in reply to (tye)Re2: 'Nodes to Consider' vs. Voting: On deleting 'Thank You' nodes
in thread 'Nodes to Consider' vs. Voting: On deleting 'Thank You' nodes

As I think I mostly agree with you but my annoying predilection to counterpoint has gotten in the way here, a number of clarifications are in order:

-While you are probably correct that some people don't pay attention to how they vote, I try hard not to be in that group, I often abstain when I am not certain of my vote, and I often vote to "keep" against the flow. I do find it a bit difficult to believe that a majority of people would go to the consideration page only to vote with their eyes closed, but I guess neither of us will ever know for sure.

-I certainly didn't intend to "advocate" any particular voting margin as sufficient condition for deletion, I was simply observing the apparent inconsistency between those votes and the responses in this thread.

-I know the disk space used by reaped nodes isn't important to most (aren't they all kept anyway?), but I my mention of CPU was to address the effort in searching. I didn't suggest reaping 70% or even 1% of the content, as I am quite happy with 99.99% of it as it stands already.

-Getting Super Search to sort by reputation would be great - sign me up!

Finally I do regret my use of the rather sterile term "help database", as I certainly do enjoy many of the completely irrelevant threads that occur here (just the other day I was arguing in the CB that Cheese was a good example of something that should not be reaped due to the amusement it generated, though maybe it's an argument for a cooling-off period on deletions... no, too many trolls in these woods). At the same time, you will be hard pressed to convince me of the short term or long term value of "thank you" nodes (perhaps we can agree to disagree on that small point). I also neglected to cheer loudly for the nodes that seekers post to summarize a thread and explain their eventual solution (summing-up well usually gets ++ from me).

I believe that Nodes to Consider (imperfect though it is) can be a good noise filter if used properly. I hope this node isn't deleted...

--
I'd like to be able to assign to an luser

  • Comment on Re: (tye)Re2: 'Nodes to Consider' vs. Voting: On deleting 'Thank You' nodes

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(tye)Re4: 'Nodes to Consider' vs. Voting: On deleting 'Thank You' nodes
by tye (Sage) on Mar 31, 2001 at 02:35 UTC

    I'll skip all of the side issues that I see being covered elsewhere.

    I believe that Nodes to Consider (imperfect though it is) can be a good noise filter if used properly.

    I didn't suggest reaping 70% or even 1% of the content, as I am quite happy with 99.99% of it as it stands already.

    What possible good does a 0.01% reduction in noise (or even 1%) give us? It doesn't make searching faster or easier ("Oh, thank vroom that I only have 198 matches to drudge through instead of 200"). Even a 10% reduction would be hard to notice. And Nodes to Consider is never going to give us a 1% noise reduction.

    So what is the harm? I see several but I'll skip to the big one. Where do we draw the line? I don't want to condone the treading upon that slippery slope of "that doesn't seem useful, let's just delete it"!

    Go look at NodeReaper's stash and marvel at all of the interesting nodes with interesting replies that have been reaped quite recently! A lot of them are off topic or "poorly researched", sure. But did reaping them serve some useful purpose? Now we have threads with ugly, nearly missing heads.

    I like the cultural/historical accuracy that is maintained by keeping all of the "same answer but not as fast/good" and "thank-you note that doesn't bother to sum anything up" and even the "this guy actually posted 14 thank-you notes". I don't like the idea of taking someone's thank-you note and just throwing it away!

    But, more importantly, I think that drawing the line very clearly past the "useless" category is important. Reap trolls and true duplicates (I'm not even in favor of reaping personal attacks).

            - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")
[reply]
      Well we've got to the heart of the matter now, and that is where to draw the line. We appear to agree on deleting trolls and duplicates. I imagine we might agree on deleting based on author retractions, gratuitous obscenities and I suppose illegal material that could get vroom in trouble (though neither of us mentioned these yet). On the other side, I believe we both agree on keeping post that are considered for negative reputation alone (I really would like to have kept the NodeReaper out of Worst Nodes, as a lot of interesting Monastery history has been whitewashed there).

      The only remaining grey area I can think of now is thank-yous with no other content (i.e. no summary). You are quite correct that deleting them has hardly any measurable effect, not unlike picking the cat-hair off my pants at work, but I do both simply because I notice the results, and their has not been an objection to either habit before now. We're left with an argument over taste, and that would serve no useful purpose (come to think of it this node hasn't served any useful purpose either, but I've gotten this far so I'll leave it).

      Perhaps now that trusted editors have been appointed, the whole mechanism of Nodes To Consider should be superseded anyway.

      Update: Spelled vroom the way he does, instead of the way I think of his responsiveness (zoom) (thanks dws ;-)

      --
      I'd like to be able to assign to an luser

[reply]

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