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Peter Mortensen
Peter Mortensen
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TL, DR: it's not only additional tools for the mods, it's entropy in a wicked model.

First, I'd like to say that I can understand the frustration felt with the way the whole site is being [whether intentionally or in a laissez-faire laissez-passer's style] run. And I feel sorry to read in meta about the disengagement of the high-reps, high-commitment, high-quality users. The 1s turning into 4s (from @Mysticial 's great answer to Why is Stack Overflow so negative of late?Mysticial's great answer to Why is Stack Overflow so negative of late?).

I'd love to see the tools you're asking for, but honestly I don't know if they will work entirely on their own. I sometimes think the Q-A model is wicked, and that it'll require a disproportionate amount of effort to go around that wickedness.

Why is it wicked? Because it is made for the 2s and 3s (the help vampires and the reputation whores), but it's built upon the shoulders of the 1s (the caretakers). No wonder 1s are turning into 4s, when there are hordes of OPs asking bad questions that are quickly answered by the hordes of rep harvesters. The problem, I think, is exacerbated by three facts:

  • Question visibility in search engines. Newest questions seem to get a better positioning in search results. This encourages upvoting of duplicates.

  • Reputation awarding rules. If reputation is undistinctively awarded, it will be undistinctively sought (I, in the process of transitioning from a repwhore to a caretaker, can attest [2.5k at the time of writing]). You, high rep people, were likely rep harvesters at one point (with all due respect to those who weren't), so please bear with me.

  • The OP is often ignorant about his own ignorance. You don't know what you don't know, we say in safety awareness. Sometimes the OP is so lost and confused about the question he's asking, that a poor, convoluted question is the best he can come with.

Out of these 3 things, the third is impossible to control, so we need to control the first two if we want to fight entropy. Specially the second one.

So, along with the better tools that @Makoto wants, I think we need to try to straighten the model, lest it naturally wins over us and our intentions.

In practical terms:

  • find a way to signal the best answers to search engines, including the internal one, that doesn't exclusively depend on removing the duplicate / lower quality questions.

  • devise a merging strategy and actively merge questions. I wonder if that wouldn't serve also as a re-engagement strategy for the 4s out there.

  • restructure the rep awarding model to fight against rep harvesting (there are enough ideas about this in meta to write a book).

  • Help repwhores transition into caretakers. Award reputation for helpful flags and even for comments directing the OP to existing answers / obvious glitches, kind advices to rtfm, etc.

Tell me how you measure me, and I tell you how I'll behave. If flagging a duplicate gives me zero points, and quickly answering it gives me at least 15, make no mistake, a lot of people will walk the rewarding path, eroding --unintentionally-- the motivation of those who produce the high quality content we all want to have.

TL, DR: it's not only additional tools for the mods, it's entropy in a wicked model.

First, I'd like to say that I can understand the frustration felt with the way the whole site is being [whether intentionally or in a laissez-faire laissez-passer's style] run. And I feel sorry to read in meta about the disengagement of the high-reps, high-commitment, high-quality users. The 1s turning into 4s (from @Mysticial 's great answer to Why is Stack Overflow so negative of late?).

I'd love to see the tools you're asking for, but honestly I don't know if they will work entirely on their own. I sometimes think the Q-A model is wicked, and that it'll require a disproportionate amount of effort to go around that wickedness.

Why is it wicked? Because it is made for the 2s and 3s (the help vampires and the reputation whores), but it's built upon the shoulders of the 1s (the caretakers). No wonder 1s are turning into 4s, when there are hordes of OPs asking bad questions that are quickly answered by the hordes of rep harvesters. The problem, I think, is exacerbated by three facts:

  • Question visibility in search engines. Newest questions seem to get a better positioning in search results. This encourages upvoting of duplicates.

  • Reputation awarding rules. If reputation is undistinctively awarded, it will be undistinctively sought (I, in the process of transitioning from a repwhore to a caretaker, can attest [2.5k at the time of writing]). You, high rep people, were likely rep harvesters at one point (with all due respect to those who weren't), so please bear with me.

  • The OP is often ignorant about his own ignorance. You don't know what you don't know, we say in safety awareness. Sometimes the OP is so lost and confused about the question he's asking, that a poor, convoluted question is the best he can come with.

Out of these 3 things, the third is impossible to control, so we need to control the first two if we want to fight entropy. Specially the second one.

So, along with the better tools that @Makoto wants, I think we need to try to straighten the model, lest it naturally wins over us and our intentions.

In practical terms:

  • find a way to signal the best answers to search engines, including the internal one, that doesn't exclusively depend on removing the duplicate / lower quality questions.

  • devise a merging strategy and actively merge questions. I wonder if that wouldn't serve also as a re-engagement strategy for the 4s out there.

  • restructure the rep awarding model to fight against rep harvesting (there are enough ideas about this in meta to write a book).

  • Help repwhores transition into caretakers. Award reputation for helpful flags and even for comments directing the OP to existing answers / obvious glitches, kind advices to rtfm, etc.

Tell me how you measure me, and I tell you how I'll behave. If flagging a duplicate gives me zero points, and quickly answering it gives me at least 15, make no mistake, a lot of people will walk the rewarding path, eroding --unintentionally-- the motivation of those who produce the high quality content we all want to have.

TL, DR: it's not only additional tools for the mods, it's entropy in a wicked model.

First, I'd like to say that I can understand the frustration felt with the way the whole site is being [whether intentionally or in a laissez-faire laissez-passer's style] run. And I feel sorry to read in meta about the disengagement of the high-reps, high-commitment, high-quality users. The 1s turning into 4s (from Mysticial's great answer to Why is Stack Overflow so negative of late?).

I'd love to see the tools you're asking for, but honestly I don't know if they will work entirely on their own. I sometimes think the Q-A model is wicked, and that it'll require a disproportionate amount of effort to go around that wickedness.

Why is it wicked? Because it is made for the 2s and 3s (the help vampires and the reputation whores), but it's built upon the shoulders of the 1s (the caretakers). No wonder 1s are turning into 4s, when there are hordes of OPs asking bad questions that are quickly answered by the hordes of rep harvesters. The problem, I think, is exacerbated by three facts:

  • Question visibility in search engines. Newest questions seem to get a better positioning in search results. This encourages upvoting of duplicates.

  • Reputation awarding rules. If reputation is undistinctively awarded, it will be undistinctively sought (I, in the process of transitioning from a repwhore to a caretaker, can attest [2.5k at the time of writing]). You, high rep people, were likely rep harvesters at one point (with all due respect to those who weren't), so please bear with me.

  • The OP is often ignorant about his own ignorance. You don't know what you don't know, we say in safety awareness. Sometimes the OP is so lost and confused about the question he's asking, that a poor, convoluted question is the best he can come with.

Out of these 3 things, the third is impossible to control, so we need to control the first two if we want to fight entropy. Specially the second one.

So, along with the better tools that @Makoto wants, I think we need to try to straighten the model, lest it naturally wins over us and our intentions.

In practical terms:

  • find a way to signal the best answers to search engines, including the internal one, that doesn't exclusively depend on removing the duplicate / lower quality questions.

  • devise a merging strategy and actively merge questions. I wonder if that wouldn't serve also as a re-engagement strategy for the 4s out there.

  • restructure the rep awarding model to fight against rep harvesting (there are enough ideas about this in meta to write a book).

  • Help repwhores transition into caretakers. Award reputation for helpful flags and even for comments directing the OP to existing answers / obvious glitches, kind advices to rtfm, etc.

Tell me how you measure me, and I tell you how I'll behave. If flagging a duplicate gives me zero points, and quickly answering it gives me at least 15, make no mistake, a lot of people will walk the rewarding path, eroding --unintentionally-- the motivation of those who produce the high quality content we all want to have.

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PavoDive
PavoDive
  • 6.5k
  • 12
  • 7

TL, DR: it's not only additional tools for the mods, it's entropy in a wicked model.

First, I'd like to say that I can understand the frustration felt with the way the whole site is being [whether intentionally or in a laissez-faire laissez-passer's style] run. And I feel sorry to read in meta about the disengagement of the high-reps, high-commitment, high-quality users. The 1s turning into 4s (from @Mysticial 's great answer to Why is Stack Overflow so negative of late?).

I'd love to see the tools you're asking for, but honestly I don't know if they will work entirely on their own. I sometimes think the Q-A model is wicked, and that it'll require a disproportionate amount of effort to go around that wickedness.

Why is it wicked? Because it is made for the 2s and 3s (the help vampires and the reputation whores), but it's built upon the shoulders of the 1s (the caretakers). No wonder 1s are turning into 4s, when there are hordes of OPs asking bad questions that are quickly answered by the hordes of rep harvesters. The problem, I think, is exacerbated by three facts:

  • Question visibility in search engines. Newest questions seem to get a better positioning in search results. This encourages upvoting of duplicates.

  • Reputation awarding rules. If reputation is undistinctively awarded, it will be undistinctively sought (I, in the process of transitioning from a repwhore to a caretaker, can attest [2.5k at the time of writing]). You, high rep people, were likely rep harvesters at one point (with all due respect to those who weren't), so please bear with me.

  • The OP is often ignorant about his own ignorance. You don't know what you don't know, we say in safety awareness. Sometimes the OP is so lost and confused about the question he's asking, that a poor, convoluted question is the best he can come with.

Out of these 3 things, the third is impossible to control, so we need to control the first two if we want to fight entropy. Specially the second one.

So, along with the better tools that @Makoto wants, I think we need to try to straighten the model, lest it naturally wins over us and our intentions.

In practical terms:

  • find a way to signal the best answers to search engines, including the internal one, that doesn't exclusively depend on removing the duplicate / lower quality questions.

  • devise a merging strategy and actively merge questions. I wonder if that wouldn't serve also as a re-engagement strategy for the 4s out there.

  • restructure the rep awarding model to fight against rep harvesting (there are enough ideas about this in meta to write a book).

  • Help repwhores transition into caretakers. Award reputation for helpful flags and even for comments directing the OP to existing answers / obvious glitches, kind advices to rtfm, etc.

Tell me how you measure me, and I tell you how I'll behave. If flagging a duplicate gives me zero points, and quickly answering it gives me at least 15, make no mistake, a lot of people will walk the rewarding path, eroding --unintentionally-- the motivation of those who produce the high quality content we all want to have.