I don't really want to reopen merlyn's discussion of posts being moderated based on who posted them rather than their merits, but I've noticed what appears to be the sort of "snipering" that occurs on Slashdot happening here.

For those of you unfamiliar, "snipering" occurs when someone on Slashdot gets moderator points, and uses them to go back and moderate down long-forgotten posts of people they don't like -- causing the poster to experience an unexpected drop in karma. Unlike here, there is a finite window: once a discussion is archived, no further moderation can occur (and even before that, the posts fall off the "radar screen" of the poster).

Here, OTOH, a person can go back through all of their old posts from their homenode. If you're an infrequent poster such as myself, theoretically ancient posts are still on the first page. That's how I noticed that someone was going back and downvoting posts I'd made (including one where I was asking a not-particularly-stupid-or-offtopic question) nine months ago. Again, I'd like to think those discussions were long since dead -- which leads me to believe that the mods were done with malicious intent.

Not that it really matters to me all that much: it's reputation points on a bulletin board, after all. I'm not losing money, cheese, or backrubs as a result, but still it ires me that someone would be doing it, especially to a member of the community with as relatively low-profile as I tend to maintain.

Spud Zeppelin * spud@spudzeppelin.com

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Re: Are We Coming to This?
by the_slycer (Chaplain) on Jun 29, 2001 at 22:13 UTC
    Posts here are never really dead.

    The reason that I say that is because this is a site that provides information, assistance and answers. Those answers from 9 months ago are typically still applicable.

    If I am searching for some information, and I run across a flame, or misinformed post, I will still downvote it, I don't check the date.

    Update:
    Sorry, guess I should have made myself more clear. I also rarely downvote a post, though flames almost always get a -- from me.

    I guess the point that I was trying to get across is that old posts still have value in this community (vs Slashdot where they could probably wipe their database every couple of weeks and no-one would notice). People still look at old posts a lot, hence it is not surprising for me to see that a post is being downvoted even if it is nine-months old.

    In fact, I know that I have upvoted old posts as well. For all the same reasons that I ++ right now, they are well written, they add value to the community and they answer my question.

    Obviously the community is not all about questions and answers, this is evidenced by how much higher on average non-code posts seem to be. I agree with this, and indeed is one of the benefits to this site.
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      That's interesting, since I rarely, if ever, vote anything down. In fact, I will occasionally vote posts up that I know contain incorrect approaches to a solution, if the errors are already cleared up in the ensuing discussion and the post has other merit (such as raising interesting questions/considerations, or spurring discussion forward).

      I also will vote posts of opinion up that I disagree with, for the same reasons. If all you are trying to take away from the community are information, assistance and answers, I think you're missing a large part of the point.

      I think the biggest thing is that I try to vote posts up in context, rather than trying to treat them as isolated "nuggets of debatable value". Also, reread my original post: if you're asking a question that is neither particlularly stupid nor offtopic, what is a rationale to ever vote that question down if it never got voted up to an unreasonably high level, especially nine months after the fact?

      Spud Zeppelin * spud@spudzeppelin.com

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        New users reading the posts for the first time?
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Re: Are We Coming to This?
by Sifmole (Chaplain) on Jun 29, 2001 at 22:13 UTC
    I always find it interesting...

    Nobody cares about the points, but there is so much complaining about the points.
    If you don't care, it should not be worth complaining.
    If you do care, then admit you do care -- there is nothing wrong with caring about your reputation and the points are one way others can see your reputation.

    ... But I don't really care... :)

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Re: Are We Coming to This?
by stuffy (Monk) on Jun 30, 2001 at 04:43 UTC
    If I come across a link to a node that I haven't before read, alot of times I will vote on it too. I use the same standards I use when I vote on a node in newest nodes. If I read a post from a year ago, and I thought it deserved a -- I would give it a --. If I it was a good post and I got something out of it I will ++ it. Then again alot of times I don't vote on it. Maybe you did get -- on a node or two, but how many old nodes have you gotten a ++ on and not noticed, or said anything about? I tend to disagree with you on this one (but I won't -- for difference in opinion however I am tempted to -- nodes complaining about --'s, but I won't.) There are two sides to this coin, I have seen my old nodes go both ways.

    Stuffy
    That's my story, and I'm sticking to it, unless I'm wrong in which case I will probably change it ;~)
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Re: Are We Coming to This?
by sierrathedog04 (Hermit) on Jun 30, 2001 at 18:36 UTC
    On the other hand, I sometimes browse old nodes by Merlyn, Tilly, Tye and other Perl masters. And if I have extra votes I sometimes use them to vote the old posts up.

    My point is, voting up or down on old posts can be rational. And if my late up votes cancel out someone else's snipering, then there is no harm done.

    Of course there is no harm done anyway, because the whole point of voting, in my opinion, is only so that a poster can get feedback. If I post something and ten minutes later it has gone negative then I ought to reexamine what I wrote and fix it. I learn more from intelligent downvotes of my posts than I do from upvotes, not that I don't appreciate the upvotes.

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