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Hi Chris,
Can you consider making comments mandatory when a person decides to downvote an answer in the Q&A section? Many of my answers (which I believe to be correct) have been downvoted. While I don't bother losing reputation points, I would be worried if someone chose to ignore my answer because of the downvotes.
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The problem with this is the fact that downvoting with comments can simply be overcome by somebody typing "asdfg" which means that there's no value added with it.
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: there's no value added with it
Yes there is. Then you know who is downvoting you, which makes it easier to spot trolls. You can also report comments... it could be implemented that, if there are enough reports, the comment gets removed and the vote along with it (like messages in articles).
Martin Fowler wrote: Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
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And how, other than causing feuds, does knowing who downvoted you help? It hasn't helped with articles, so why would it work there?
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It limits trollish behavior, because people shy away from publicly being an ass. Also, you can now report trolls. Enough votes, and their account is suspended.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote: It hasn't helped with articles
Somebody downvoted one of my articles for no good reason. After enough votes to remove, their message was automatically removed, along with their vote.
Martin Fowler wrote: Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: And how, other than causing feuds, does knowing who downvoted you help?
Come on, Pete. Isn't this what you really meant: And how, other than causing feuds, does downvoting help?
My answer: downvoting doesn't help anything or anyone, in any circumstance.
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Hans Dietrich wrote: My answer: downvoting doesn't help anything or anyone, in any
circumstance.
Absolutely right! 
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It motivates authors who have written crappy articles to improve them. It also helps people searching for quality articles avoid crappy ones.
If you are one of those who thinks we should only upvote, my answer to that is that it doesn't differentiate between unpopular articles and crappy articles.
"Articles" is interchangable in this case with "questions", "answers", and "messages". Downvotes are a useful feedback mechanism, even if it's not a perfect system.
Martin Fowler wrote: Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
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AspDotNetDev wrote: Downvotes are a useful feedback mechanism, even if it's not a perfect system.
Downvoting is not only not perfect, it is the worst possible system. It is extremely unlikely that an author of a crappy article will think, "Oh wait. I might get downvoted".
AspDotNetDev wrote: my answer to that is that it doesn't differentiate between unpopular articles and crappy articles.
Are you saying you can't distinguish between an article getting no votes (in the "no downvoting" scenario), and an article (today) getting low votes? I can't believe you mean that.
I think what you're missing are all the people (yes, a lot of them new authors) who come to this forum and ask, Why was I downvoted? If my article is so bad, maybe I should just remove it? It's hard to explain to these authors, after taking a close look at their article, that their article is actually pretty good, but that CodeProject has a problem with malicious, immature downvoters, who come to this site simply to cause trouble, like it was a game.
It's a game that the owners of this site can put a stop to immediately, but so far have refused to do so. But don't worry, their reason for not fixing this problem is the same lame reason you just gave, so I doubt if it will ever be fixed, even with all the people who come to this forum looking for answers. And even after other senior members here tell them to eliminate downvoting.
So please do me a favor. The next time an author posts here about a downvote, take a look at his article, and explain to the author why downvoting is a Good Thing. It sickens me to think of the number of productive new authors who have been driven away by this stupid and unnecessary voting system.
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AspDotNetDev wrote: my answer to that is that it doesn't differentiate between unpopular articles and crappy articles.
Hans Dietrich wrote: Are you saying you can't distinguish between an article getting no votes (in the "no downvoting" scenario), and an article (today) getting low votes? I can't believe you mean that.
Hans, this is one of the issue you and I discussed. It may be valuable for your to explain your concept on how a new article with a couple of upvotes compares to a poor article with a dozen mates' upvotes. Certainly: over time the good article will get plenty of up votes, but the day the article is posted the poor article will appear more valuable than the good article. There is absolutely no way for high level members to cast correcting votes to the poor article, and the day the article is posted is the day a new author watches their article. I get far, far more emails from members complaining that poor articles have higher-than-deserved votes (hence knocking them off the front page) than I hear from prospective authors upset at a downvote.
Getting back to the core issue here: your issue with the voting system boils down to it dissuading new authors because they see a "1". A downvote requires a comment, and a comment may provide context for the downvote that will help the new author. You take away the ability to downvote with the necessity of the comment and you get a poor article with little or no feedback. It will stand as it is and will not be improved. If no vote is cast but the same comment is posted sans vote then is that not as demoralising for the author? Or, if the downvote is cast and the comment is crap, then we have the options that either the author dismisses the comment and the vote as meaningless, and moves on unperturbed, or the author is upset because there is a blemish on their article.
So to me there are two scenarios where an author will be upset with a downvotes:
1. They are downvoted and they disagree with the vote and comment
2. They are downvoted and the comment is meaningless so they have an undeserved downvote and are upset at this.
1. If they disagree with the downvote then they have the simple option of replying and asking for clarification, or disputing the comment and providing information as to why the voter is wrong.
2. If the vote is spurious then they, and others can vote to remove the comment (and vote). Anyone scanning the messages sees the "My vote of 1", sees the pointless message, and discounts the vote.
In both cases, as soon as 10 votes are cast, spurious votes will be removed. Maybe this will reset the score to something more to the author's liking. Maybe the author is already insulted that they have received a 1 vote, deserved or not. Maybe the article has garnered mostly downvotes, the author hasn't updated (or does not wish to) and it is doomed.
Either way the issue is the author may be insulted and leave. I understand this, and this seems to be the crux of your argument.
I will never, ever make everyone happy no matter what I do so I need to do what is right for the site. A rating out of 5 allows us to weight articles in our search algorithm better. It allows us to inform Google about the relative value of our articles so they can rank articles better. It provides a way to compare the value of two articles with a differing number of votes, and provides a quick and effective way for top members to correct spurious voting.
Having only upvotes means you're saying "you will never be criticised, for better or worse" which will mean a very very small percentage of our authors won't be dissuaded from posting. This will increase article volume by a correspondingly small amount. I don't see this as a fair trade. Upvotes-only also means no relative comparison of articles, no ability to say "I liked it, but didn't love it", no way for a member viewing an article in isolation to see the value of an article. Is 10 "likes" good? What about 100? That other article had 1,500 likes, but this only has 250? Is it bad article? I can't tell.
As an aside I remember, many years ago, a new member who posted a slew of new articles. They were all a bit ordinary and he was downvoted and had many a comment. He continued posting, and each new article gained more votes, and more comments, and more critique. In some places he was slammed, in others simply torn apart to show the problems with his approaches, and the votes corresponded to the comments and feeling on the articles. He continued and every article became better, and better, and better until each article he postd gained instant 5's. He had a huge reputation, was considered an expert in his field, wrote a number of books, and gained a job that allowed him to move from his Native India to the US. That author was Nish, and I will never forget watching a young, green programmer become transformed so quickly and powerfully by the comments and critiques and suggestions.
I grew up in the field of science where everything you publish is critiqued, and that critique helped you improve. Rewarding effort and potential is very important. Rewarding excellence is more important. You have said you don't care about downvotes. They mean nothing to you. I'm guessing the downvotes Nish has, or Sacha or Marc Clifton or any of the other tops authors have, also mean very little to them. These authors are the authors I need to think about.
While I understand your concerns about feelings being hurt by a downvote I do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Just an idea... have you considered coloring the top 10% of messages in a forum green rather than any over the minumum vote of 4 (or whatever the current noise level indicates)? Perhaps unnecessary, but thought I'd mention the idea after the recent upvoting sprees. Maybe even add that as an option to the "Noise Level" drop down.
Martin Fowler wrote: Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
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And if the top 10% are still rubbish?
Nah.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: And if the top 10% are still rubbish?
Wouldn't you be glad to only take out 10% of your trash? 
Martin Fowler wrote: Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
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Can a user delete his/her own comment after downvote on article? Seems like that should be blocked, defeats the purpose of requesting a comment.
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If the comment is deleted, so is the vote.
There was a bug that allowed votes to be changed after a comment. This was fixed a week or so ago.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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I have a downvote with a deleted comment on a tip/trick... his reasoning was "I'm a copycat of sorts"... don't know what that meant...
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The forums don't work in Chrome. When hovering over the posts, the page seems to 'crash'. You can't scroll and then most of the links in the page don't work--the links in the top half of the screen tend to work at times but the MouseOver style doesn't. Doing a search shows OriginalGriff had a similar problem earlier on.
Even though you've taken tree hinting off it still crashes for me. FlashBlock had been disabled and the only other extensions installed are 'Chrome to Phone', 'Avast! WebRep' and a PDF-PowerPoint viewer by Google--none of which should cause the crash.
Using Chrome v14 on Win7 Home Prem. x64. IE9 works perfect.
Thanks,
Hassan
(Just wondering, how many other people are having a similar problem?)
Hassan
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It's probably those HTML5 lines causing the crash.
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Maybe, but no one else seems to be having the same problem..
Hassan
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Last I heard from OriginalGriff, my fixes had, well, fixed it. If it's still an issue then I'll disable it for Chrome only.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Thanks for the response. Did you make the change? It still seems to be crashing. Since no one else seems to be experiencing it, perhaps it's something on my end..
Cheers,
Hassan
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I've just made the change, though Chrome likes to hold on to old scripts, so Ctrl_F5 may be necessary until I do a full upload and change the version number of the script.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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It works now, Thanks..
Hassan
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Can you please confirm it's still working? I've made a change that should give you the connector lines while also avoiding a crash.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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