Quote:
Originally Posted by linux_walt
That is all they seem to care about over there, reputation and badges. You don't want to turn into a site like that.
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"Hear, hear!!" I
heartily agree. Unlike other sites that I also frequent, LQ does not strongly-emphasize the "reputation" business, e.g. with nonsense such as "badges," and especially, it does not provide for
downvotes.
(And, if you of-course know the site to which I refer, please don't bring it up here.)
To me, a forum should always be about
the person who is asking the question the question that is being asked. The mission of the site is and should be: to provide that particular
with a soothing and effective salve ... that is to say, a
useful answer ... as quickly and as effectively as possible. And, basically, to do that "without fear or favor." The site should also provide great search-criteria options, and, to me, "minimum
up- (only ...) -vote count" is an important criteria to have.
If people find a post to be
useful, then it's nice to give them a way to "fave" it,
and to allow searches to be limited only to those posts which have at-least so-many "fave" points. But the "fave points" are really
not directed at the person who wrote the post: they're directed at the post, itself, and they act as a third-party-provided attribute ...
of the post ... that is searchable.
If people find the post (or, the poster ...) to be
negative, then I think that they
shouldn't be given a way to express that opinion. For two reasons:
(a) it isn't a useful search-criteria, and
(b) it ... ahem ... "pees in the pool" of any positive-vote accumulation (which
is a searchable criteria ...) that the post might have obtained. If five people found a post to be helpful, and eight others were negative, then the
only thing that I personally care about when searching ... is the five. I want to see "five," not "negative three" or even "four."
As I said, "search by minimum
upvote count" is a very useful search option to me, in those sites which provide it, and then only if
downvote ("pee in the pool") does not also exist. I set the minimum-up count to "1" or maybe "2," and do a search. I read those threads first. Only if nothing comes up do I then omit the criteria.
As for the accumulated-vote counts of the
authors? I
never look at that, actually. Because, I'm searching for
the best answer, not the best answer
er. I come to a site like this one to find answers, not to find people.