in reply to Penance Highlighting?

I think every node should have a category in addition to xp: useful, humorous, troll

Registered users would vote on the node category (anonymous monks would have no say). The current majority vote category would be displayed next to the node title (maybe in different colours and/or with a vote count). Penance monk nodes would automatically start life as a single vote for 'troll'. Regular monks can vote their own node 'humorous' to set the tone, otherwise, monks can't vote their own node category. Note the category would continue to change and evolve as more users see fit to vote. The category (and voting it) would be in no way related to xp. The category could be a filter option in Super Search and a personal view filter option for monks.

A 'troll' rating may be the badge of honor a troll is looking for, but once labeled I'm not inclined to follow the rabbit down the hole. Therefore I think that labeling trolls does more over all good than harm.

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Re^2: Penance Highlighting?
by kyle (Abbot) on Jul 10, 2008 at 16:34 UTC

    I don't like the idea of categories because they legitimize noise. Plenty of times, I've thought of one wise-ass remark or another, and I've not written it because I know very well it's a lousy contribution to a discussion. I might not have been so discrete, however, if I'd had the shelter of labeling it 'humor', and I think the site would have suffered for it.

    Of course, I've gone ahead and posted some of my wise-ass remarks also. It sounds good to have those labeled, but I think I'd rather have less unlabeled noise than more noise—but with labels.

[reply]
      Ah, but if it's labeled, and you have the means to adjust your preferences to filter it, then your noise level actually drops, despite the encouragement to add more noise by others.

      I've spewed my milk at the monitor on occasion thanks to a good piece of irrelevant humor here. It can be a welcome addition to a slow day :) But there are also times when I just want to cut through the noise and get straight to the point. Having categories and the option to filter based on them would help this I think.
[reply]

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