Re: Gone all silver
Yes, it is based on upvotes, 2000 that is IIRC.
But what interests me more is why as of today do I have an ignore button and 10 minutes of post-comment edit? Is that a new feature?
Badges for Commentards
Today we introduce badges for commentards. This feature will be rolling out over the next few hours. Check out our story here.
This topic was created by Drewc .
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Monday 28th October 2013 10:05 GMT Evil Auditor
Re: Gone all silver
jake, there is a kind of grey pumpkin face between the commentard's handle and its badge which reads "Repeatedly incoherent? Just ignore them!"
Funny though I cannot ignore myself although I have no doubt about my own incoherent comments. May that be the reason why El Reg granted me a 10 minutes edit?
EDIT: the Edit (10 mins) button reads "Something missed? Afraid of grammar nazis? Edit your post while you can!"
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Tuesday 29th October 2013 04:09 GMT jake
Re: Gone all silver
Ten minutes it is :-)
However, :EDIT: the Edit (10 mins) button reads "Something missed? Afraid of grammar nazis? Edit your post while you can!":
My "edit button" reads "Edit"
The fly-over does read "Something missed? Afraid of grammar nazis? Edit your post while you can!"
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Monday 28th October 2013 10:05 GMT Ralph B
The ignore button is likely to make forums rather incoherent, if some ignore but others reply. The ignorers won't have the context to understand the replies.
And the post-edit is also a bit dodgy - open to gaming. Write a message, wait for a reply, then change the original, make the reply look stupid. Not something I would let a bronze badger (or me) have.
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Monday 28th October 2013 16:12 GMT I ain't Spartacus
They gave the ignore button and ten minute edit to gold-badgers almost as soon as they handed out the badges. As a test apparently. So perhaps we're not the superior forms of life I supposed, merely the beta-bitches...
Then the silver badgers got the edit, months ago. Although weirdly I keep seeing it referred to as 5 minutes, can't imagine why they'd only get half the time. So I guess they've now rolled it out across the board. I suspect they've been meaning to for ages, and just not got round to it.
I've tested my ignore power, but never used it in anger, as I'm too damned nosy. It's not like I have to read more than the first few words of any comment, if it's annoying me.
I do remember being a Mod on a huge forum, many moons ago. And some of our more troublesome users would beg for an ignore button, as they didn't think they had the self-control to ignore the posts of the ones they didn't like. But then in my experience they'd probably put them on ignore - loudly telling them they'd done it - but then take them off ignore to see what was being posted behind their backs, then flame away regardless, ending with the loud promise to ignore them again.
I even got asked by some if we could control an ignore list for them. We didn't have that tool, but I found the ban-hammer to be quite effective at stopping people from flaming all over the forums. Until the ban ran out at least...
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Tuesday 29th October 2013 06:01 GMT Ralph B
Re: @Drewc
Thanks for turning me into a grey badger.
However, as I wrote above, I think you may live to regret introducing the edit functionality. Consider the following scenario:
Poster 1 posts "Your mother dislikes lorry drivers!"
Poster 2 posts "My mother does not dislike lorry drivers!"
Poster 1 then waits nearly 5 (or is it 10?) minutes and changes his post such that "dislikes" is replaced with "fellates".
You get the picture? Then add a million and 1 further varieties of the theme, generated from the depths of depravity of the collective commentard brain.
It's gonna get messy in here. (And funny.)
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Tuesday 29th October 2013 10:47 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: @Drewc
Ralph B,
You've only got 10 minutes to edit. So you need to be watching pretty closely, and for your victim to be answering pretty quickly, and then for them not to see the change in time to edit their post. Plus they can always delete at any time.
I think your depraved commentard brain is running away with you... Although I'm sure someone will manage something amusing. For the particularly paranoid, there's always the solution of not replying to any post that's under 10 minutes old.
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Tuesday 29th October 2013 13:01 GMT Ralph B
Re: @Ian Sparticus
Ian,
> So you need to be watching pretty closely
You're right. But to be sure, I'd like to see the edit window cut short as soon as the first reply comes in.
It would be truely terrible for a pedant to comment on someone's use of their/there/they're and then see the original incorrect usage corrected. My heavens, that would make the correction incorrect and/or superfluous!
Can you imagine the distress that would cause
methe unfortunate predant?-
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Tuesday 29th October 2013 14:05 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: @Evil Auditor
Ralph B,
You've shattered my illusions now. I was just about to congratulate you for the new word predant: to correct someone before they've made the error. And now you tell me that it was just a typo. Boo!
Still, quite a nice one. As I know that in your reply to me, you will incorrectly use the word whom...
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Tuesday 29th October 2013 14:10 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: @drewc
Evil Auditor,
The ignore button never went away. Or at least I've always had it - and still do. Have they taken it away from everyone then? I'd be interested to know how much it gets used, although as they only gave it to about 10 people at first, it's unlikely to be much.
Silver badges are on 2,000 upvotes, and it's not net. So even if you manage to get 20,000 downvotes in the process, you still get to have the badge.
I'd like to see them award badges for downvotes too. Maybe just a brown one, for achieving your first 1,000. Or perhaps a halo above your badge for anyone managing to achieve a ratio of 10 up to 1 down.
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Tuesday 29th October 2013 15:33 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: @drewc
Mr Auditor - or can I just call you Evil,
I believe that it does have to be 2,000 pure Evil Auditor upvotes, and not anon ones, or ones from a previous username (if you've ever changed it). Similarly for the 100 posts allows you html rule, they don't accept anon posts. They really have a thing about anons on 'ere.
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Tuesday 29th October 2013 16:12 GMT Evil Auditor
Re: @drewc
!Spartacus,
I'm not picky about my name. Anything goes as long as it's somehow recognisable.
The problem with the pure evil votes is that they are down ;-) Seriously, there were a few anon comments but I'm not going to check them. Anyhow, I'm not mad about the badges, especially not about the silver and bronze ones. But the idea of the gold badge given at discretion is nice.
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Thursday 31st October 2013 04:43 GMT jake
"Your post will be updated soon - be patient. You have 10 minutes after posting to make it better. "
"Make it better"? Really? Good gawd/ess. That language points squarely at the "do-over" culture that has been polluting yoof for the last couple decades.
Is Sarah Bee's replacement a "Pink Princess"? ::shudder::
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Thursday 31st October 2013 10:29 GMT Evil Auditor
Re: "Your post will [...]* make it better. "
If you want to be understood by the yoof you have to write like the yoof. Not.
Now I do remember Sarah Bee (and how, El Reg, could you have let her go?!) but what the heck is a Pink Princess? Something obscene I didn't know of?
*was too long for a title.
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Friday 1st November 2013 03:17 GMT jake
@ Evil Auditor wonders: (was: Re: "Your post will [...]* make it better. ")
"what the heck is a Pink Princess?"
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella_Ate_My_Daughter
It is a very, very ugly thingie that's been happening here in the US for the last ~20 years. Worse than "Barbie" (which is a subroutine of the phenomenon), even.
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Sunday 10th November 2013 22:08 GMT Cliff
AC's and downvote divas
I would love to see an article on aggregate figures on AC's, sockpuppet accounts (based on IP will do, or browser fingerprinting), and downvote behaviours. I have a pet theory that there are just a few people who habitually use AC posting to generally spout incoherent opinion as facts, and generally because they dread having to justify their febrile ramblings. Some stats and analysis would be interesting reading, especially if well considered like okcupid used to do. Is there at correlation between sockpuppets and downvotes for instance? In fact how many accounts exist which have only downvoted never upvoted? Or only upvoted for one other account? And never posted, just voted? You get the idea.
I thought this reading about ignore buttons and lack thereof above. I wouldn't miss 90+% of AC postings for instance. If we can't ignore, can we shrink the default text size for AC and other accounts, or something like that? So the thread stays intact and a dash of CSS magic and the apparitions don't get the visual credibility of those who post under their own accounts?
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Monday 11th November 2013 09:57 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: AC's and downvote divas
I've barely noticed any sock-puppetry on this site. In the realms of one poster says something, and then another replies immediately saying how wonderful, correct and perceptive they are. Also, despite many accusations, I don't notice many shills around here either. You see the accusation a lot, but it's rare that it looks convincing. More that it's a standard insult for people that don't agree. I've seen a few, very obvious ones, although it's obviously hard to tell if the marketing bods have been subtle (for once) and built up an account's reputation with regular non-shill posts.
I don't know if it's just me, but the numbers of votes seem to have gone down in the last month or two. Along with the number of forum posts on the non-article forums.
I remember commenting, on an article on Julian Assange I think, where I got a couple of up and down votes pretty quickly. I came back to the thread and read down about 10 comments, so we're only talking a minute, and clicked on 'My posts' again as the quicker way to get back to mine, and see if there was a reply. Suddenly, in under 2 minutes I'd gone from 2 up - 2 down to about 2 up - 12 down. I suppose it's possible, I'm not Julian's number one fan, and he does provoke some strong opinions. But I've never seen voting that fast before, up or down. It's also possible the site was just updating the votes slowly, and did a whole batch at once.
I've had most of a page of my comments, mostly in different articles, downvoted at once before. And a few other users have had that happen. Which is quite amusing. But they're obviously not using multiple accounts, or surely they'd have multi-downvoted the post that actually annoyed them, rather than resorting to the tedium of clicking through your post history.
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Monday 11th November 2013 16:05 GMT Cliff
Re: AC's and downvote divas
^^ you could well be right, I'd still be interested to see some real numbers though - I just find it interesting. I enjoyed reading the okcupid blogs where they did some statistical correlations spotting some fascinating patterns.
My personal observation is that you can go from 2+2- to 2+12- on any Apple article with a neutral or non-Apple-positive comment when America comes online. Seppoes sure love their Apples.
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Tuesday 12th November 2013 07:04 GMT jake
Re: Ugh
My opinion?
Stick with your handle. The idiots following you around after some perceived sleight don't deserve the "victory" of your name going away.
Badges? We don't need no stinking badges. They are an ugly artifact of marketing.
So-called "thumbs" are worse ... random, faceless idiots trying to do a binary "I approve" vs. "I disagree", without actual explanation, is pretty much next to useless.
ElReg really needs to reconsider the entire "badge" and "thumbs" concept. It scares people, and keeps them from posting. It's not censorship, but it is stifling over the long-haul.
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Sunday 17th November 2013 01:20 GMT Hungry Sean
opposable thumbs
Jake, I've got mixed feelings about the badges myself, but the thumbs do serve a valuable purpose in my opinion, and having both directions is an important part of it. In real life, if I say something, people may not respond to me with a considered response, but simply smile or laugh, or instead frown or storm out of the room. The thumbs provide a similarly light-weight means of response. I'm sure I've occasionally made the inflammatory post-- the forums would be pretty crummy to use if everyone who felt one way or the other about it had to post "me too" to that (see some of the old forums with Eadon as an example of how this can go wrong).
It strikes me that your personal grudge against the thumbs might be that you receive consistent negative feedback through the medium. Possibly you don't get this in real life-- it strikes me based on your posting history that you are a person who has a good deal of authority and possibly people are fearful to tell you when you're being an ass. Maybe instead of railing against a feature on a website that has no real impact to you, it might be worth considering why you are drawing consistent negative reactions when I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of thumbs on the site are up rather than down.
I don't think you're a troll and I do think you frequently have good contributions to the forums, but the constant one-upmanship and boasting about how amazing your life in Sonoma making everything yourself and expressing your contempt for people who don't live as well or aren't able to do as many things as you do is tiresome and childish.
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Sunday 17th November 2013 08:23 GMT jake
@ Hungry Sean (was: Re: opposable thumbs)
I have no grudge against thumbs. It's a logical thing, when you think about it. Consider that I can easily write a script to either "thumbs up" myself for all the posts in my posting history, using any number of open proxies ... or likewise, "thumbs down" all of the posts in your posting history.
In the case of me personally clicking (running a script to) "thumbs up" my own posts, only I would know that it happened. I'm not narcissistic. So that will never happen.
In the case of me down voting all your posts, I see no real reason for that ... I did do that as an example a while back. I down voted all of a user's posts on the current first page of their posting history. Manually. I regret it.
My point stands. Thumbs are pointless as currently implemented.
As for "badges" ... surely we're long past serf to crown?
No badge = the rabble.
Bronze = valued foot soldiers.
Silver = Been here long enough to make the kingdom money.
Gold = Self-appointed Nobility (or by the Nobility).
Seriously, grow up ElReg. Allow humans to interact without artificial, meaningless pigeonholes.
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Tuesday 26th November 2013 11:55 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: opposable thumbs @Hungry Sean
Evil Auditor,
You get your silver badger automatically, once you hit 2,000 upvotes on Evil Auditor posts. Not anon, or previous username ones.
I agree on the downvotes, I try to reserve them for trolls, idiots who don't read the damned articles, and humourless grumpy-guts. Mostly this seems to be a majority upvote site. But some people do seem to use them as 'I disagree'. I've also had a recent bunch of downvotes for what I thought were uncontroversial short jokes. So I suspect someone is also using them for 'you aren't funny'.
You always used to get downvoted for saying anything positive about Windows Phone, but now there's a larger number of people on here who use it. And that hasn't happened to me of late. Saying anything even vaguely bad about Google or Android gets downvotes though. The Google fanboys are alive and well, it seems. Snowden and Assange both seem to bring out the voting frenzy on both sides. I find myself doing it too. I see a reasonable post that's been unfairly (in my view) downvoted, and feel the need to give it a sympathy upvote. Tend to do this any time I come across it, so I find myself voting a lot if I bother to read an Assange/Snowden thread. Once I'm hitting the buttons already, I think that also makes me more likely to hit downvote. Although that could just be because so much crap gets written on those threads.
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Tuesday 26th November 2013 12:15 GMT Evil Auditor
Re: opposable thumbs @Hungry Sean
I ain't Spartacus,
you aren't funny - It seems that some commentards simply don't do humour. There are posts (not only mine) which I believe cannot be mistaken as a serious contribution. Truth is, they can and are.
Also saying anything critical about Apple tends to fire up the votes, in both directions.
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Tuesday 26th November 2013 11:43 GMT Evil Auditor
Re: opposable thumbs @Hungry Sean
I agree that the thumbs serve a purpose - but which purpose? Do I thumb-down a comment because I don't agree with it or because it is rubbish? Personally, I hardy thumb-down a post unless, eg it's inflammatory and humourless, even if I agree with it. Then there seem to be people around who thumb-down a comment simply because it was posted by jake.
However inconsistently they are used, I don't think we should get rid of the thumbs. The only bad thing was to insert the three top comments below the article which was a kind of thumbs-up machine. But El Reg got rid of this long ago.
The badges though, well, I addressed my reservations already earlier on. Btw, is the silver badge awarded automatically?
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Tuesday 26th November 2013 11:39 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Sheesh!
Someone else,
Perhaps this comment took you back over the edge? As you have now been re-embadgened.
But I think it's a perfectly logical decision. By being ill, and failing to post inane drivel on El Reg, you were letting them down. Abandoning them! Just because of a minor thing like bits of you being chopped up. What a wuss! Man up! You should have been posting interesting IT-related musings from the operating table, and witty banter from the recovery room...
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Tuesday 26th November 2013 12:00 GMT Evil Auditor
Re: Sheesh!
I ain't Spartacus,
Not only that but Someone Else should have told us upfront of his surgery plans and, of course, where and when it was going to take place. So, someone else would have had the chance to hack and fiddle the surgery schedule, changing both the surgeon to someone else and the planned operation. And now Someone Else would instead of having a new knee be missing at least his/her testicles/boobs. That way Someone Else would not only have posted witty comments but also passively created a totally IT-related story for El Reg and thereby contributed to someone else's living and many else's entertainment.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
