It seems to me to be a major contributing factor to the fact that members don't really take the experience system too seriously given that it is so easy to vote without even really reading the post.

An idea occurred to me which might improve that situation:

Only allow a node to be voted on if the voter has published a reply to the node in question.

This encourages respondents to demonstrate in their reply that they have understood the post to the extent that they are able to add, resolve, criticise constructively (rather than just by pressing the minus button) and so on.

A by-product is that the qualifying replies would thereby enable the right of reply and ensure that voting and replying carry equal risk as well as equal benefit.

It was Evelyn Beatrice Hall (in a publication of a group called The Friends of Voltaire) who said, "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I don't recall where it was written, but I believe what Voltaire himself actually wrote was more along the lines of, "One's right to an opinion depends upon one's ability to defend it with supporting argument." (!)

Although, superficially and only relatively, such a measure would have the impact of making it slower per vote to get through the quota, the value of each vote to the community would increase in far greater proportion than this so quotas could be reduced in line with the increased effort to exhaustively cast them. Another obstacle this would introduce is that it might be considered unfair to allow pre-existing votes to have the same value as the newer more expensively-acquired ones. There are two approaches I can see to that so far: (1) cash the old ones in at an exchange rate of several to one or (2) save up all good but difficult improvements suggested for the site and when there are enough of them, address them collectively in a migration plan.

-M

Free your mind

In reply to Put your mouth where your money is? by Moron

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