4 ms·

Yeah, I've been following r/spacex for a little bit. When they started trying to work out some good questions a day ago someone suggested that everyone upvote

by Cogito 12y ago

Yeah, I've been following r/spacex for a little bit. When they started trying to work out some good questions a day ago someone suggested that everyone upvote the resulting questions but the mods there quickly shut that down. [1] The reasons given for deleting the comments was specifically what everyone was trying to avoid, that is voting brigading. As far as I can tell no one was asking for votes, simply working together to produce some high quality questions. [1] https://i.imgur.com/lBCWvQh.png https://i.imgur.com/lBCWvQh.png

jacquesm 12y ago
That's the attitude that they say murdered wikipedia. Rules are there to foster a better community, not to kill off good community initiatives. As soon as the adherence to the rules becomes more important than the quality of the product you've basically lost it. The whole trick is to know when not to apply the rules. AMAs are an exceptional item and a different ruleset for AMAs would not be all that hard to imagine. Pity.
- jebus989 12y ago
  "Murdered" Wikipedia whose fifth pillar is "ignore all rules"?
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6612638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6612638 http://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism http://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism And many others like it.
    - jebus989 12y ago
      Sure editor numbers are in decline, that doesn't support your point. Ignore All Rules is one of the fundamental principles the site was founded on.
      - jacquesm 12y ago
        The point is that that fundamental principle seems to be ignored by people that prefer to bicker over the rules rather than to be otherwise productive: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8596682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8596682 And that this in turn is what drives editors away. So it very much supports my point.
        jebus989 12y ago
        You're making leaps of logic based on the occasional HN anecdote. Numbers have been in decline since 2007, what percentage of those left over bickering about rules? Do you have any evidence for this given that IAR has been in place as a core principle throughout? IAR can be and indeed is invoked all the time, making Wikipedia a bad example of how strict rule adherence stifles a community. It was quite a simple point that needn't warrant downvotes, italics and so many HN searches.
        jacquesm 12y ago
        > Do you have any evidence for this given that IAR has been in place as a core principle throughout? > It was quite a simple point that needn't warrant downvotes, italics and so many HN searches. You ask for more evidence in the same comment in which you rant against 'so many HN searches', do you notice the inconsistency there?
        jebus989 12y ago
        Happy to continue to debate this point (possibly on another medium?) but no, a comment 437 days ago on HN saying "I once tried to edit but was reverted" is not evidence that too many rules have "murdered wikipedia", your original contention with which I took issue.
        DanBC 12y ago
        Can you provide any on-WP examples of people using IAR sucessfully?
        12y ago
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Wikipedia has spent many megabytes of text to argue about hyphen, minus, en-dash, and em-dash. These arguments (different arguments among different people) spread over diffferent pages and different spaces. They happened on article talk pages; in meta space (village pump, the WP manual of style); in admin spaces (ANI); even with some ARBCOM case. There's easily 500,000 words about hyphen, minus, en-dash and em-dash on wikipedia. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600342
  - grecy 12y ago
    > fifth pillar is "ignore all rules"? Go and make some useful edits and see how that works out for you. Rules are strictly enforced above all else.
    - jebus989 12y ago
      Unsure of how much editing you've done but I've made over 10,000 edits over the past 9 years and that's not been my experience (google my HN username + wikipedia).
      - grecy 12y ago
        I wonder if it's an experienced editor vs. newbie thing. Everything I try to do is immediately reverted and sixteen rules are cited. Extremely frustrating, and it happens to many others in the community I'm in (Driving around the world) to the point I setup our own wiki so we don't have to deal with the BS bureaucracy of Wikipedia.
- debacle 12y ago
  Reddit hasn't been about community in about a year, and /r/IAmA is a huge part of that. It's a huge profit center for reddit and they moderate it heavily.
DanBC 12y ago
One of the few things you can do that will get Reddit admin attention is to "manipulate" votes. It's not surprising that mods are cautious when people say "get this whole sub to upvote the post". From a first reading that screenshot sounds like vote-brigading, not like using a single thread of questions within a sub to organise a list of great questions.
- Cogito 12y ago
  Yes you lose some context in the screenshot. That comment was posted to the single thread of questions in the sub, and was quickly shot down by the subs mods (u/EchoLogic). Here is a link to the actual comment if anyone is interested in having a look: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2rb303/elon_musk_is_doing_a_ama_tomorrow_jan_5/cne6984?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2rb303/elon_musk_is...

by Cogito 12y ago

jacquesm 12y ago

That's the attitude that they say murdered wikipedia. Rules are there to foster a better community, not to kill off good community initiatives. As soon as the adherence to the rules becomes more important than the quality of the product you've basically lost it. The whole trick is to know when not to apply the rules. AMAs are an exceptional item and a different ruleset for AMAs would not be all that hard to imagine. Pity.

jebus989 12y ago
"Murdered" Wikipedia whose fifth pillar is "ignore all rules"?
- jacquesm 12y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6612638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6612638 http://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism http://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism And many others like it.
  - jebus989 12y ago
    Sure editor numbers are in decline, that doesn't support your point. Ignore All Rules is one of the fundamental principles the site was founded on.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      The point is that that fundamental principle seems to be ignored by people that prefer to bicker over the rules rather than to be otherwise productive: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8596682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8596682 And that this in turn is what drives editors away. So it very much supports my point.
      - jebus989 12y ago
        You're making leaps of logic based on the occasional HN anecdote. Numbers have been in decline since 2007, what percentage of those left over bickering about rules? Do you have any evidence for this given that IAR has been in place as a core principle throughout? IAR can be and indeed is invoked all the time, making Wikipedia a bad example of how strict rule adherence stifles a community. It was quite a simple point that needn't warrant downvotes, italics and so many HN searches.
        jacquesm 12y ago
        > Do you have any evidence for this given that IAR has been in place as a core principle throughout? > It was quite a simple point that needn't warrant downvotes, italics and so many HN searches. You ask for more evidence in the same comment in which you rant against 'so many HN searches', do you notice the inconsistency there?
        jebus989 12y ago
        Happy to continue to debate this point (possibly on another medium?) but no, a comment 437 days ago on HN saying "I once tried to edit but was reverted" is not evidence that too many rules have "murdered wikipedia", your original contention with which I took issue.
        DanBC 12y ago
        Can you provide any on-WP examples of people using IAR sucessfully?
      - 12y ago
- DanBC 12y ago
  Wikipedia has spent many megabytes of text to argue about hyphen, minus, en-dash, and em-dash. These arguments (different arguments among different people) spread over diffferent pages and different spaces. They happened on article talk pages; in meta space (village pump, the WP manual of style); in admin spaces (ANI); even with some ARBCOM case. There's easily 500,000 words about hyphen, minus, en-dash and em-dash on wikipedia. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600342
- grecy 12y ago
  > fifth pillar is "ignore all rules"? Go and make some useful edits and see how that works out for you. Rules are strictly enforced above all else.
  - jebus989 12y ago
    Unsure of how much editing you've done but I've made over 10,000 edits over the past 9 years and that's not been my experience (google my HN username + wikipedia).
    - grecy 12y ago
      I wonder if it's an experienced editor vs. newbie thing. Everything I try to do is immediately reverted and sixteen rules are cited. Extremely frustrating, and it happens to many others in the community I'm in (Driving around the world) to the point I setup our own wiki so we don't have to deal with the BS bureaucracy of Wikipedia.
debacle 12y ago
Reddit hasn't been about community in about a year, and /r/IAmA is a huge part of that. It's a huge profit center for reddit and they moderate it heavily.

DanBC 12y ago

One of the few things you can do that will get Reddit admin attention is to "manipulate" votes. It's not surprising that mods are cautious when people say "get this whole sub to upvote the post". From a first reading that screenshot sounds like vote-brigading, not like using a single thread of questions within a sub to organise a list of great questions.

Cogito 12y ago
Yes you lose some context in the screenshot. That comment was posted to the single thread of questions in the sub, and was quickly shot down by the subs mods (u/EchoLogic). Here is a link to the actual comment if anyone is interested in having a look: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2rb303/elon_musk_is_doing_a_ama_tomorrow_jan_5/cne6984?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2rb303/elon_musk_is...