http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=11144565


in reply to RFC: Policy regarding abuses of the voting system

The first point seems to directly contradict this (along with the explanation given in its footnote (omitted)) from your first reference:

Once in a while we get a monk in a fit of pique or dudgeon decide to punish another monk or just vent their feelings by systematically down-voting every node by that monk. This is not something that we feel we can outright ban, for several reasons.

Why is what once was innocuous now a firing suspending offense?

Also that would raise the question of what's "Massive" downvoting? There's some persistent neens (of whom it shouldn't be necessary to name the various and sun-dry parties) that pretty much deserve all the derision and downvotes they get. There's also the random white dwarf density questioner that refuses to read what they've been given, persists in trying to bang their head through the wall, and keeps posting terrible code. If one downvotes everything in a thread from such (being frank) a clueless idiot is that "massive", or just an understandable response to the idiocy therein? Or is it only someone (automated, or close enough) going back and willy-nilly dinking everything from said neen indiscriminately?

Second and third points however sound completely reasonable.

Edit: Tl;dr with the explanations given downthread here clarifying "massive" I'm now less disinclined on point one were it similarly clarified.

The cake is a lie.
The cake is a lie.
The cake is a lie.

  • Comment on Re: RFC: Policy regarding abuses of the voting system

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Re^2: RFC: Policy regarding abuses of the voting system
by jdporter (Paladin) on Jun 09, 2022 at 14:08 UTC

    Please read the rest of this thread. And note that tye also said — right after the bit that you quoted — "But it also is easy to characterize as an abuse of the PerlMonks voting system." Easy and correct, I say.

[reply]

      An abuse which he also says in said post should be allowed as a mechanism to vent (albeit with the implemented negative consequences). Again, what's now changed that this formerly allowed venting mechanism is no longer to be allowed?

      Slightly advocatus diaboli here, but how do you know any given chunk of downvoting is indiscriminate? How do you know they don't think that the nodes in question truly don't merit the downvote? There's the existing penalties for such behavior and they're still willing to plink things doesn't that mean that they truly think they're worthy of the reputational plink? I'm sure there's not a time or seven that in the past I've gone and looked at a poster's past output and found real junk in there that I've then --'d because it's worthy of it (with the full knowledge what that's doing to my fake internet points).

      An obvious automated plinking of everything from a singular poster done in one swell foop? Yes, that I could see sanctioning. But beyond that it feels like attempting to mind read and assign intent that you can't ensure is there.

      The cake is a lie.
      The cake is a lie.
      The cake is a lie.

[reply]

        "Venting" is far too mild a word. It's an abuse of the voting system, and we all know it.

        how do you know any given chunk of downvoting is indiscriminate?

        When a user casts all, or nearly all, of their votes for the day, for days on end, merely downvoting old nodes of one particular user, that's not doing one's moderatorily duty, that's abusive. No one says: "Hm, I discovered this one post by Jo Blo which is pretty bad, I'll downvote it; now I'll spend a few hours checking to see if anything else he's posted also merits a downvote." No, rather, they say: "Jo Blo is a blight on the Monastery and my only power is to downvote all his nodes." And that's what we want to discourage.

[reply]

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