There have been a few XP-related posts in this section recently so I thought I'd post the one that's been percolating in my brain for a while.

My habits include an occasional visit to the Best Nodes and Worst Nodes pages. Often I find myself upvoting many of the replies, but not necessarily voting on the root node. Yet the root node is the cause of these votes.

So would it make sense to take some of the XP generated by voting on a child node and have that propagate back to the owner of the root node?

Just a thought -- I'm not advocating this approach -- I just wanted to write this down rather than have it rattle around my brain for the next few months.

--t. alex
Life is short: get busy!

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: XP Propagation to root node (no)
by tye (Sage) on Jun 11, 2003 at 18:47 UTC

    Root nodes already get quite a bit of upvotes when they prompt good threads (and often even when they don't). Some would say they often already get more upvotes than they deserve.

    If you found the node in Best Nodes, then it certainly already got lots of upvotes. The fact that most of the nodes in Best Nodes are root nodes pretty much proves the point that they already get plenty of upvotes.

    If you found the node in Worst Nodes, then the fact that other people were able to make lemon ade out of someone's lemon, doesn't mean we should encourage throwing of lemons at PM.

                    - tye
[reply]

      Good points. I always have enough XP to upvote a root node if it deserves it. I generally start at the bottom of the thread anyway (I have them organized by popularity) and try to upvote neglected nodes---usually latecomers.

      --
      Allolex

[reply]
Re: XP Propagation to root node
by shotgunefx (Parson) on Jun 11, 2003 at 18:28 UTC
    I don't think so. Say the root is troll-ish and someone rebukes them and gets a high rep node for it. Should the troll get XP?

    -Lee

    "To be civilized is to deny one's nature."
[reply]

      That's a good point. My idea isn't really well thought out at this point.

      For someone whose initial post gives rise to some great discussion, this idea makes sense. If the initial post is a troll .. the propagated XP would to some extent mitigate the negative XP from the root node.

      Kind of looks like a solution looking for a problem, doesn't it?

      --t. alex
      Life is short: get busy!
[reply]
        I also think it would be yet another way to XP whore. Just ask popular questions and watch the XP roll in!

        -Lee

        "To be civilized is to deny one's nature."
[reply]
Re: XP Propagation to root node
by Mr_Person (Hermit) on Jun 11, 2003 at 20:55 UTC
    I wouldn't think so, just because the replies are good and worthy of a ++, doesn't always mean that the root node is. It could be someone posted a really insightful reply to a not-so-insightful question, or (as is often the case here on PM) the reply may not even have anything to do with the root node at all! Also, this would change the structure of XP gain quite a bit which, as far as I can tell, is generally discouraged as most people are fairly happy with the way things are now and changing something that big would only start a big debate.
[reply]

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