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Re^2: Looking for "random upvote" script (humans)

by tye (Cardinal)
on Dec 18, 2006 at 18:55 UTC ( #590525=note: print w/ replies, xml ) Need Help??

in reply to Re: Looking for "random upvote" script
in thread Looking for "random upvote" script

I've made what one might call an "enemy" on here.

That appears to be a fairly common belief. I see it claimed rather regularly, and for nearly exactly the reasons that you have presented. You may well have made one or more "enemies". However, as usual, the evidence that you based this conclusion on doesn't actually support your conclusion. If you have enemies here, they aren't systematically downvoting your nodes right after you post them. (When I see complaints of potential abuse, I often investigate in part to make sure that I understand what problems there might be and if there are ways to improve things.)

Human brains are great at seeing patterns. So good that they can often see patterns where there are none, which leads many humans to see conspiracies where there are none. It is also human nature to blame others before blaming oneself. So it is pretty natural to see yet another downvote and eventually come to the conclusion that some other single person is responsible and thus that they have some personal grudge against you.

When (rarely but still too frequently) someone forms a grudge and starts systematically downvoting another monk, claims start approaching a real conspiracy, inventing an army of downvoting robots. (:

The downvotes against you have been cast by a wide variety of monks. I did see that the frequency of downvotes against you was higher a while back, but they were being cast by a wide variety monks both then and now. So it seems more likely that your nodes have changed over that time (or perhaps your extra-node presence has changed, as you suspect).

It is still true that (thankfully) most monks rarely downvote. But when someone downvotes a node, it is rare to contemplate the node and then come back and cast the downvote later. A downvote is more likely to be a snap decision or at least a fast reaction while upvotes often take longer. So nodes getting an initial downvote or few and then moving to a positive rep appears to rarely have much to do with who wrote the node.

- tye        

Comment on Re^2: Looking for "random upvote" script (humans)
Re^3: Looking for "random upvote" script (humans)
by OfficeLinebacker (Chaplain) on Dec 19, 2006 at 01:28 UTC
    Thank you.

    I like computer programming because it's like Legos for the mind.

      Your signature reminded me of something I had been thinking when I was recently looking a bit deeper into forth than I had before. It very much reminds me of "lego for the mind". C on the other hand doesn't make me think of lego in the least, and Perl is kinda in the middle. Sometimes its like lego, sometimes its more like tuning a very complex machine.


        ... a very complex machine made out of lego!

by apotheon (Deacon) on Dec 22, 2006 at 09:31 UTC

    I know there must be instances where vindictive downvoting occurs, however -- and I know this for two reasons. One, human nature just makes it too unlikely that everyone in an online community is too benevolent for that. Two, it has happened to me on a temporary basis.

    I don't know that I'd use the word "enemy", but there have been a couple discussions here at PerlMonks wherein I clearly upset some people (the hazards of having controversial opinions, being willing to share them, and being reasonably good at defending them, I guess) after which I received too many downvotes and XP losses to be a coincidence. One case in particular that comes to mind is a discussion on a root node I posted that went wildly off-topic with gun control debate. For a couple days, I actually lost XP faster than my nodes in that discussion were downvoted, as I recall.

    I pretty much shrugged it off -- no biggie. I'm not saying that something should necessarily be done, especially since the downvotes on other nodes of mine were probably cast by a number of people who were just looking for reasons to disagree with me, and who quickly lost interest. It's not like it affected my livelihood. My only point is that it's not always just "conspiracy theories". Sometimes, even if the "victim" exaggerates circumstances in his/her own mind, there is a definite kernel of truth to the vindictiveness (s)he senses.

    Overall, I think the XP/voting system works well enough as is, as long as someone like you is dealing with anything like bots that might crop up from time to time. I don't know how common that might be, but it's good to know you have a way of dealing with it. It's not perfect, but I don't expect it to be.

    All that having been said, I think I've rambled more than necessary and said less of worth than I intended. Back to doing actual Perlish stuff for me.

    - apotheon
    CopyWrite Chad Perrin

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