Do you vote with any strategy other than a random one? Because, if you do, then you don't act as if node reputation is meaningless.

Before trotting out the tired old accusation of hypocrisy, please review my argument. The reputation of an individual node is almost completely meaningless.

On those rare occasions when I vote (perhaps one vote a week), my strategy is very much like yours. I upvote posts, such as the one by chunlou in this very discussion, that appear near the bottom of the discussion and, as such, are undervalued.

My desire is not to say "This node deserves a 3, while this node should never be more than 1". It's to make a single suggestion as to the relationships between nodes within a discussion for people who have reputation ordering enabled. That's it.

My vote counts for very little in a discussion. That's fine. No one's ever promised that the absolute best, clearest, and most accurate answer will always float to the top, without fail. I distrust any system that tries to make that kind of promise — it's not a promise that can be fulfilled, and I'd much rather say "We have a working system that gives you a very rough guide that may be useful. Take it as a suggestion, but continue to use your brain."

(Okay, there's also downvoting to trigger automatic reaping of nodes that are completely devoid of worthwhile content, but that's a separate issue.)

Before trotting out the tired old accusation of hypocrisy, please review my argument. The reputation of an individual node is almost completely meaningless.

Now, I did stop short of calling you a hypocrite. I know I did because I deleted that sentence. :-)

So, if node rep falls short of being "completely meaningless", then you agree that it has some meaning. It is somewhat informative and not pure noise. So, how is it again that providing this information to people is a bad idea?

I'd much rather say "We have a working system that gives you a very rough guide that may be useful. Take it as a suggestion, but continue to use your brain."

You seem to be under the impression that providing an abstain option of some sort would change the message that the system provides only a rough guide and that it would prevent or discourage people from using their brain in assessing content.

Is that it? Because if it is, I think that A) people should be given more credit than that, and B) if an individual doesn't deserve more credit than that, he isn't using his brain anyway. You are misguided if you believe that the system, as is, makes people think more than they would if the proposed change were made. The functionality you provide will neither make people think nor prevent them from it; that's a function of the individual.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";

So, if node rep falls short of being "completely meaningless", then you agree that it has some meaning. It is somewhat informative and not pure noise.

Yes, a node reputation has some meaning. It's information, no matter how encoded and how many bits were thrown out in the aggregation. Unfortunately, no one can tell me what that information means and how to use it with any degree of accuracy.

It'd be foolish to suggest that a node's reputation is completely meaningless. That's why I say that it's practically meaningless.

So, how is it again that providing this information to people is a bad idea?

Because it's meaningless in practice. It's a bad solution to a problem I'm not sure exists.

People on other message boards are capable of determining which response is best. So are people on Usenet, on mailing lists, on IRC, using e-mail, and in face to face conversations around the world.

I dislike this idea for three reasons. First, I think it's practically useless. It doesn't give any useful information that's not already better available elsewhere. Second, I think it appeals to a prurient nature that I'd rather not see promoted on Perl Monks. I believe there's too much emphasis on XP and reputation as it is. Making it any more visible will likely spread the misconception that XP and reputations can be interpreted meaningfully.

Third, it opens the door for more requests and discussions to make reputation more meaningful. We've already had discussions on showing node tension (the ratio of upvotes to downvotes) and the raw numbers of upvotes and downvotes. We've also had discussions on requiring explanations for downvotes. We haven't, that I recall, had discussions on adding a weighting mechanism, so late additions have the same possibility for reputation gain as first post replies.

I'd rather keep the system simple by not even attempting to make the argument that a node's reputation means anything significant. As I said in another reply, I'm tempted to suggest removing the reputation display.

I don't agree. A think that a reply like "read this documentation" or "I have an article on that" might be helpful to the community but I often downvote them, especially if a better answer occurs in the thread.

I disagree. I think a reply with a reference link can be just as useful as an answer that reveals and discusses the answer. I downvote unhelpful, flippant answers, and incomplete answers that were obviously dashed off in order to make it to be first post. I don't downvote a reply that's just a link .. sometimes, in order to solve a problem, a link to the right page is all that's necessary.

I disagree.

You disagree with what? My statement that such replies might be helpful to the community but that I often downvote them?

I suppose you are trying to say that you disapprove¹ of my choice to do so, which is fine, but then I didn't ask and I'll still vote the way I think is best.

1. Disagreement is not synonymous with disapproval. You disagree with what one thinks. You disapprove of what one does.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";