One node of mine has a reputation of 6 right now. Another has a reputation of 14. One has a reputation of 39 and another 81.

What can you learn from that?

That none of the nodes was so controversial, or so obviously wrong that it didnt get downvoted into oblivion. And it also suggests that it won't be a total waste of time reading them (presuming one is interested in the subject matter.)

I find all these arguments about how rep means nothing to be pretty bogus. Positive noderep by itself only really suggests that a node doesnt have many characteristics that would lead it to be downvoted. But i think that a negative noderep is highly indicative of various things. It suggests the node for one reason or another is controversial, it suggests that care should be taken when relying on the information in the node, it suggests that a fair of number of presumably reasonable people thought it was worth receiving negative feedback.

I have written nodes that contained 100% accurate information, detailed code and analaysis but that was presented in an agressive, rude, or otherwise unsocial way. Unsurprisingly these nodes have been downvoted into the negative. And you know what, when I go back and review those nodes I generally tend to wince and think the downvoting was deserved.

So in short, I think that there is a point that postive noderep is probably not a very useful metric, but negative noderep in my experience almost always is deserved.

---
$world=~s/war/peace/g

In reply to Re^4: Troll Warning by demerphq
in thread Troll Warning by Roy Johnson

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