Not at all: I followed you immediately after the "red light" indicated you are talking to me. But they said you had gone to bed. ;) then I was engaged with fbueckert in a room. And just as of now it was my tablet as I told. See, things sometimes are more complicated than meets the eye.
Also you may consider that some are not "breathing" SE every minute of the day so are "laggarts" (you could tell that)?
@ShadowWizard Ah, so that is why it took me so long to read. ;) Can my site removal eventually be rolled back? I consider it my be more fun to burn the rest of my 49 Reps all by myself :)
I love to bring "impurity" and "mediocrity" to the site. ;)
@gwr of course, that's why the team gives 24 hours. Never did it myself, but there might even be a button somewhere in your profile page, in "Edit" tab.
@ShadowWizard Ok, I will try. Anyhow I still believe that using the regular SE engine for what you set up here as META is not a real good thing. It is a system that fosters conformity in the long run and that is not good in evolution (while I acknowledge trolls and spam) :)
@ShadowWizard There is no way I can see by which I can roll back the site removal request.
@ShadowWizard Last idea: There should also be a limit on a downvote. Because like on a stock exchange the dynamics might get working and it exaggerates valuation. So maybe a rate might be checked (e.g. votes per hours). Again, it suffices to see that 10 users already put a uniform verdict to inform others?
Also by having downvotes kill reputation while the help site tells that that should only happen on feature requests is a bit unfair. Telling somebody that he should be aware of his risk is simply saying "beware of posting" - sometimes it might be better to slight err on the "impurity" site not to discourage people from posting - especially on a Meta site?
@ShadowWizard I have to run now - anyhow if you could tell somebody to help out with site removal roll-back I would appreciate that. If not, well, then I have to say good bye.
@gwr happy running! As for site removal, if you don't see any message in your profile it means SE team still did not start the removal process. When they do, a message appears (only for you) saying the account will be deleted in X hours. So just email them again and ask to cancel the removal.
And keep an eye on your profile, if you do see the message, there is probably an Undo button. :)
Yep... I don't think many people will return here. As you said, the main "objective" the room was made for was to close up the comment discussion on the meta site and in your case to keep the user from quitting (something I am not sure we really won at)
@ShadowWizard Ah, so that is why it took me so long to read. ;) Can my site removal eventually be rolled back? I consider it my be more fun to burn the rest of my 49 Reps all by myself :)
Of course it doesn't mean he'll become active member, but at least not quit right away. :)
@ShadowWizard Well, I will keep my word and not quit - even though I do believe that receiving a score of < -20 on a discussion question is not even helping to "become an active member" :)
Which leads me to a couple of ideas: a) as told I believe something like a time out (as they have on stock exchanges) if there is a "stampede" b) Voting might actually need "calibration" (just an idea) and c) one might have a limit on scores (e.g. [-10,+10]) because eventually the signalling is done and may simply be "overdone"?
@gwr for what's it's worth, one of my first questions on Meta started with a downvote as you can see in its timeline. It did sting a bit for the newbie me back then, but actually it made me understand better how the place works.
Also I noted that maybe voting scores correlate with rate of new questions so maybe maximum votes per day might be tied to an moving average here?
@ShadowWizard Yes, sure but again if you think about it: On a META site (which I would like to focus on or now, re @Derpy) you are thus "trained" to fit in -- it is something about an ingroup-outgroup thing that you should not forget. Losing reputation on starting a discussion does not strike out right with me, even if that is how it is done here. After all, nothing stays the same - ever. :)
@gwr personally I think that any attempt to change the voting rules is bound to fail. The system is simple now: anyone can use up to 40 votes per day, up or down. Period. Trying to make it more complicated will be way too risky, and people will just start leaving. @Derpy can have better insights on this though.
Well, first of all, about the "Are we just focusing on main Meta" part, that is just because the main line of defense everyone seem to focus on is numbers.
Certainly there is that risk, on the other hand you state differently in your rules. I still believe majority rules-minorty rights is something to ponder.
I have already said it multiple times: wisdom of the crowd, the "troll downvotes" will be ruled out only work if you have traffic.
As soon as that single, small requisite fall... you start to ask yourself if we don't need to educate people instead of just watching and telling yourself that "things will level out automagically"
Sure, but crowds have wisdom iff they act independently, knowledgable and without bias. Showing voting immediately is fostering "anchoring" and "herd behavior" -- I saw that last night.
that said, let's for a second avoid the whole "should votes have a reason or are users entitled to vote at random" part for now. I have already seen that expressed in the past in other questions and right now it doesn't seem it is your main focus.
While I admire the simplicity of SE I am aware of dynamics in groups. There is rather quickly a "me too" tendency leading maybe to too many upvotes also (inflation).
@Derpy It certainly is not very good but does it deserve a -50 reputation? I do not think it is so clear cut: It is sufficiently researched and describes an actual behavior I encountered (and questioned), it was so CLEAR that everybody quickly jumped in, and it was in the end helpful because it even got answers that were upvoted and there was link to "censorship". I do not think that is so clear cut re "bad"?
@gwr let me finish, I think what I meant will be clearer soon.
When you "discuss" something you don't necessarily express a point of view. A question can be asking about feedback from the community to see how an argument is perceived, or how a feature works. All of this without even committing to one idea.
How can you then "censor" the question if there is no idea to be disagreed? Simple: either throw a dupe at it, close as off-topic or... well, just pretend the asker is advocating his view instead of just asking for arguments.
Yep, I know, forgive my line above, I did that on purpose.
@Derpy But again -- you guys are all programmers -- you can see where that loop ends, can't you? -- It is like in "brainstorming" punishing "the messenger" instead of simply the "message". If you make "downvoting" a "disagreement" (which is ok principle!) then it should be separate from reputation. Otherwise you simply train people to either "not post" or to "share the same mindset".
@gwr again, never said I disagree with you. Also, don't think that my hyperbole above means I am saying that every dupe is actually an attempt at censorship.
I am just working up from the initial assumption that there are people trolling and that there are people who are exercising censorship on topic they don't like.
@Derpy But if it is that simple on SE META, why not simply change the help pages and the popups on the voting buttons? They do tell a different message and that is not encouraging...
Again, it depends what you guys want this site to be? If you are out for ideas to become better, better err on the "too much low quality ideas" side maybe?
@Derpy Now, we have to get things straitened out maybe: There are tags for "discussion" and "feature request" (learned that with my businss category request). But to open a discussion a question is a good thing, how else to discuss than by having a lead-question (there even is Socratic method...)?
The point here is that your question is also presenting your view and that is the part that was downvoted. As far as I get it, people weren't downvoting the fact that you asked, they weren't downvoting the fact that you implied that there is a problem.
First: in the future NEVER ever start a controversial topic/discussion by pointing out an example. Most user will use that as a proof that you don't want to discuss but just to vent out/rant.
the point begin that in the end it doesn't really matter if you were ranting or actually expressing an idea by example.
If you are going to post examples, I shall suggest to put them at the end of the question. Kinda like the Tsundere effect. Also, try to have examples that aren't connected to you directly. If you post "out in the wild" samples, probably people will have more difficulties at assuming you are ranting because actually the problem isn't touching you.
What I experienced on A51 shows the downside to downvoting there. On other sites I need to sign up to downvote. On A51 everybody can simply downvote a proposal even if he is not following the proposal at all (which I have exactly wittnessed) because nobody else there had voted.
I not only got "a downvote" I was punished by losing 50 rep while that should not have to be expected from what the help pages say. Also I could not delete my question to prevent harm because I quickly got an answer. Fair?
@Derpy I actually tried to move System Dynamics Society and other professional bodies to A51 - quite challenging because these people prefer LinkedIn and othe "serious" sites. :) -- I was deeply frustrated because getting downvotes there from people not even following is not very helpful to attract strangers to SE system...
@gwr I will come to the "fairness" part soon, as for now I am only trying to give you some advice based on what I saw in my time on SE. I was just trying to reduce damage, not really giving any judgment on the system. Yet.
Now, before moving on the real topic, let's just have a final look at your question form. Basically, it is about how downvotes cause a censorship effect right?
But then let's count your "errors", shall we?
@gwr first, you started by giving an example of something that happened to you and got you downvotes/rep loss/closure.
Again, not really saying this is something to be proud of, but know that on SE starting that way equals to be immediately signed out as "user rant", so downvotes (sometime I even ask myself if people continue reading till the end, but that's probably just me begin over-suspicious). Also worth as a flip node to notice that probably starting like that is a warning sign that you maybe could actually be posting rants.
Try to focus on the problem you perceive, disassociating it from the specific case. It both helps you to be more objective and your question to avoid the "it's rant! burn burn!" crowd effect.
Second "error". You also posed the question as a judgment on user behavior.
This is, as Rarity would say, The. Worst. Possible. Thing.
@Derpy Still "ranting" is maybe an improper form of "complaint". But shouldn't a "complaint" be possible on MSM? And yes, I was complaining about user behavior -- btw from odet's remark I got the impression that "professional upvoting" would have struck a positive chord?
You basically asked if focusing on downvotes is bad, and that in the context of the whole "censoring" bigger picture. Yet, that single line alone called in for everyone to "attack" your view because they felt like you were talking at them.
@Derpy I can see my mistake. But can't you also see that "rushing in to burn" is maybe exactly the wrong thing? Why not simply post "better delete your comment or it is burned" which would have given me at least some fair chance? (fair again...)
@ShadowWizard - looking at it, your answer actually fits in a way. You seemed to feel the urge to say that you are a "watch dog" and this isn't really bad. But thinking about it, in a way, you didn't really fit the description of the "censoring troll" @gwr was pointing to, didn't you?
that said, you felt like you were damaged by that "attack", didn't you?
In court that would be dismissed as a suggestive question...
@Derpy as the other user pointed out, @ShadowWizard did not fit the picture at all because he had a quite positive record -- which was why I commented on him doing a "bad job as watchdog" ;)
think about it: even a mod actually had to point out that "he downvotes a lot because he his getting exposed to more bad content than others do"
why? In the end, that just proves out that you don't are among those trolls. Yes, you can say that it was a way to say "those numbers means nothing, here a perfect reasonable reason to have them without begin a troll", yet IMHO it seemed like the users there actually felt the need to defend their behavior. Even when they weren't the ones accused in the first place
Call it a sort of "positive reinforcement" effect or whatever else, but as soon as your question makes the others users feel like they need to defend against it... again you are done for.
@gwr Yes, possibly a bad example, still I stand by my above point above: try to make it so that the users reading your question don't feel like they need to justify their behavior. Basically, don't give anyone the idea you are judging them.
I don't want to search my archives right now, but I still remember one specific question an user called LazloPaps once opened.
there was a pretty bad comment, that even got votes. Again, no names here and no direct quote even, I am posting it just as a reference from my memory
> "SE rules never state that downvotes are to have a reason or should be commented, so IF I want to downvote just to make you fell bad, I am entitled to do so"
That single comment still hurt inside.
If you will ever see me post a single, seemly out of place line "We are so far away from Equestria"... well, now you know its origin.
and with that, let's turn to the fairness part @gwr
About the whole "it is this fair" problem.. no, as far as I am concerned sometime it isn't fair.
In a way, I also see that the whole meta problem of "the only way to have weight is to stick long enough with popular views" is real.
Possibly I wouldn't get so extreme about it as you did, but this doesn't mean I disagree.
Actually, thinking about it it seem to be pretty evident.
A "currently unpopular" change request may be unpopular just because the current meta population is viewing that as such.
This by no mean really grant that there aren't users that wouldn't think that proposal is good, just that those users aren't represented in the current population.
The way SE currently works means that on meta, to express your decision-making weight you need reputation
IMO you should not have copied the regula SE mechanism to a meta site -- it works extremely well (I would believe so) for Q&A, but might be contraproductive on meta in the longer run?
You can downvote. Which cost you points that are absolute valued, not % of your current score- this means the dissent cost is larger as your overall score decreases.
this is also the real only power you have at low scores.
Closing as dupes or flags shouldn't be taken into view since they are meant for different purposes.
I could open a little side argument about the golden close hammers here (which still IMHO are far to heavy powers to give out on meta... for generic tags like [discussion]), but let's avoid that.
returning to the rep problem...
Multiple people have already said that before. If meta points are a measure of how much people agree with you, it is somehow inevitable to draw the conclusion that you gain power and momentum as you shift toward the "community view of things".
and I can also see why most wouldn't say this is a problem. After all, it just means that the community gradually shift towards a shared view agreement point
but in the process, does it really rule out for hearing of ideas that may actually worth to be listened to?
I think that sometime it does.
In a way, it seem like a distorted version of the stair and monkeys experiment. What indication do the monkey, old and new, have that they will still be sprayed with cold water if they got near the single hanging banana? But, after all, it always has been that way, so why attempting to change?
I somehow wonder... You know the 100rep point link bonus you get on new sites when you have a good score on another site? I wonder what effect would have giving out 1k rep on the main meta if you have an account somewhere with at least.. 2k?
If there really is a "reputation inertia" problem for new users to get your voice heard, that could really help.
There are groups of users that coordinate voting (mostly to close off-topic posts and to clear out spam quickly) in chat rooms. The people involved tend to be knowledgeable about what is and is not on topic for a site and vote accordingly. It is very difficult for one person to vote with multiple accounts and no be caught (we do have vote fraud and voting ring detection scripts).
@Derpy not personally (I learned long ago not to take anything personal in SE, or anywhere on the web actually) but yes, in a sense it was directed at me, even if not directly.
Luckily, I prefer to try and avert the bullet instead of just taking the hit and attack back. :)
@gwr this one is also worth noticing. While I am pretty sure that Oded pointed out the "coordinate voting" as a good thing to fight spam or off-topic posts, you can clearly see that it could be easily be used for whatever reason you have.
As a final "provocation", let me pose this simple question... I am not even sure that I -the one making the question- could answer, yet alone know what answer I am expecting, so please don't take it wrong or as a personal attack.
I never noted anything out of the usual on my regular site, Mathematica.SE (where I do have >2k) but "trouble" started with my visits to the unusual sites on SE: A51 and MSM...
Suppose you have something... let's say an hat. Doesn't matter what one. Forget triggering rules, just focus on the picture, the shape it has. It can't be wrong, as it can't be right. You can like it or you can dislike it. So, now suppose you post a question asking to remove it.
If someone then coordinates votes to rapidly downvotes you... is that ethical? Is using the chat changing something in the fact those users voted you? Or is the fact that those votes where coordinated the point, even if the single users would probably still have downvoted you otherwise?
But especially A51 is to be watched if you want to draw in the "unusual crowd" (e.g. look at the number of Business-sites...). @Derpy I will answer your question...
After 5 (6? not sure!) years in MSE I still can't really explain how it is different from other Q&A sites of Stack Exchange and the subtleties that together make it so different.
@ShadowWizard simple: on every other site, you have a score that wages your technical abilities. On the site meta, your "weight", will it be a privilege one or a prestige "he got so many points" one is because you know stuff. Your site decision are weighted out because you don't contribute enough... so your voice gets "louder" as the more you know and contribute.
Meta SE exist only as a Frankenstein support children to all the network.
Yet, your voice is just MSE voice, in no way related to your support to the whole network we are talking about.
@Derpy Ethical is always difficult and depends on what you want here. If I try to systematically hinder a certain ethnic group from participating that is unethical. But what hinders me/you as "owners" from having it your way? So ultimately you set the goals. But if you want "wisdom of the crowd" then coordinating votes is spoiling the wisdom.
Also you should ask yourself: If you want to simply remove the hat why not do this with -10 votes which suffices why do you have to "burn" the hat bringer?
Every time I think about it, it still seem weird. It is like saying Skeet should have no voice on MSE because he never posted there, while 90% of SE is there because of His mighty aura (yes, I know, Skeet like Chuck Norris also has a score over 9k on meta, just pretend he hasn't)
Again, but we now move in circles, I would believe that reputation is great for signaling "expertise" and "utility to the site" but maybe critical if ideas should be given, or if proposals should be made to improve something. I cannot really see this work out.
On a Q&A site the correlation between "expertise" and "quality" should be obvious. But if I am an inexperienced user making a proposal that addresses needs of inexperienced users what will happen when this is not seen propper?
At A51 it was seens as utterly suspicious that pretty much most users were new to SE, that is not coming from other sites to A51. That is exactly what happens: You eventually become a closed shop where new people first must learn the "ropes".
@Derpy A good idea but that again is critical if needs of new users are to be addressed - A51 once more. Which had me wondering whether SE as an organization does even have an interest in growing (expensive?) new sites. Where does the money come from?
@gwr once I played on a UO server. They had a rule there "If you don't like the server rules, that one is the door". Looking back at it, it was a pretty extreme approach at things, and in the end, the server population got thinner and thinner...
I can't say if that is indirectly really the idea that moves SE too, if that "wisdom of the crowd" means that we also expect the dissenting voices to move on.
My experience with Mathematica.SE has been really encouraging and I wanted to draw in new people. That said, I got heavy wind in my face: a) People wanted to have small sites dedicated only to their "toy" simulation paradigm (e.g. SD only) or b) people felt completely overwhelmed by all the buttons and new things...
@Derpy I would agree with you from my experience - it works very smoothly in the "regular settings" and has imho everything to wish for. Again, your are preaching to the choir here :)
So to wrap this up, what can I do about my gigantic reputation loss (50% in a couple of hours). Can the question be deleted, rephrased and thus revisited/reevaluated?
In the end, in a way, it is again what I told you before, @ShadowWizard. I have stopped trying to change peoples. As now, I am just fine pointing them that there could be a different way. Or, at least that may be what I am doing here... you may never know who I may actually really be.
@gwr deleted is your best bet. Since you can't delete it yourself now, you can ask SE employee to do that - even ping Oded right here, though there is good chance the employee won't agree and prefer to leave it be. In this case, IMO best course of action is to just move on - gaining those rep points back is matter of five upvotes (on answers) away. :)
@gwr free to join the Shadow's Committee for Derpy Gender Determination. Probably, you would have had a better time with Grace Note before she actually decided to reveal it. (But I am still calling Grace a cactuar)
@Oded I have asked and flagged for deletion of my question (tag discussion). After lots of fruitful discussion here I can see now where my question has maybe gone astray. While MSE and SE rules in general certainly make deletion an usual or maybe even unlikely solution I would ask to reconsider in this case:
A) I had not been aware that my question would be downvoted upon (costing rep) as to signal diagreement. Note: That neither popup messages on voting buttons nor help pages say so for a question with tag discussion.
B) I could not "correct" my error by deleting the question myself because I received an answer very quickly which might be seen amazing considering that the question had been dismal...
C) I have not meant to "attack" or "judge" specific user behavior (e.g. downvoting) per se but had wanted to point out that I felt this somehow strange. The link given to "meta censorship" by another user (that question has gotten lots of upvotes) certainly shows that some of what I have addressed is not completely "BS"
D) Please consider that there seems to have been some "dynamic herding" effect in getting around 20 downvotes in very quick time. While downvoting ultimately signals bad quality it in this case more or less destroys 50% of reputation for a user that on SE sites has >2.5 k reputation...
E) Pleaser consider reading the transcript here to see that there has been some good intention on my part (which as we know paves the road to hell...) :)
F) @Oded -> I rest the matter now in your good hands awaiting a Salomonic verditc. Thanks.
@DanBron What you describe makes sense for decisions. But if you allow ideas and discussions it becomes totalitarian to have some authority -- even if it is the group -- decide what they like to be discussed. Again majority rules, minority rights -- you are forgetting the second part.
@ShadowWizard So finally Socrates has drunk the poison hemlock - I will die away here in 23 hours. Time to turn to voting that matters: Super Tuesday II ;)
@ShadowWizard ... where you do not get to downvote either. :) btw do not need luck on the other sites: a) because I try to post more answers than questions where downvoting is costly and b) I took some sample on mathematica.SE and terrific Upvote to Downvote ratio while the site has an encouraging climate and terrific answer ratio. Case in point.
@ShadowWizard I do not think that I am off in my thinking because I have found similar thoughts in related links here and have read a nice balanced discussion of it on Quora. It just does not fit the way this community has grown.
