note
tye
<blockquote><blockquote>
You gain 1 XP for each node you post that at least one person up-votes.
</blockquote><i>
I'm not sure I like this one or not, but it will definitely increase my XP a
lot, because I write lots of short comments which very few monks even read and
vote on.
</i></blockquote><p>
No, it won't increase your XP even a whit. The only change on that part was making
the documentation clearer about what was already the case.
</p><blockquote><i>
I really don't like this change. Not only this punishes downvotes, but it also
has a discontinuity at half-half upvotes and downvotes
</i></blockquote><p>
No, the function is actually continuous around zero. If $voteavg is close to
zero, then your odds of gaining/losing XP are also close to zero when you cast
a down-vote. If the chance of losing 1 XP on very rare occassions is so
abhorrent to you, then you are a bit of a hypocrite for dishing out half of your
votes as down-votes. The net XP impact for you of casting 1/2 up-votes and
1/2 down-votes would be positive in the long run. So there is no net
punishment for 50/50 voting.
</p><p>
Since [xdg] noted that s/he missed the $voteavg factor in the equation for the odds, then perhaps you did as well. So the standard documentation needs to be expanded to not just show the math but also to explain more clearly what the impact of that math is.
</p><p>
I'm not terribly surprised that one "doesn't like" the chance of getting back
a small fraction of what they dish out on occassions when the negativity
temporarily has the upper hand. And I appreciate you being honest about it.
I'm in the same situation. I have been more likely to cast down-votes than many monks
in part because I would sometimes cast what I consider "compensating" down-votes (this will likely change somewhat).
</p><blockquote><i>
which someone like me might want to work around by casting meaningless upvotes
to bring the vtavg over zero.
</i></blockquote><p>
Yes, the system can't stop people from taking the moral "low road" and trying
to game the system. I'm sad that you would choose the moral low road to avoid
getting back a fraction of what you dish out. But the game that you are
proposing is complex enough that I hope that most people would abandon that
game eventually. "PerlMonks: The story of how I learned to stop worrying and
stop loving my XP and embraced voting the node honestly". Wouldn't that be
nice? I suspect that even you will be tempted to not <em>completely</em>
waste the up-votes that you cast just to prevent your $voteavg from
temporarily dipping too low and so (I hope) you will tend to up-vote the more
deserving of the nodes conveniently at hand. In fact, I would think that the
personality that casts a lot of down-votes may find it particularly
distasteful to up-vote nodes truly randomly. So I'm not convinced this
particular motivation to game the system is that strong in the end.
</p><p>
People very often dislike change. And certainly many will dislike change
that takes away a reward that they have come to take for granted (not much
complaining on that point this time around, though). So, of course, many will
dislike a change that may give them a "punishment" (no matter how small, it
appears). I am "lucky" in that the vast majority of my "audience" hardly ever
down-votes so this chance of "punishment" only impacts quite a minority.
</p><p>
I presented some of the cases of abuse that motivated these changes. I didn't
otherwise try to convince those about to risk punishment (being [gods|holier]
than thou, of course) that this is a Good Thing™. In replies I've noted
that this risk is quite low and, in the cases of the counter arguments
presented, the "punishment" would also be quite small. But I really don't
think anything that I could say would convince those about to be "punished"
that the punishment is a Good Thing™. But I think discouraging
some fairly common and serious "abuse"<sup>1</sup> is worth the minor
discouragement of some less abusive activities that are still a disruptive
influence (if you are casting half of your votes as down-votes, then you are
surely downvoting for relatively minor infractions, the type of thing that
leads people to mutter "what was worth down-voting about <em>that</em>?!").
</p><blockquote>
<sup>1</sup> I only use the scare quotes in that case because most of it isn't
officially defined as "abuse" by site policy, although I think most would
agree that the vast majority of it (doing nothing but down-voting tons of ancient nodes by a single author) qualifies as at least a mild form of abuse
that is pretty clearly against the spirit of our little system.
</blockquote>
<div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-22609"><p align="right">
- [tye]<tt> </tt>
</p></div></div>
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