Took place on 2016-07-22 18:22
Is there an explanation of why you used a different model than Q&A edits for Docs edits?
On main users are encouraged to create their own answer if they aren't satisfied with an answer.
I see no problem with encouraging new examples then letting the votes decide.
@davidism Nothing written down. But we've not revamped editing in ages and this seemed like a good chance to try something new. I personally can't wait for it to be ported to Q&A.
@JonEricson good thing that's been discussed with the community?
How do you determine who a downvote applies to then? (Or an upvote.)
@davidism I'm not sure what you mean. It didn't make a lot of sense to talk about before launch and there are much bigger fish to fry at the moment. Why not bring it up on meta?
Because that's like a drop in the sea right now. And I wasn't aware you were considering it either.
@davidism Voting has
always applied to content, not people.
@JonEricson not in terms of who gets rep, privileges, or punishments.
It seems a lot easier now for remoras to attach to bigger questions and ride the rep train.
"Oh, you came up with a well explained example that I could never have come up with, but there's a couple typos? Cha-ching!"
@davidism That's a side effect of voting. It shouldn't be a prime consideration.
Moderating the users shouldn't be a prime consideration?
What has the last X years of meta discussion and voting been about then?
@davidism Voting != moderation.
Sure it does. Users who are not posting quality content get banned.
Or at least strongly discouraged from posting more.
. . . as a side effect. We use votes as data points.
Yes, as data points for moderating users.
@JonEricson Maybe you could give a more concrete example of what you mean?
@davidism If you see a bad example, your instinct should be to fix it, not punish the author(s) or block them from getting reputation.
@JonEricson ok, tell that to users who consistently come into
flask and ask terrible questions or make incorrect answers and don't take advice.
I downvote there
mercilessly to maintain quality.
@JonEricson huh? You just said it wasn't good, that I should edit all their questions and answers into shape instead.
@JonEricson thereby rewarding low effort with high quality edits that will net them rep, and allowing edits to high quality content that will net them more rep.
@davidism Documentation != Q&A.
@JonEricson thereby granting them privileges that they're not suited to have.
@JonEricson you just said you wanted the models to be the same though.
@davidism In terms of voting on content, not users, yes.
@JonEricson you've lost me. I've always been voting on content, not users. The issue is that you're saying that my edits to other's content and their edits to my work should get them privileges because the votes will now apply to all contributors, despite the quality of their contributions to the post.
@davidism Well, we're going to try it out and see what happens.
@JonEricson Based on all the mass editing and rep fluctuations yesterday, I'm pretty sure it's already evident that users are getting more rep than the effort they put in.
@davidism That depends on how you percieve contribution
@Magisch I'm fine with reputation for edits as a one time thing. I'm not fine with reputation for upvotes to things you edited.
@davidism I think just whats happening now is the initial gold rush and improvement frenzy
@Magisch Really? You don't think that, if people realise they can get "easy rep" for free, they won't continue trying it?
@davidism Thats kind of a necessity though, since the initial author usually has very little part of the "finished product" that he's accountable for, don't you think?
@Magisch no, because that's obviously not the case on Q&A and it works fine
@Magisch Depends. What I've written so far I've tried to make complete, where possible.
@Ffisegydd Well yeah, but most of the very popular topics will settle in, and getting an edit through for any of these will be hard
@Magisch Users are perfectly capable of having a large part in the finished product of their post.
@davidism Well yeah, because Q/A is generally 1 answer = 1 user, content wise. Docs is setup to be not that.
Its like a prolific community wiki post in Q/A
except that now people get rep for it
@hairboat so since we're "waiting and seeing" for everything, are there plans to put out regular statistics about what is happening, especially in areas of the model that are significantly different than Q&A?
@davidism This ain't Q&A, you don't own anything. Collaboration means everyone's working together. Things you edited vs what? Things you created? No, that's not how collaboration works
@davidism almost certainly. we've been talking a lot about how SO felt during its first few months--where almost every new feature or decision or discussion got blogged about. lots of us feel that this new rollout is an opportunity to get back to those roots
@Quill has anyone had a problem with not receiving rep for upvotes after editing posts? I don't think there's ever been that expectation.
@davidism because you own posts in Q&A. You don't own anything in Docs
because edits in Q/A are strictly relatively minor improvements to a post's appearance, not additions or fixes of its core content
Given that Docs is part of the SO model, it's weird that suddenly the model is completely different.
@Magisch why can't they be for examples? Post more examples, let the votes decide.
No, it's not. "SO model" isn't a thing, Question and Answer model does not work for Documentation
@Quill how do we know that, we didn't even try. (since we're talking about trying and seeing).
This isn't about somebody helping you copyedit your answers, you're working in psuedo-groups to create content
@davidism Well, doc is intended to be generally a collaborative effort
where instead of posting your own, you fix the current one
Answers are collaborative...
@Magisch I'm pretty sure Q&A is intended to be collaborative too, or I've really misunderstood why edits are a thing.
@davidism Collaboration != Somebody owning it
@davidism Edits are a thing because people write badly formatted stuff that looks bad
@davidism Its collaborative in the sense that we all help polish and maintain the Q/A
But not in the sense that I go ahead and add my 2 cents of technical expertise to your answer on some question
And why can't we do exactly the same thing in Docs?
Because you don't own anything in Docs, we can't have a "editors don't get rep" because you don't own anything, there is no author
The idea of a wiki-like structure doesn't lend well to that
You're attempting to turn documentation into a more broad version of Q/A
Which is as far as I've got the hunch so far not what its supposed to be about
OK, so it's good that users who fix typos get the same rep, and therefore the same privileges, as users who wrote the majority of the example in the first place?
I think we need to re-define what is meant by a substantive edit, really. I've seen (and written!) some edits are that
not substantive, just little grammar crap. It's not worth rep.
@davidism Which is why we're trying to find a compromise on what a substantive edit is
@davidism IIRC they're working to seperate edits based on substantiveness
Again, I'm not against edits getting rep, I'm against all actions getting equal reward in perpetuity.
@davidism there is some checking for "substance" already but only for badges AFAIK
And tweaks to that end will occur
I bet you some rep, though, that if you talk to a staff member about your concern/idea, they'll say "post it to meta and tag it
documentation"
@davidism Under the premise that its very possible and likely that editors other then the main post owner make substantial additions to an article or example
How would you distinguish between who gets perpetual rep and who doesn't?
@Magisch the same way Q&A does: I wouldn't.
Edits get +2 once, upvotes get rep for the op.
@davidism So now you're arguing against the concept of collaborative creating of articles?
@davidism Congrats, you just invented Q&A
@Quill great, it's worked out pretty well so far.
That's not how truly collaborative editing works
@davidism So what stops me from authoring a bunch of bare bones topics and let editors pick up the slack? There's only supposed to be one article per topic, you know.
>getting equal reward in perpetuity.
Definitely; the value of an upvote on a doc you edited should at the very least diminish as your contribution diminishes in impact: # editors after you, % of current item that you are responsible for, or just time.
@davidism 5 different people shouldn't create 5 slightly different versions of "how to cat 2 strings in C" and then let votes decide
Thats not how doc is supposed to work, afaik.
@Magisch topics don't get rep, examples do.
@Magisch just like people who post the same answer months later don't get much (or get downvoted), the same would happen for examples.
@JoshCaswell that'd also mean that the original author gets less over time if his work is changed a lot
You could imagine something like
git blame (not exactly because
blame is on a line-by-line basis so a single whitespace character change could "steal" the ownership)
@Magisch I'd be ok with that, because I think in the vast majority of cases the op's percentage doesn't change substantially.
That was exactly my thought, @Ffisegydd. It's game-able, but so is everything.
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