C++ and WinRT/Metro - Databinding Basics
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Nicholas Butler wrote:
It might not be immediate, but over time a consensus is reached and with the new standard deviation filter ( a fantastic idea ), any anomalous votes are discarded
While the sd filter is a good idea, it only works if an article gets sufficient votes. My point is that a 1 vote can push a new author so far down the ratings that their article is never read; and this means they won't have a chance to recover. Consider how offputting this is for a new author who has spent an age slaving over an article that they are rightfully proud of, (and no, it might not be the greatest quality, but at least they have had the guts to have a go), only to see one selfish vote demolish their article. In this, I think that mandatory comments have been a good thing. More importantly, they give other users a chance to disagree with the vote (and in cases where it's obvious that the 1-vote has no value, they can vote to remove the vote). Again, this is a positive thing. I say, let's keep it with the mandatory comments. They do serve a purpose (even if it is only to identify HWSNBN's sock-puppet accounts).
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
a 1 vote can push a new author so far down the ratings that their article is never read
With the volume of articles that come through, the listings on the homepage really are only there as a way of saying thank you to the top authors: they don't influence readership, long term, that much because most views of an article come via searches, through the newsletter, or through direct links. The complaint here is that top articles get kicked off the homepage due to a single downvote. I have an idea...:cool:
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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Nicholas Butler wrote:
It might not be immediate, but over time a consensus is reached and with the new standard deviation filter ( a fantastic idea ), any anomalous votes are discarded
While the sd filter is a good idea, it only works if an article gets sufficient votes. My point is that a 1 vote can push a new author so far down the ratings that their article is never read; and this means they won't have a chance to recover. Consider how offputting this is for a new author who has spent an age slaving over an article that they are rightfully proud of, (and no, it might not be the greatest quality, but at least they have had the guts to have a go), only to see one selfish vote demolish their article. In this, I think that mandatory comments have been a good thing. More importantly, they give other users a chance to disagree with the vote (and in cases where it's obvious that the 1-vote has no value, they can vote to remove the vote). Again, this is a positive thing. I say, let's keep it with the mandatory comments. They do serve a purpose (even if it is only to identify HWSNBN's sock-puppet accounts).
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
My point is that a 1 vote can push a new author so far down the ratings that their article is never read
I've made a change so that the top 5 articles on the homepage are now ordered by number of upvotes, and not by actual score. This means that the set of articles on the homrepage is now at the mercy of vote-stuffers, but are now less likely to be affected by spurious down voters. We'll see how this goes.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP