Your assumption is wrong. (I'm sorry to say, I'd rather have it wasn't)

Some of the most useful nodes are correct and simple answers.
They probably did help solve the problem of the OP, and they might also solve future problems if only they were searched for.

Because there's not much to a simple correct answer, many of them don't get any, or at least not much reputation.
Their usefulness, though, is unbeaten.

Cheers, Sören

"good nodes are ignored and not given the reputation they might deserve,"

He covered that possibility. Besides the solution to that is not to ignore node rep, rather to ++ all the good answers you see and encourage others to do likewise. Instead of saying the system doesn't work, work towards makeing it work. Features like this would encourage people to ++ better nodes so that they don't fall threw the cracks. Sure Node Rep means nothing now because you can't use it for anything. If you could use it, then its meaning would grow with time.


___________
Eric Hodges

I like the idea of a super-search filter; I dislike the idea of a general reading filter. Those are just first impressions, of course.

The problem is that this could be used to get around the limitations on finding the rep of a node without voting on it: repeatedly raise (or lower) the limit until you find the point at which the node disappears. This isn't neccessarly enough to scuttle the idea, of course -- there are already other tricks similar to this, though I can't think of any that do not involve spending /some/ votes.

Do you dislike the current option of reply-depth filtering in user settings as well? Because I think it's a similar idea - Node Rep and Node Depth are both indications of the probable relevancy of the post...

Your point about the problem of getting around finding the rep of a node is what I was trying to address near the end of my post. I think my point was that you can already find out the rep of some nodes (via the nodes I mentioned, or by voting and sorting replies by node rep and doing the math, etc.) That's why I called Node Rep semi-secret.

I understand the point of hiding node rep to avoid a knee-jerk vote based on rep, by trying to encourage people to vote based on their own opinion and not other people's. If someone goes to the trouble of fiddling with their rep-filter to find out the rep of a node, I'm guessing we can trust them to vote responsibly...

The truth is, I think node rep should be less secret anyway. I know this has been discussed before, but I think you should be able to reveal the rep if you want to, without voting on it, since I don't understand the point of hiding it other than the knee-kerk reason. But that's a different discussion altogether (sort of).

--
edan

Yes, actually, I do dislike them -- OTOH, I wouldn't argue against somebody else implementing them, if the implementation wasn't a bad one.

The truth is, I think node rep should be less secret anyway. I know this has been discussed before, but I think you should be able to reveal the rep if you want to, without voting on it, since I don't understand the point of hiding it other than the knee-kerk reason. But that's a different discussion altogether (sort of).

I promoted a similar concept in a thread I started last week. I was trying to achieve what I think is probably the same thing you are: another option in our attempts to find "good" content.

And I think we can all agree, as you stated in your OP, that rep is not perfect. But I agree with you that it probably can be useful at times, when used as "another option".

I think filtering would cause too many problems, though; most of which have already been pointed out by other monks. I think to use it I'd have to keep switching between different settings, and it would ultimately make the experience slower.

In my thread, Crackers2, zdog, and bobf proposed pretty much exactly what you say in the quote above. Allowing a monk to have the option of "I don't want to vote on this node", in addition to ++, --, and +=0. The idea being that you would then be shown the rep of that node. I really like that idea.

I know this wouldn't allow the ability to see, in one fell swoop, all nodes > a particular rep; but personally, I don't think I would use that ability.

But OTOH, as long as it's an option, I wouldn't be against the implementation of your filter.

TheEnigma

That is simple to fix, collapse the node down to just title, like if it was beyond your threshold for replies. Then you could click on it to see it if you wanted, or just know that user X said something there. That way there would be no confusion (alright maybe not no, but at least less or little confusion)


___________
Eric Hodges

Some people might not bother to see those collapsed nodes, especially in a long thread.

On rethinking that matter on filtering, you would have to make sure people can't write comments on filtered threads:
Otherwise you would have

• monks that give answers already given in the same thread (becaus they can't see them due to low reputation).
• monks that complain they can't see the nodes they write (new nodes having no reputation yet).

Cheerio, Sören

Interesting thought, but no. With all due respect ..

First, it seems that this is a solution looking for a problem. This work at Slash Dot because node reputation is capped at (-1,5) so browsing at +2 or +3 means you get to see mostly of the good, useful or funny stuff. This breaks here at PM; nodes are less numerous and higher (I hope!) in content. As you point out, it also doesn't work with newer nodes -- a terrific writeup might have been either ignored or just be very new.

Secondly, I look at nodes based on the title -- if it's something I'm interested in, or maybe if I'm interested in following a particular Monk's scribblings, I'll check it out. I may check out a node on the Best Nodes list, more out of curiosity than anything else. Yesterday I read and upvoted a node before I realized that it was the #1 node for the day. That's just fine. I don't blindly upvote top ten nodes and down vote Worst Nodes. All nodes stand on their own.

Finally, filtering on XP is applying subjectivity (everyone else's) on top of subjectivity (yours). I don't think that's necessarily a valid filter -- but that's my opinion.

There's inflation at work here so today's $NORM has little relevance for older nodes.

Actually, no. As far as I can recall (at least as far as 2001 or so), the value of $NORM has always been very close to 10±0.5 (that's +/i for the Unicode-challenged browsers out there).

Sometimes it has stayed above or below this band for a short while, but it's remarkable how stable the value is as a rule.

Commenting on the OP: I think the idea sucks, :) A vanishingly small number of nodes added after 24 hours or so to a thread manage to acquire a reputation of $NORM. Many of those nodes are well thought out and well written. It would be a pity to miss them.

This site is not like Slashdot. There aren't an impossible number of replies in a thread to wade through. The greatest single improvement that could be made to Super search would be to thread the resulting hits. That would improve its useability much more than some arbitrary line drawn in the sand.

- another intruder with the mooring of the heat of the Perl

Firstly, I'd be for adding the capacity to filter and sort nodes on reputation, if it were user-configurable to an extreme. Secondly, as you said, new nodes should be exempt from the filters.

However, there is one big issue: it would cause top-heavy loading on node rep. Better-rated nodes would increase in reputation because they are more visible. That leads me to say "nay" to the whole Node Rep filter.

If we're going to filter on reputation, perhaps we could add an option for users to filter out posters who have an average node rep significantly under $NORM (and who are not new, have made a minimum number of posts, etc.). By allowing new users (new by quantity, not time) to be unfiltered, it gives them a chance to build rep. If they can't post at least an average of half of $NORM on a regular basis, they aren't worth listening to.

However, even that filtering is a solution in search of a problem; they only thing I care about skipping would be spam and flamewars. I rarely see either, and serious spam is Reaped anyhow.