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Vote-to-delete and reputation: should they be deleted?
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Post by
Nooska
Okay, this is about 2 different systems (though interdependant).
I'll start with the rep system.
I like the idea, but I think it needs to get tweaked.
I think its a great way to give users increased abiliies to help keep the database up to date based on their contributions. To illustrate I'll point out 2 privileges that you gain specifically; Comment votes worth more, and the vote-to-delete feature.
In my mind these are awesome tools given to people who have contributed enough to be "trusted" to contribute well.
The problem then bcomes that you can gain access to the privileges without actually contributing, and then it becomes tricky.
1Registering a Wowhead account 100 reputation
2Daily visit 5 reputation
3Posting a comment 1 reputation
4Your comment was voted up (each upvote) 5 reputation
5Submitting a screenshot 10 reputation
6Uploaded data using the Wowhead Client** 25 reputation
7Submitting a guide (approved) 100 reputation
8Filing a report (accepted) 10 reputation
9Earning a Copper website achievement 2 reputation
10Earning a Silver website achievement 25 reputation
11Earning a Gold website achievement 50 reputation
I'm quickly gonna go over the 11 rep gains
1, registering an account is needless, you don't have rep without an account, and as someone said, it just makes 100 the new 0.
2. You aren't contributing by visiting the site, however I recognize 2 things in this - first it's an incentive to visit the site daily, and secondly the more you visit (and read/use) the site, the more you learn how it works, meaning that from the privileges standpoint you should become a better user over time.
3. Posting a comment, 1 rep, I don't see any problems here, you are contributing, but it can't be the be-all and-all of gaining rep, because just ebcause I have something to say does not mean its useful which goes hand-in-hand with;
4. Rep from an upvote - it makes sense, another user thought your comment was helpful and voted it up - your 1 point is therefore earned, and you get another 5 for actually making a useful / helpful contribution.
5. Screenshots are good, and they have to be approved, so there is nothing wrong with this giving the same as 2 upvotes - it may even be alittle too little, but thats a matter of incentive and whether more screenshots are wanted or the current influx is good.
6. This is the one most easily tweaked 50 rep per week from logging in and out of wow twice (and uploading between)? thats 10 days of daily visits or 0 upvotes - the quantity of uploads doesn't help the database, its the quality (here, actually measured in quantity of data), being capped at once a week should be sufficient, and in my opinion should not give quite as much rep - 10 rep per week for uploading should be enough in my opinion.
7. 100 rep for getting a guide approved - maybe this should be higher - there is a finite number of useful guide possibilities, and the guides are probably one of the most helpful contributions a user can make (provided they are good of course)
8. This one is tricky, because I have seen mods say (at least once, possibly more times) that they take the rep gain into account when they decide whether to accept or decline reports, independent of whether they action them. I think reporting should grant rep under the model, as it is a fairly direct contribution to the sites quality, and I also think that it should do so at any time a report is actioned upon (though I am not blind to the possible abuse for gaining rep quickly)
9, 10 and 11 are fine (if there are any problems its the achievement section that needs to be looked at).
The one thing I might think is lacking here, is forum contributions - the only way to acknowledge someones contributions on the forum is to sticky a thread they made (which requires they make a trhead in the first place), give them a title or promote them to mods (which is more than just recognizing forum contributions)
An alternate means of "controlling" or granting access to privileges would be through achievements related to the privilege, but it makes for a less transparent access system to privileges, and less feeling of contributions being valued - which I think is the greatest strength of the reputation system.
The one way of losing rep either has to go, or needs to be supplemented with other rep loses, and for simplicities sakeI would say, get rid of it. I do like the idea that posting a useless comment that gets voted down once is a rep loss over a rep gain though - but its just not clear enough to have any impact, apart from being annoying when you get multiple downvotes - and it adds the knowledge that whenever you downvote you are hurting someones reputation.
Vote-to-delete system
I'm ambivalent about this feature. As is, it has to either go or get expanded, its clear that it will never just be used for outdated comments. If it stays it needs a revamp apart from the expansion - expansion making it clear what other areas are in order, like the camping or killcount comments I saw Ashelia mention in another topic - where the revamp addresses some of the many discussions that have been over the past months about the problems of the system.
I'll make it clear, I don't think the idea is flaed, just the implementations was naïve - we need many more users to vote and it needs to be easier to defeat a proposed deletion than to support it - I've seen the number 10 being thrown around, and honestly I think 10 is too few, Id' say a good number would be based upon some data that I'm sure can be pulled;
Number of votes to carry = X
Number of votes to defeat = ½X + 1
X being equal to Amount of 3+k rep users that visit the site per day divided by some fraction that makes sense based on a) participation in the voting, b) distribution of the daily visits and c) the expected distribution of voters on carry versus defeat versus abstain.
This constellation is thought of to make sure that votes don't get carried in splitseconds at heavy use times, and diminsihing the influence of the high-rep users at low use times - 1 man 1 vote only works if the amount of votes needed are significant.
All this of course still requires the revamp of the vote-to-delete page to make it easier to vote intelligently, and the other things that have been mentioned, like requiring a reason (if fieldValue = null, return error) - mostly I think the deliberate voting will increase with the amount of vote sneeded - less hurry = more deliberation.
---
Summa summarum;
I think both systems are good additions, but need to be tweaked. I think most of the issues are because they were implemented after some (careful) thought and weren't prepared for the realities - like most systems they need to go through some testing before knowing where they land - scarpping them already, I think is a bad idea, since I am of the opinion that they will be beneficial for the site in the long run after some tweaking.
And since I've used half my alloted characters for a single post here, I think its a hint to stop typing and submit this.
Post by
Nooska
What achievement, asa? That was at 100 consecutive visits. Unless the secret one... Hmm...
/looks devious
Already been confirmed, 365 days ;) (I think)
Post by
hymer
I see, Nooska. Well, nice to know! Anyway, I can honestly say that it's wasn't for that I've been coming by every day.
Post by
Nulgar
As for Vote-to-Delete; it's a good feature, but the required voters needed to successfully delete should possibly be raise; maybe 10 rather then 5? It should also be set that you need to put in a response for the delete or undelete to actually go through.
That's really the only thing I'd change, too, both for deletes and undeletes.
Post by
Balgair
Reputation:
I'm alright with this really, maybe some minor tweaks (I think a good reply deserves +rep if it gets a +vote, for example), but overall, it's good. Not too sure about some of the numbers given, Nooska above gives some good feedback which I basically agree with.
Vote-to-delete:
Argh. This one needs major work, seriously. I'd be happy if it was removed entirely, frankly, if not, major changes are needed, since it's clearly a problem for a lot of people, going on the constant threads about it (heck, it's even dragged me out of lurkdom; almost all of my few posts have been on this subject!).
There's several different ways it could be changed and a few of the suggestions so far seem good to me: I like the one to have the vote be marked in a particular category, if it must be used for anything other than outdated content, and basically ask users to decide if the comment fits the category mentioned. Personally I'd like to take out the user voting aspect and have the feature do just that, and flag it for a moderator to check over - I do appreciate that would be a lot of work for the moderators, but then perhaps they'd have fewer squabbles over vote deletions to deal with so it might even out.
I don't like that it's currently being used as an uber-vote, to bypass regular downvoting; that just doesn't seem right to me, and feels like it removes the point of the downvote system. Now this is happening partly because low-rated comments don't collapse any more (yes yes I know, you want us all to use the sort by rating, but some of us prefer it chronological, and that's not likely to change), so making low rated comments collapse by default at, say, -3 (would require at least 2 downvotes to reach that), and be purged at, say, -10, would help a lot with that, and so perhaps the vote deletion could be returned to only for outdated content. I'm not sure everyone would give up their "moderator" powers though, so probably there'd still be constant issues of people vote deleting not outdated content.
All in all, while allowng us to tidy up outdated posts was a good idea, and needed as regards outdated content, I think the users as a whole have shown that effectively giving lots of people moderating powers causes chaos. As a result, I'd ideally prefer the vote delete system to change into a system which gives the ability to report posts as out of date which go directly to a moderator (no user voting) who will decide if it is out of date or not, and let everything else be dealt with via the good old-fashioned downvote system, with the collapsing and purging brought back at suitable levels to get the bad comments out of the pages.
Post by
959833
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Sas148
All in all, while allowng us to tidy up outdated posts was a good idea, and needed as regards outdated content, I think the users as a whole have shown that effectively giving lots of people moderating powers causes chaos. As a result, I'd ideally prefer the vote delete system to change into a system which gives the ability to report posts as out of date which go directly to a moderator (no user voting) who will decide if it is out of date or not, and let everything else be dealt with via the good old-fashioned downvote system, with the collapsing and purging brought back at suitable levels to get the bad comments out of the pages.
Just to point out, having it sent solely to a moderator is thereby a vote to remove the 'Vote-to-Delete' system entirely. As, the 'Report' button, which already exists, would do exactly what you're suggesting here.
Post by
Sas148
i would have to agreee my friend
Agree with who, what? Perhaps you could share a bit more information with us on what exactly you're talking about in this instance?
Post by
rahael
i would like to add that i think preserving the name of the user who nominated a comment for deletion is important. retaliation may occur, but that should be caught by the abuse detection system. a positively rated comment of mine was deleted which in and of itself is not suspicious except that the user in question has another comment on that same page that they added after mine. i have reported it as suspicious activity, but i never would have known if the user name was not visible. additionally, i think the reason for deletion needs to be displayed as well.
Post by
Balgair
All in all, while allowng us to tidy up outdated posts was a good idea, and needed as regards outdated content, I think the users as a whole have shown that effectively giving lots of people moderating powers causes chaos. As a result, I'd ideally prefer the vote delete system to change into a system which gives the ability to report posts as out of date which go directly to a moderator (no user voting) who will decide if it is out of date or not, and let everything else be dealt with via the good old-fashioned downvote system, with the collapsing and purging brought back at suitable levels to get the bad comments out of the pages.
Just to point out, having it sent solely to a moderator is thereby a vote to remove the 'Vote-to-Delete' system entirely. As, the 'Report' button, which already exists, would do exactly what you're suggesting here.
Well, I wasn't thinking of it in that way - to me, removing it entirely means returning to the situation as it was before vote deletion was introduced, where I certainly thought "Report" was for only abusive/unsuitable type posts, and not for outdated (yeah, I see now that it probably could be used for outdated as well, but I never thought of it that way and the possibility wasn't obvious, it never crossed my mind until the vote deletion system was added).
Meanwhile the flagging for moderator which I'm suggesting here would be definitely including outdated content as well, and I figured keep it on a separate link to the existing report link, being not for abuse etc. It would be basically the same for those using it as the current flag out-of-date, the only difference being that it's a moderator who looks at it and not other users.
I can see why you say that, but it's not what I was actually thinking of, if that makes sense; there's subtle differences. Quite possibly I'm the only one who fully understands what I'm trying to say though!
Post by
Ordayc
Regarding the vote-to-delete system
:
I entirely concur with
czeano's post
, i.e. I'd prefer the VTD feature to be gone altogether.
As much as I can tell, the VTD is used because of three different properties, of which two could be attained with normal rating fairly easily, without allowing a second mechanic to interfere with the rating system. Those properties are:
(1) Removing comments from the user's sight.
(2) Doing it quickly.
(3) Allowing a now-bad comment to retain its rating.
Point (1) can be achieved with an auto-purge (or auto-collapse/-hide) mechanism, where comments below a threshold are removed from a normal user's vision.
Point (2) is where VTD really shines, mostly for two reasons: (a) Any number of normal votes can be overridden by six super-votes. (b) It brings a comment to the attention of many users.
I greatly dislike (a), while I'd love to see (b) remain. Imagine the current VTD was changed so that if you agree with deletion, the only thing that happened is that you downvoted the comment (or, if you disagreed, you automatically upvoted) instead of giving a super-vote. What would that mean? Any comment would receive up to -12 rating within a matter of minutes, which would bring just about any crap comment into a low enough rating that the (1) mechanism would hide it from normal users. If the rating of the comment was so high that this was not enough, the question is: how could a bad comment receive such a high rating in the first place? Maybe because it wasn't so bad after all, and the initiator's opinion differs from the mainstream's?
For point (3), using rating would make that impossible, but the question is: Do you want that? My initial opinion was that if a comment used to be helpful but is now outdated, it still deserves a high rating. However, my opinion has changed, and I'd say that a user who wants to retain their comment's high rating can simply delete or edit it (which would be the appropriate response for an outdated comment). As such, I'd say getting rid of VTD wouldn't do any harm there, either.
Even for out-of-date comments, I'm not entirely happy with the VTD feature. I've seen a few comments that were quick-deleted because some part was outdated, despite the fact that most of it was still up-to-date and relevant information, which was thus lost. A reply stating the flaws would be better than the removing the comment completely. (And this is where reputation may kick in: A user who is eager to increase it may opt for removing the comment in order to get the achievement rather than simply adding a reply, which doesn't give anything in return reputation-wise.)
If the VTD feature is set to stay, I'd like to see the following things changed:
Most importantly, a clarification on what its purpose is should be given.
The reason should be displayed in a deleted comment.
Giving a reason should be mandatory.
Regarding reputation
:
While I personally dislike the reputation system, I have the feeling that it can be useful to motivate people. I know there are a few forum posters who started with a very low score initially and, apparently motivated by the new system, started contributing to the actual content rather than just the forums. It's hard to tell from my position whether the good or bad effects prevail.
If you keep reputation, I think all contributions to the site should increase it, which includes placing votes. I know you removed it because people started to spam votes only to receive reputation, but was it really that bad? Considering we have plenty of pages with hardly any votes (and I find the number of votes in general to be pretty low considering the number of users), I'd be willing to accept a few mindless voters if, and that's what I would hope for, the majority of voters actually voted consciously.
Post by
asakawa
If you keep reputation, I think all contributions to the site should increase it, which includes placing votes. I know you removed it because people started to spam votes only to receive reputation,
but was it really that bad?
Considering we have plenty of pages with hardly any votes (and I find the number of votes in general to be pretty low considering the number of users), I'd be willing to accept a few mindless voters if, and that's what I would hope for, the majority of voters actually voted consciously.
Yes!
It was and it
still is
due to the fact that people want the voting achievement. Actual rep for votes would encourage even more negative behaviour and you (like I was/am) would be shocked at the volume of bad votes that get made.
People worry most about targeted voting which is totally understandable as it effects people directly and negatively having a focussed effect on a single other user's rep and comment ratings. However, targeted voting is really quite rare (also, relatively easily spotted and dealt with) while fast/mindless vote spam is much more common even now and more difficult to investigate.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##asakawa##DELIM##
Post by
jostor
I think reputation is a good idea. It's a nice incentive for people to contribute, it can perhaps be expanded even more. I think 1 rep is a bit too little for posting comments, make it more, the rep loss for a downvote is fine, with making a comment in the first place giving more rep. Getting rep from voting was a good idea, but it was abused, if that can be prevented somehow, then perhaps reintroducing it would work out. There should also be rep losses for getting your comment removed, for example if a moderator deletes the comment they can pick a penalty, for example 0, -5 or -25 rep depending on the reason it was removed.
Also getting +1 reputation for an upvote on a comment reply would not be unreasonable.
About vote-deleting comments; it should be much harder for people to abuse it. There is a massive sheep effect going on with it causing a lot of comments that are very good to be deleted.
Perhaps very good is not necessarily the word I'm looking for, but rather "out of date is not the downvote button".
Firstly, I think just 2 yes votes is far too few to delete a comment, make it at least five, maybe more. I would also say that a comment with a rating of +5 or more should not be able to be deleted except if approved by a moderator (it can still go through the regular vote delete system, just with requiring a mod). Or perhaps needing the comment's rating as extra votes to delete it. Let's as an example say normally 5 votes is needed to delete a comment, if the comment has rating +7, it requires 5+7=12 votes to delete, but still only 5 no-votes. Negative rating would not effect it.
Perhaps a "needs to be edited" link?
Some good comments with very high rating about for example mining was deleted because of some incorrect values for what skill you can mine things. That comment is outdated, but much better to be edited to be correct rather than deleted to be replaced with either nothing, or a new 0 rating comment.
Apart from that more obvious ones like including the reason it was deleted when the comment is displayed, as well as both the reason it was deleted as well as a reason for undeleting it, when requesting an undelete.
Post by
rahael
i would like to add that i think preserving the name of the user who nominated a comment for deletion is important. retaliation may occur, but that should be caught by the abuse detection system. a positively rated comment of mine was deleted which in and of itself is not suspicious except that the user in question has another comment on that same page that they added after mine. i have reported it as suspicious activity, but i never would have known if the user name was not visible. additionally, i think the reason for deletion needs to be displayed as well.
i was thinking about this issue some more today, and if vote-to-delete is kept or purging of comments is re-introduced, it would be nice to have a tab on the user page for "in danger" comments. it would give people a chance to either fix or delete bad or out of date comments and also identify cases where deletion was not warranted. as it stands, there is no way for a person to figure out which of their comments has been deleted without knowing what topics they have commented on.
Post by
hatman555
I've been very busy over the pass couple days and this is the first time I could really take to sit down and write a well writen (spelling doesn't count!) post on how I feel about this.
Clearly the two issues have overlapping points, but for the sake of discussion, they can be kept separate.
Vote-to-Delete / Out-of-Date
Remove It:
Honestly. Rating is good. Rating puts the power in the hands of many instead of the hands of few. EVERYONE, already has the power to rate up and down on comments. This is a good thing. Adding another system supersedes the first. Since I accepted being a moderator I have closed over 1,000 comment reports. I only accepted around 300 - 350 of these. the 650+ reports I declined were reports where a down vote would have sufficed, or not even that. Some comments help people, others done. From what I have seen from reported comments, people can't make that judgment on their own. Its too bias. So, if we give the power to people to Vote-to-Delete comments, and then other people vote yes for the hell of it, we are losing comments that probably shouldn't have been deleted in the first place.
The only problem is that Out-of-Date Deletion is still helpful, but can be miss-used.
SO!....if we didn't remove it....... --->
24 hour hold on deletion:
One thing that can be added is a buffer that slows down the voting process. If a comment reaches 10 Yes votes, voting should not stop. Instead, the comment should be moved to another stage of voting. At this stage, the comment will be given an additional 24 hours to receive the "No" votes required to save it from deletion. One of the biggest problems right now, is that people will simply vote yes to delete a comment without reading it, and this will happen very very quickly. If a vote has a period of time to be saved from deletion, quality comments can be easily saved with little effort.
Interface changes:
This is what each vote could look like.
Corroded Blade
Posted by
hatman555
agoRating2
Votes
Comment:
This comment is a test comment! It will be removed later. Unless it gets crazy upvotes!
Yes Votes:
0
Needed:
10
No Votes:
0
Needed:
6
Reason forDeletion:
Comment adds nothing of value, and is asking for up votes.
The page name is displayed in the top left corner. If you hover over it, you can get the Wowhead tool tip, and if you click on it, it will take you to the comment that's being reported. The Interface will tell you who posted the comment, and when they posted it. It will also tell you the current rating the comment has. The comment will be fully displayed, and under it will be the reason why the person that put up the vote wants it to be deleted. The vote box on the right could just be a Yes or a No button until the person votes. There is really no reason to see how many more yes votes a comment needs. If the comment gets 10 yes votes, before it gets 6 no votes, then this interface will be transferred to the 24 hour hold page, where it will wait until it gets more "No" votes, or it gets deleted after 24 hours.
Purge comments:
Whether we remove the Vote-to-Delete / Out-of-Date, bringing the purge system back would be awesome. Votes with low ratings used to be deleted automatically by the system. This was a good thing, it kept pages clean, and really bad comments had very short lives. If we brought this back with a few minor changes it would be a good thing.
Comments with a
-3
rating would be purged after 14 days.
Comments with a
-7
rating would be purged after 5 days
Comments with a
-11
rating would be purged in 2 days.
Comment that reaches
-21
rating would be purged after 1 hour.
*
numbers are just an Idea of a scaler system
Reputation:
I like and hate Reputation at the same time. I feel like in a perfect world, reputation would be a great way for users to be proud of what they do, and be able to respect other users for different reputation levels. Its not a perfect world though. Reputation loss affects people in different ways. Some people see it as a personal affront, and fight it every way they can. If we take reputation loss away from the system, then reputation just becomes an inflated number which loses meaning. If we bring in more ways to lose reputation, users will be slighted more, and we will lose users.
It's a trap!
I've talked a lot with asakawa, and we both feel that reputation as a tool for moderators would be cool. Being able to send people a message with +50 reputation for maintaining the peace in a forum post, or -50 reputation to people who bait trolls would be a very useful thing. Reputation would show up in your log, and right next to the +/- would be a few notes on why.
Going back to Vote-to-Delete and reputation. If we do make a Vote-to-Delete any comment system, I really thing the rep on it should be boosted to 6,000 or more.
I'll stop rambling now. But ya, those are my thoughts on it all.
Cheers,
Hat(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##hatman555##DELIM##
Post by
rahael
Purge comments:
Whether we remove the Vote-to-Delete / Out-of-Date, bringing the purge system back would be awesome. Votes with low ratings used to be deleted automatically by the system. This was a good thing, it kept pages clean, and really bad comments had very short lives. If we brought this back with a few minor changes it would be a good thing.
Comments with a
-3
rating would be purged after 14 days.
Comments with a
-7
rating would be purged after 5 days
Comments with a
-11
rating would be purged in 2 days.
Comment that reaches
-21
rating would be purged after 1 hour.
*
numbers are just an Idea of a scaler system
i really like this idea, but just want to note that no actions should be taken on a period less than 24 hours just so that the abuse detection script gets a chance to flag any suspicious votes. in fact, i'd say the minimum time period should actually be 48 hours so that admins/mods get a chance to analyze the results and potentially reverse any excessive downvotes. if comments are able to be purged on a shorter timescale, it's possible (although i hope not likely) for someone to set up sock puppet accounts and downvote spam a comment that they really don't want in the database for some reason.
Post by
asakawa
I still maintain that sorting comments by rating is superior and negates the need for purging. If the comment system's primary role is the efficient delivery of strong, current info then sorting by rating and leaving purging out is surely the way to go.
Post by
Corveroth
Even with rating-based sorting, I'd like to see purging return. This may be irrational, but I do not want incorrect or "bad" comments to be available
at all
. For the former I can rationalize that as wanting to protect others from being misled. In general, though, I feel that my downvote means "this comment has a value of zero or less. It should not exist." If enough other people agree, I want that comment treated as such and removed.
Edit: Yes, I know this thread is about VtD and rep, not purging. But the fact that VtD is being used in the manner it is proves that it offers something the ordinary comment system does not. That may only be the increased power that VtD offers, but I think that the
demand
for that increased power would be lower if the comment system once again offered a means to remove bad comments.
Post by
asakawa
But if Hat's system went through then if two people agreed that a comment was "bad" and nobody disagreed with that assessment for two weeks then the comment is gone. Now three people thinking it wasn't a great comment completely prevent anyone from finding value in that comment in future.
sort by rating and then you get to choose how far down the ratings you want to look. Everyone sets their own level for "purging" by just stopping reading after whatever their threshold is.
If a comment is actually misleading or rule breaking in any way then report it. Moderators are here to protect site visitors from malicious or otherwise disruptive content.
VtD is good for dropping high rated but now misleading comments but how many of the comments that get deleted by the system now fall into that bracket?
Post by
Sweetscot
But if Hat's system went through then if two people agreed that a comment was "bad" and nobody disagreed with that assessment for two weeks then the comment is gone. Now three people thinking it wasn't a great comment completely prevent anyone from finding value in that comment in future.
sort by rating and then you get to choose how far down the ratings you want to look. Everyone sets their own level for "purging" by just stopping reading after whatever their threshold is.
If a comment is actually misleading or rule breaking in any way then report it. Moderators are here to protect site visitors from malicious or otherwise disruptive content.
VtD is good for dropping high rated but now misleading comments but how many of the comments that get deleted by the system now fall into that bracket?
-OR- just clean the comments up the way they used to so that people that want to sort by chronological (the only way that makes sense imo) can continue to get the most out of wowhead. Why is everyone searching for a way to reinvent the wheel? This is wandering back a bit too close to my strong feelings about the comment system but still...if nobody likes the comment why do we need to see it, turned red, down a list, on it's head, or in a mess? Just get rid of them.
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