in reply to Categorized Votes

The problem with this suggestion is that it simply formalizes something many of us have been working very hard to avoid; that is, votes being cast for individuals rather than posts. Generally speaking, it quickly becomes clear which monks are the most helpful/accurate/insightful, and I don't believe a system such as the one you are proposing would actually help that very much.

There are a lot of changes that many different monks have thrown about as being solutions for various problems; the inflation of vote counts, for example, or the apparent ease with which relatively new and inexperienced monks are advancing their level of experience. Before we rush into implementing any of them, I'd like to see a lot more discussion of the possibilities and their expected and hoped for effects. Like the old carpenters' rule of measure twice, cut once, let's be sure of what we're doing and what we hope to accomplish before we make too many changes.

- email Ozymandias

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: (Ozymandias) RE: Categorized Votes
by ivory (Pilgrim) on Jul 29, 2000 at 03:21 UTC
    I don't really agree that it is easy to figure out which monks are the most accurate, especially for newcomers. You have to think of this from the point of view of someone who is trying to learn the language. If you're really looking for answers to a question you don't know the answer to, it is difficult to weed through the different solutions and find the right one. I understand that voting for a specific person might present a problem, but I think that accuracy votes would help more than they would hurt.

    --Ivory

[reply]
      And this mythical new user will be able to figure out what those votes mean, and what good ranges are, and how they were derived?

      Look around you. Reading only two or three days worth of replies to Seekers of Perl Wisdom will reveal several people who are well above average in their answers. That is already available and apparent for anyone with the foresight to look; I doubt that it would be better to add to the complexity of the information presented about each monk. Where would you disply these ranks? On the home nodes? New users, on average, won't even read the site docs before asking a question, but you want them to find each user's home node and compare their scores on a series of scales that they don't know and won't be familiar with?

      - email Ozymandias
[reply]

In Section Perl Monks Discussion