in reply to RE:(3) Reputation Viewing Option?
in thread Reputation Viewing Option?

I could try both, and then decide on my own, but that takes a lot of work when we have a perfectly good indicator of what everyone else thinks is best.

Hmmmm... I don't know about that. Simply because an answer has a higher rep than another, doesn't make it better and I would fear newbies making the mistake of thinking so.

Whenever I have ever asked questions on mass forums, I would always try ones that looked best, or looked usable. I wouldn't use something just because a group of people (from which you don't know their skill levels) seemed to think it is best. I even try answers I see on this site before ++'ing or --'ing a post simply to make sure I see it work or not work.

Anyways, I agree that knowing node X has more reps than node Y can be valuable, but I think that knowing node X has a rep of 20 and node Y has a rep of 10 can be a disservice to people using the site. Node Y may well be a better answer, a more concise answer, a more idomatic answer, etc... than node X and judging simply by vote count, IMO, would be bad. 

Although the Perl Slogan is There's More Than One Way to Do It, 
I hesitate to make 10 ways to do something.  :-)
            --Larry Wall in <9695@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>

Cheers,
KM

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RE:(5) Reputation Viewing Option?
by swiftone (Curate) on Aug 31, 2000 at 00:14 UTC
    Whenever I have ever asked questions on mass forums, I would always try ones that looked best, or looked usable. I wouldn't use something just because a group of people (from which you don't know their skill levels) seemed to think it is best. I even try answers I see on this site before ++'ing or --'ing a post simply to make sure I see it work or not work

    True, and good advice, but I don't like hiding rep just because it MIGHT be misunderstood, while there is a reason why it would be good to know the rep. (Besides, what happens when you have two nodes, -10 and -15? Sorting doesn't tell you the useful parts)

    Basically reputation is a means of communicating to the user, and it is hidden. There is an entire structure dedicated towards maintaining that repuation, but it's primary informative usage has been cut off.

[reply]
      Besides, what happens when you have two nodes, -10 and -15? Sorting doesn't tell you the useful parts

      I still wonder why posts with that type of rep don't simply get auto-deleted, since they are likely useless. But, if those two posts are part of 7, the sort would put them on the bottom.

      Basically reputation is a means of communicating to the user, and it is hidden. There is an entire structure dedicated towards maintaining that repuation, but it's primary informative usage has been cut off.

      Agreed. Yet knowing the rep could be harmful. Although, I don't think knowing the actual rep number is so useful. I see plently of posts with a rep of 2 which are great, and some at 20 which I don't think are any better. So, what is there to do? I would suggest adding the sort feature to each page (it is already in the User Settings), deleting posts of -10 (or less) automatically, and maybe even some pretty little icons representing a 'range' of rep next to the posts title. For example, 0-2 have nothing, 3-9 have a star, 10-19 have two stars, 20-29 have three, etc... all -- nodes would have a big unhappy face next to them. Or a image of Mr. Yuk.

      Cheers,
      KM

[reply]
        I still wonder why posts with that type of rep don't simply get auto-deleted, since they are likely useless. But, if those two posts are part of 7, the sort would put them on the bottom.

        I suspected when I typed that that my point would be missed. Knowing that two posts fall in a certain order does not tell you everything you want to know. Replace the above negative numbers with -2 and -5, or whatever low-but-not-too-low nubmers you find adequate. And lets just say that they aren't part of 5, or 7, or 20, or any other large number that makes them irrelevant.

        Yet knowing the rep could be harmful.
        How? I'll grant you the point of the "snowball" effect, but if you use the suggested method and sacrifice your vote to see rep, it doesn't happen. (The above twisted scenarios with someone with two accounts with voting privileges, one of which is used primarily to snowball, sounds too twisted to really worry about. As someone said, anyone with two voting accounts doesn't need to go through such hoops to try to skew the system)

        Although, I don't think knowing the actual rep number is so useful.
        True, a 7 and a 10 don't have much distinction. But now I know that, while a 20 sorted above a 1 doesn't tell me that.

        I would suggest adding the sort feature to each page (it is already in the User Settings), deleting posts of -10 (or less) automatically, and maybe even some pretty little icons representing a 'range' of rep next to the posts title. For example, 0-2 have nothing, 3-9 have a star, 10-19 have two stars, 20-29 have three, etc... all -- nodes would have a big unhappy face next to them. Or a image of Mr. Yuk.

        So we could jump through all these hoops, including making those star levels relative to account for the vote inflation as PM becomes more popular...or we could just give the "not vote" option, and trust that 70% of our users continue to be reasonable people. I know which makes sense to me.

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