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Aug 24, 2018 at 13:29 comment added Bryan Oakley @Servy: "Why do you post comments that aren't polite and helpful for users that aren't new?" . Simple. I don't. I almost always try to provide helpful and polite answers. Sometimes, due to my human nature, I will downvote and move on without giving much actual thought because bad questions are discouraging. Knowing that someone is new, and knowing that SO has a real problem with being hostile to newbies, I think this notices serves nicely to remind me that this person deserves a little extra help the first time or two that they ask a question.
Aug 24, 2018 at 13:20 comment added Servy @BryanOakley You claimed that you like to vote differently based on how new the author of a post is, I said that you should vote based on the content, not the author of the post, and you responded by saying that voting based on the quality of the post, instead of the author's age, isn't being helpful, and that you're the one being helpful by voting on the author instead of the content, which is simply absurd. Why do you post comments that aren't polite and helpful for users that aren't new? Why do you think it's okay to be rude and unhelpful to other users?
Aug 23, 2018 at 23:54 comment added Bryan Oakley @Servy: " You're the only one who's said that downvoting a post means you can't comment on it" - I've never made any such claim. While I do think that downvotes are sometimes valid without comments, I think we do new users a disservice by downvoting without commenting. I like this feature because it's a little extra reminder that I should not only comment, but maybe take a few extra moments to write a polite and helpful comment.
Aug 23, 2018 at 21:33 comment added Servy @BryanOakley But that's not what you said you were doing. If you said you were commenting more on new user's posts, then that would be an accurate statement. You said you were voting differently on new users posts. That's strictly against the rules. And again, I never said anything about not commenting on posts. By all means, comment away. You're the only one who's said that downvoting a post means you can't comment on it, not me. Your choice to vote on the newness of the user instead of the post content isn't helping. Providing accurate feedback on post quality is called helping.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:45 comment added Bryan Oakley "Again, your indication that we shouldn't be voting based on the quality of the content, but instead on the user, is strictly against the rules. It's called vote fraud." - no offense, but you're being silly. Choosing to offer help in addition to or instead of downvoting isn't vote fraud. It's called helping.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:43 comment added Bryan Oakley "You're continually asserting a false dichotomy that downvotes means not commenting." - if that is how my comments are perceived, I apologize. That was never my intention.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:42 comment added Bryan Oakley "Once again, you are not forced to choose between downvoting and commenting. " Yes, I know. I think this notice works well as a reminder to take a breath and question ourselves before just downvoting and moving on.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:41 comment added Servy @BryanOakley Once again, you are not forced to choose between downvoting and commenting. You're continually asserting a false dichotomy that downvotes means not commenting. Downvotes are very useful. They're a signal to everyone that a post isn't useful. It's great to not have to waste one's time looking at a bad post, thanks to other community members that have taken the time to indicate that the post is problematic. Again, your indication that we shouldn't be voting based on the quality of the content, but instead on the user, is strictly against the rules. It's called vote fraud.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:40 comment added Bryan Oakley Note: I don't recommend always doing nothing instead of downvoting. I'm saying that for new users, we should pause for a moment and ask ourselves if we can contribute something more useful than just a negative vote. Sometimes the negative vote is appropriate, and sometimes a friendly comment is the better choice, and sometimes both is in order.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:38 comment added Bryan Oakley @Servy: it's important to provide useful feedback that's accurate and swift. I would argue that multiple immediate downvotes without comments aren't particularly useful. Downvotes are difficult to overcome, adding a hurdle for a new user to get benefit out of this site. Seeing a reminder may help some of us choose to go the extra mile for a brand new user.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:33 comment added Servy @BryanOakley It's important to provide feedback that's accurate and swift. Waiting a while to provide feedback on the quality of a post isn't helpful. The sooner you provide feedback the sooner that feedback can be acted on, both by the author, and other readers. One of the primary purposes of votes is to allow other users to have an idea of the communities perception of the quality of a post. By not voting, you're depriving them of that feedback.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:29 comment added Bryan Oakley Ok, I can see how you might interpret that different than I intended. I do think we should not downvote users immediately. This notice gives us a reason to take a pause and ask ourselves if we can do better to help this person than to just downvote and move on. If a new user posts a lousy question and is unable to improve it, it needs to be downvoted appropriately. What I don't like is that sometimes a question will be downvoted to -5 more more before the poor user even has a chance to click the edit button.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:28 comment added Servy @BryanOakley And I demonstrated that your assertion that it's more informative than reputation isn't true. So you're just asserting that it's useful to repeat the same exact information three times, which itself is a repetition of something already there, with no real basis for that. It's irrelevant, and even if you want to see that irrelevant information, it's been there since day one. Repeating it 3 more times isn't adding signal.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:27 comment added Servy @BryanOakley You specifically said that we need to stop downvoting new users. "We've got to stop down-voting new users into oblivion the first time they step foot into this site"
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:26 comment added Bryan Oakley @Servy: I guess the difference is, I see this notice as signal, you see it as noise <shrug>
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:26 comment added Servy @BryanOakley Yes, it's technically possible for a user to have very little rep and not be new. It's also possible for an account to be brand new and for the user to not be new. Both methods have inaccuracies. But both are still good approximations. This isn't a particularly better approximation. Adding a whole bunch of redundant and useless information is very much a bad thing. The whole premise of SO is having a high signal to noise ratio. Adding a ton of noise isn't useful.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:25 comment added Bryan Oakley @Servy: "Your assertion that we should be not downvoting bad posts," - where did I make that assertion? I've never claimed any such thing. Again, don't focus on the 1 or the 100. The point is, this notice gives us more information that will help us do a better job.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:24 comment added Servy @BryanOakley The point there was that it's basically impossible to have a user with 1 reputation that has lots of contributions. It's not to say that downvoting a user with one rep is pointless. Obviously it's still useful feedback on the quality of the post, and so it's very important that people cast the vote, even though it results in no change in reputation. Your assertion that we should be not downvoting bad posts, just because the author is new, is contrary to the guidelines that you should be voting on post content, not the author of a post. Voting based on the author is vote fraud.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:13 comment added Bryan Oakley People seem to be nitpicking my choice of 100 and 1 rather than looking at the meaning behind my comment. Instead of 100 and 1, choose 5 and 2. The point being, a low rep might mean a new user and it might mean something else. This notice clarifies that by adding more information. I do not see additional information as a bad thing.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:07 comment added Bryan Oakley @Servy: "downvotes when a user has 1 reputation don't remove anything." - I disagree. downvotes don't remove reputation, but they serve to discourage new users. That's more important that made-up points. We've got to stop down-voting new users into oblivion the first time they step foot into this site.
Aug 22, 2018 at 21:04 comment added Servy @BryanOakley Upvotes give 2.5x more reputation than downvotes, and downvotes when a user has 1 reputation don't remove anything. A user needs to be getting basically 100% downvotes to stay at 1 rep for more than a few questions, and after a few questions of 100% downvotes, they'll get question banned, rendering the whole point moot. So the only possible way to have more than a few questions necessitates earning some amount of reputation.
Aug 22, 2018 at 18:39 comment added Bryan Oakley @MrWhite: Maybe, maybe not. Don't focus on the number 100. This answer says the indicator isn't adding new information, the point I was trying to make is that I think it does.
Aug 22, 2018 at 17:54 comment added MrWhite @BryanOakley Apart from being impossibly rare, if a user has asked 100 questions and still only has a rep of 1 then they would seem to be doing something wrong and probably need to be treated as a "New contributor"!
Aug 22, 2018 at 15:09 comment added Suvitruf - Andrei Apanasik @BryanOakley I've never seen ppl with 100 questions and 1 rep (:
Aug 22, 2018 at 15:08 comment added Bryan Oakley The reputation number alone doesn't tell the whole story. If their rep is 1, is that because they are brand new, or because they've asked 100 questions and had a mix of up-votes and down-votes that resulted in a total rep of 1.
Aug 21, 2018 at 21:17 history answered Suvitruf - Andrei Apanasik CC BY-SA 4.0