I think that its important for people to learn how to ask questions. If posted a node everytime I had some basic question I'd have upwards of 500 write-ups by now. However, one of the first things I learned here is to try to answer my own questions before asking others to give me answers. Being able to find my own answers has helped to better understand the way Perl works. Now if someone is only interested in having answers spoon-fed to them so they can finish they're homework/project, there's plenty of other places they can go.

If downvoting a question, even those that are well-intentioned, will help a new/Anonymous Monk learn how to ask an educated question, then so be it.

Besides, learning the hard way tends to make the lesson sink further in. At least with me it does ;0).

If downvoting a question, even those that are well-intentioned, will help a new/Anonymous Monk learn how to ask an educated question, then so be it.

I am very skeptical that downvoting a "newbie" question will help its poster learn to ask questions well. A terse response, with an admonishment to RTFM or STFW (and perhaps pointers to the appropriate parts of the FM or FW), gives the questioner an idea of what they did wrong (failed to research their question) and how to fix it (research their question next time). A link to an appropriate node, or perhaps to this essay, is even better, but more work. (Ideally, every monk would put all reasonable effort into educating the novitiate, but let's face it: we don't have time. Sometimes, RTFM is all we have time for.)

A lone downvote carries inadequate information: it says that "someone doesn't like your node", without saying why. That makes it difficult feedback to learn from (can you tell that I've an interest in machine learning? :-), and the unfortunate novice who posts a stupid naive or frequently asked question, only to see it downvoted into oblivion, is more likely to leave in disgust than recognize and correct their error.

So let's not pretend that we're doing someone a favour by summarily downvoting their redundant nodes, okay?

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:wq

Your "this essay" link seems to redirect to one of a seemingly random series of websites (which I don't think was your intent). Apparently, whatever essay you originally intended no longer exists.

By the way, I agree with the sentiment of this node: more information is better.


- apotheon
CopyWrite Chad Perrin

Shouldn't we think twice before throwing downvotes around?

nah, if we were to do that people might start taking the xp system seriously, and begin to think your xp actually means something ;-).

The question could have also been answered very easily by a couple quick searches, so I don't think it's that bad the node you mention has a low rep.

As a new arrival in the monastery (I joined 5 days ago), I have learned quickly that this XP business is infectious, ludicrous, unfair, and good fun.

To protect others from myself, I decided to spend all my votes as upvotes, the only exception being nasty comments that for some reason escaped the NodeReaper.

()-()
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