I'd just leave it to overall statistics to get the "real" value of a node. If there are enough people in this place it will all come out well.

On the other hand: I see that voting bots could be a problem and the "show-me-your-rep" vote is something I have to admit I used sometimes (though I usually ++ that node then). Thus I encourage the null-vote button. For the problem with bots I can't offer any solution besides some weird and not thoroughly thought through thoughts (I think I need to be punisished for that english, er what? *grin*) like measuring time between loading the node and hitting the vote-button or check for "randomness" or something. As I said, just a faint glimpse of an idea...

Let people downvote as much as they like to without punishing them in any way, it's just another side of this fabulous community.

Update: fixed a few typos

Regards...

Stefan

In the case of your suggestion, where monks lose XP for down-voting a node with a high reputation, monks are penalized for voting later. Why should a monk who down-votes a node soon after it is posted not be affected in the same way as a monk who casts a down-vote several days later? This would be an artificial and unfair system.

I lean towards allowing monks to use their votes as they see fit, and avoiding any complicated solutions which would end up creating new problems.

Well, for a change, these proposed fixes for the "downvoting problems" seem rather reserved. I certainly support the first one and don't have a real problem with the last one.

My first impression of your second item was that I'd implement it backward to what you propose. I see a problem with new users getting too many downvotes and I downvote nodes that have high reps but that are incorrect. But thinking further, I guess you are thinking that systematically downvoting a monk means downvoting even their high-rep nodes and that should cost you XP.

So I'd just modify your second item to "no XP gain for casting downvotes". Normally I'd be against such a change but I see that we have some immature individuals that have taken to downvoting amazingly stupidly and are continuing to do so. (If jcwren fixes the stats page, then this might be easier to notice.) I'm (somewhat) happy that the victims of this have not flooded us with complaints about the problem, but that may mean that many aren't aware of the extent of this childish behavior. I'm aware of two specific cases that are rather alarming, appearing to involve the concerted effort of at least 10 "users" (perhaps all run by the same person) systematically targetting the same person over the course of weeks, downvoting all nodes by that person. I've ask vroom to look into this again (last time he looked he wasn't able to find any smoking guns).

Another minor change I've been getting to like would be "no loss of XP if you have no XP", specifically to address the well-meaning newbie whose first node shows their newbieness and attracts a bunch of downvotes.

As for the zero vote, if you're just voting to see someone's rep, should they still get experience? With the case of the zero vote, I will grudingly say yes. Even though the whole purpose of asking users to moderate their peers is being misused (and thus those votes are not deserving of granting experience) not granting experience for zero votes would only lead to monks to continue to vote ++ (or --) to see the rep of a given node.

If someone feels like writing a more complex solution into the everything engine, people who consistently downvote specific monks or who cast a large number of votes in a small timeframe (such a threshhold would need to be determined) could be discouraged. Granted, smarter votebots who just vote at random intervals through the day wouldn't be caught, and it does lead to a huge increase in the amount of information that needs to be tracked.

elbieelbieelbie

While you have some interesting ideas that might be effective in certain ways, I believe there would be unfortunate side-effects. Several risks have already been expressed and I think there are others.

I do believe there is a votebot problem. After all, a certain monk routinely receives a extreme number of downvotes per day, enough to adversely affect his XP if he choses to take a day off. Others get downvoted randomly.

Personally, I'm pulled in multiple directions on the entire issue. After all, no matter the automated controls we implement, it's likely someone will find a way to work around them and continue to abuse the system. Furthermore, the time invested in actually implementing those controls would take away from other, better pursuits.

The whole idea of karma is that the yin balances the yang. So, why not have people give others their karma through the voting system rather than merely "using up their votes for the day"?

The question of where karma comes from would need to be answered; I can think of all sorts of different ways that this could be achieved. People should get a certain amount of karma just from reading posts, and posting too. The amount you get should be based on how much you already have... so people who have reached higher karma levels have more to give away. ie, create karma when the site is getting more good content added to it.

Just my 2¢

That is a quite interesting idea; it could possible solve all these problems with up and down voting which worry so much to so many people. Let's elaborate the idea.

• If someone vote for a node, some karma is given from his or her pool, while it is positive. Therefore, if someone votes, he or she is positively saying that is interested on the node contents.
• The amount of karma received depends on the karma of the giver. Thus, people with highest karma levels would give the higher amount of karma, and viceversa. But this should be done without penalizing to higher karma owners.
• Downvotes could be completely removed from the system. No downvotes, no personality downvoting.
• As giving a vote implies losing own karma, no reason to create and/or use a votebot ever exists.
• Some way to create karma is needed. I can think of a some of them:
  • just making a new node, even if only a small quantity of karma
  • getting a vote in an own node
  • login into perlmonks (as it happens right now)

The result of all these points would be that karma would naturally accumulate in people with the best nodes. At the same time, personality voting and votebots would become unnecesary.

On the other way, a malicious person could abuse the system anyway; apart of creating fake personalities, someone could decide never to vote, thus keeping all his or her karma. A way to avoid this is to "degrade" karma with time, so that karma is lost if not given to others.

Downvotes could be completely removed from the system. No downvotes, no personality downvoting.

Yes. But if we are to model things on a pain/reward system, then there needs to be an element of pain. But I think the scope of this could be reduced to editorial decisions.

A way to avoid this is to "degrade" karma with time, so that karma is lost if not given to others.

Brilliant. Perhaps it could grow the more hands it passes through? Perhaps the difference in levels between the recipient and the sender could come into play to determine this growth.

Null vote option -- Not much opposition to this one, most people seem to like it (or at least not dislike it.) It's an implementation issue more than anything.

Public upvote/downvote percentage -- I thought there would be more concern about this one, since it violates one of the core issues of voting, namely that it is private and confidential. I'm a bit squemish on this one, but I didn't here too many complaints, probably due to its aggregate nature.

Possible loss of XP for downvotes -- This seemed to be much more controversial than the other two. Unfortunately, I think it might also be the most effective at curtailing the personality votebots that seem to be the most troublesome.

Put yourself in the position of a votebot writer. As the system stands now abusing the system is trivial. Grab the links off of someones home node, then downvote any of them that you haven't already voted on. As an added bonus, you get XP for doing it, which means that tomorrow (or next week) you'll be able to cast more downvotes. The problem gets worse as time goes on.

Now consider a system, where on average even a smart votebot would lose XP. Over time, it will start to lose votes (if you just look a the votebot part of the persona) and the problem begins to correct itself.

The trick is to design such a system. (yes this does smack of an arms race, but vroom gets to set the rules, so it should be possible to win this one) Assuming that the voting system is mostly functional (which I think we can all agree to) a nodes rep has some correlation to its overall relevance to this site. Therefore, a downvote on a highly ranked node is likely to be a downvote on a highly relavent node.

I would even argue that time plays a factor as well. Over a span of time a nodes rep gains a higher and higher correspondence with its relavence. Therefore, downvoting older nodes (say like 1 week ago) also seems suspect.

The possiblity of losing XP would be:
1.) Proportional to the current nodes rep
2.) Proportional to the current nodes age (in days, not minutes)
3.) Inversely proportional to the voters upvote/downvote percentage

If these rules were in place, gaining XP with a downvoting votebot would be very difficult. You'd have to grab recent posts that weren't highly ranked, and have to keep your upvote percentage above some threshold. This severely limits the possibilities of abuse. It would also allow targets to take a day off without getting attacked, because there wouldn't be any "safe" nodes to downvote.

-Blake

Update: In response to Masem's comment below, let me note that using votebots to upvote a central account is improper but not malicious. There's a limit to what can be done, and I'm in favor of doing what can be done to restrict malicious behavior directed at individuals without unreasonably restricting what the general population can do. I'm also inclined to think that discouraging quick reaping of nodes is a Good Thing.

I do agree that downvotes aren't inherently malicious.

I also think it's odd that we tell people to just shrug it off when they're hit with massive XP loss through snipering but balk at a single XP-- for voluntary action--even if it's in the public good, sometimes you have to pay for it.

adamsj

They laughed at Joan of Arc, but she went right ahead and built it. --Gracie Allen

But you can also use upvotes maliciously too; if one had several low-level accounts that upvoted anything on a main account, it's just as bad as votebots downvoting someone else.

In addition, there's times where a downvote is not being used maliciously; one example is to help prevent flames and derogatory posts from the site. In this case, the voter that helps to downvote and invoke nodereaper is doing the site a favor, and should not be punished for it.

I don't think that beyond trying to find votebots and remove them, there's much that can be done to improve the downvoting problem. At least, through modification of the moderation system without hurting other parts of it that already work well.

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Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain