As (I can only assume) everyone knows, this site is closely related to E2. While E2 is supposed to be arepository for knowledge, in general nodes that are actually factual don't get voted on anywhere near as much as E2 centric BS. For example, at the time I gave up on the site, the node with the highest ranking (by a fairly large margin) was some schmuck bitching about women expecting men to put toilet seats down, yet several of my factual nodes had been downvoted, without any indication of them being incorrect.

While I can only hope that the environment here is better, due to the more focused nature of the site, I can't help but think that this has something to do with human nature. People are more likely to listen to a commedian than a philosopher or a mathematician, it's just the way they are.

And lets face it, everyone can identify with the horrible boss story and it's easy to digest. Elegant code often requires one to have worked on the same, or a similar problem to fully appreciate, and is easy to gloss over. How many people will honestly read more than a screen-full of code that has nothing to do with what they're interested in?

Even worse, allowing ppl to filter out lower scoring messages when voting only amplifies the effects of careless voting...


Regretably, I've seen several attempts at large online communities with some sort of ranking system based on public opinion of their votes, and every time I see one, I begin to think less and less of Democracy. It seems that pushing the voters' buttons is far more effective than actually earning votes. But, since I'm new here, I can't really say much about what goes on here, but, as I said earlier, I hope that the narrow focus of the site will improve the quality of both posts and the votes applied to them, and lengthy complicated topics can be properly discussed.


If not, I'll have to go back to paying attention to people's names on Usenet.
that's funny, vote this up.

In reply to Re: Step into the Confessional by ameoba
in thread Step into the Confessional by OzzyOsbourne

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