This is not meant to be a popular node, but I beg your people to keep this post, and allowing opposition as long as it bear truth.
Very often, people post answers that are wrong, I hate that. Although this is not altogether avoidable, because of different levels of tech background, but at least be nice not to answer questions that one is not familiar with.
When some of us came for XP points, most only came for question and answer. Please leave those people alone, and don't play XP games on them. There are plenty of opportunity for XP point, but restrain yourself to only provide correct answers, even duplicates would be fine, at least confirms the correct answer, and at the same time gain some XP points. Harmless at least.
If you see an answer that is wrong, reply to it and explain why it is wrong. That's how it works around here.
I think you are assuming far too much with your premise that wrong posts are about XP. Often times, people think they know the answer and are wrong. Or they take a guess that turns out to be untrue. Or they misread the question. Or many other things... So please adjust your assumptions.
But is it not true that stupid people are much worse than criminals. Criminals are at least smart unless they got caught or convicted.
Well, I take my comment back, stupid answers came the same way, before they got caught.
But it becomes different when a wrong answer got "confirmed" by XP points. Let's don't say that XP point is nothing, it is something. Lots of learners will judge the merit of the answers base on XP points.
Yes, people who post wrong answers don't know that fact themselves and didn't mean to cheat others, but at least they know whether they are good at particular areas.
For example, in that ugly thread about Oracle. I trust that most of the monks here, including myself, never used Oracle, as it is not free. So at least keep quiet. With a DB like Oracle, even if you have worked as a application programmer, you still don't know much about the DB...
XP points is related in a way. Without XP point, people will be less eager to provide answers (unless they really have answers). Willing to provide answer is different from eager to provide.
For example, in that ugly thread about Oracle. I trust that most of the monks here, including myself, never used Oracle, as it is not free. So at least keep quiet. With a DB like Oracle, even if you have worked as a application programmer, you still don';t know much about the DB...
I am very sorry that I don't seem to get the point and not keep quiet either:
I haven't seen so many answers in the named OT thread. And although one of them isn't what the OP asked for, it was no bad guess that it might have been useful to him. We learned that it wasn't after all, but the answering monk had to try first.
I learned something from that answer too, so I am grateful for that.
I also checked: none of the notes in that thread are in Best Nodes of the day, so your claim that it was all for reputation doesn't stand the test of the monks.
As a side note on using Oracle: While you're right about Oracle not being free, I have never had to pay for it. Every time I've been asking Oracle for a copy or license as a developer, telling them what I intended to do, I got one for free for the time I was needing it. They have a developer network and they have a user group programme, and they are either too curious or too kind, it seems, to deny you a copy when you ask them politely.
PS: or did you mean the trollbitten oracle thread? You didn't say.
Cheers, Sören
Yes, people who post wrong answers don't know that fact themselves and didn't mean to cheat others, but at least they know whether they are good at particular areas. ... So at least keep quiet.
Sorry, but discussion is what this Perlmonks is about. Sometimes a wrong answer teaches more than 15 correct answers. If you expect every answer to be spot-on, you've come to the wrong place.
Update: based on the, *ahem*, discussion beneath this post, I thought I should clarify my position a bit. I do not think we should encourage or approve of answers that are either intentionally wrong, purposefully misleading, or woefully uninformed. But that's different from simply incorrect. The former should be condemned, for sure, but the latter should be accepted as a cost of discussion, and dealt with in a constructive way (e.g. explaining why it's wrong).
Sometimes a wrong answer teaches more than 15 correct answers.Yeah, and sometimes running a red light can be a life saver. That doesn't mean that a request to stop for a red light isn't a bloody good idea.
Stopping the red light should result in wrong answers being cut out? I agree with revdiablo, and I prefer to see a correction post by some other guy than nothing at all: it gives yet another point of view, helps to dissipate bad practices by making them stand clear to all and preserves speech freedom.
Flavio
perl -ple'$_=reverse' <<
PM isn't a book, it's a community: you can give to the community even posting wrong answers.Yeah, and I can hand out manure as Christmas presents as well. Just the fact it's possible doesn't mean it's actually useful. Or harmless.
Stopping the red light should result in wrong answers being cut out?Huh? Stopping at red lights will reduce the number of accidents, and the fact that in a rare case a life might be saved by running a red light doesn't mean anyone should run red lights. The fact that in a rare case a wrong answer will be more helpful than 15 correct ones (a statement I highly doubt, and I'd be surprised if in the 5 years of Perlmonks one example can be found) shouldn't be a reason to not think twice before answering.
I prefer to see a correction post by some other guy than nothing at allYes, once a wrong post has been made, a correction post is better than nothing at all. But there's a barrier for posting correction posts: they are often awarded with negative reputation. Now, I don't care, but many people do care about their XP. And it would have even be better if the poster of the wrong answer hadn't answered at all - then the "correction" poster could have spend his time on answering the question. Wrong answers aren't helpful for the asker of a question either; if a question can be answered wrongly (and this is ok, or even promoted) no answer is helpful. You have no idea whether the answer is right, and if it's wrong, there might be a correction posted. But you will not know when - if at all. How long should you wait? Wrong answers do more damage than they do good, despite some anecdotic evidence of it sometimes working out allright.
preserves speech freedomFreedom of speech has nothing to do with it. The suggestion wasn't to delete any nodes - the suggestion was to restrain yourself from guessing an answer, and to only answer if you know. If freedom of speech is an issue for you, aim your arrows on the node-reaper.
it gives yet another point of viewThat's allright for things that can have "point of views". But claiming gravity doesn't exist isn't a "point of view". It's plain wrong.
But there's a barrier for posting correction posts: they are often awarded with negative reputation.
I don't find this to be generally true, but maybe it depends on the tone of the answer. Correction posts which insult the author or disparage his ability to program seem less well accepted than those which simply point out the mistake. I would construe this as a feature of the PM system rather than a bug though, because civility can be more important than content.
And I also think that a chance at receiving negative votes should not prevent one from posting content that one thinks appropriate, just as the chance of receiving upvotes should not be the only reason one posts (wow, lookee here, full circle to the OP ;-). Personally I've learned a great deal from answers which correct mistakes or misunderstandings in nodes that I wrote, and I think it'd be a shame if people held back on constructive criticism just because they think it may be unpopular.
But claiming gravity doesn't exist isn't a "point of view". It's plain wrong.
Unless gravity really does not exist in your frame of reference because you're a CGI script. :-)
A computer is a state machine. Threads are for people who can't program state machines. -- Alan Cox
I don't find this to be generally true, but maybe it depends on the tone of the answer. Correction posts which insult the author or disparage his ability to program seem less well accepted than those which simply point out the mistake.Yeah, but even writing your code is wrong (followed by the correct answer) is taken by some to be insulting to the author.
Is it? Do you have any specific examples in mind? I don't see this happening (well, at least not regularly enough for me to notice it).
A computer is a state machine. Threads are for people who can't program state machines. -- Alan Cox
even writing your code is wrong (followed by the correct answer) is taken by some to be insulting to the author.
So dont. Say something like pay attention: doing wrong thing that the author does will result in undesirable outcome. Ive never had any problem with my correction nodes following this approach.
Makeshifts last the longest.
possessives like "rat's" should include an apostrophe
Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.
Having to be polite has never deterred me from posting corrections. Nor from going to the trouble of making them polite.
And drop the hyperbole about verbosity. Explaining why a piece of posted code is wrong does not make the node any harder to understand than a curt, snide wrong! for those readers who already know, but helps those who dont.
Makeshifts last the longest.
If a questioner has problems with being told that (s)he is wrong, I don't see that as a problem of the answerer.
Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
So do you find my correction on Re: Regular Expression tricky newline problem hard to understand?
Makeshifts last the longest.
Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
The suggestion wasn't to delete any nodes - the suggestion was to restrain yourself from guessing an answer, and to only answer if you know.which was basically what I was looking for. My only comment is that most people seem to behave themselves here, and I like to thing that they're in good faith when they try to give an answer, i.e. they think to *actually* know the answer. Call me an optimist.
Yes, once a wrong post has been made, a correction post is better than nothing at all. But there's a barrier for posting correction posts: they are often awarded with negative reputation. Now, I don't care, but many people do care about their XP.Here I don't follow: where and when a good correction post gets downvoted? My guess: when one forgets to be polite and flames. This has nothing to do with correction, it has to do with education. The brightest example IMHO is ikegami, which is awfully smart and knows a big bunch of Perl: I never saw a correction from them being downvoted, and this is because they're correct, hit the nail right in the head and don't flame. And, I dare to add, taught me a lot.
OT: as a side note, I agree that
[...] claiming gravity doesn't exist isn't a "point of view". It's plain wrong.but your hyperbole is misplaced IMHO: my post tried to stimulate some deeper thought, just not to remain stuck with Newton... and give Einstein a try.
Flavio
perl -ple'$_=reverse' <<
I trust that most of the monks here, including myself, never used Oracle, as it is not free.
Depending on your definition of free, you are wrong. Take a look here, and you will see that you can download the latest edition of Oracle for free, under a development license. Personally I prefer to use software that's not just free for development but also production use and modification of course, but that's just me.
A computer is a state machine. Threads are for people who can't program state machines. -- Alan Cox
I think you have some misconceptions operating here. First off, XP is a property of users, reputation is a property of postings. Replys don't get XP, the author of the reply gets XP based on the node-reputation votes that occur.
Second, I think it was you who threw the tantrum in the oracle thread. (If not then I apologise unreservedly.) You made a comment there that said something along the line of "the original poster has been cheated". Well, when you come to a community site and ask for help of volunteers (which is what you are doing by coming here pretty much) you get what people are willing to give, and whatever it is its more than you started with and you paid nothing, so to say someone was cheated indicates that you fundamentally don't understand what a community help site is about.
If you want to be in a position where you can rightfully claim you have been cheated then go find some hot-shot perl programmer and PAY THEM TO HELP YOU. Don't come to a self help community and then throw a freaking tantrum over the perceived quality of the responses, especially not when the question doesnt actually directly pertain to the sites chosen subject.
I also think its worth pointing out that the response given wasn't wrong. It may have been glib, but it wasn't wrong. It basically said "have you turned on automatic error reporting" and implied "if you have and aren't getting an error then there probably wasn't an error". And as perrin was apparently correct, there was no error and the matter had nothing to do with perl.
Lastly, while it may annoy you to read "incorrect answers" it annoys the community much much much more when some troll posts a bunch of personal attacks and ignores that they are all getting reaped for being bullshit noise. If anybody did anything wrong here it was you. (earlier caveat about it not being you applies :-)
$world=~s/war/peace/g
But it becomes different when a wrong answer got "confirmed" by XP points. Let's don't say that XP point is nothing, it is something. Lots of learners will judge the merit of the answers base on XP points.
And indeed it seems to me that whereas it occasionally happens that what I consider to be "bad" replies (or more generally, posts) get a higher reputation than I think (but who am I to impose my pov on the community?) they would deserve, patently wrong answers get heavily downvoted - so the system may well not be perfect, but who/what is after all? (BTW: if we all were, then nobody would ever post wrong replies!) However it fundamentally works most of the time.
PS: sorry for all those parentheses. (Seriously, eh! ;-)
I agree with upstairs, there are too different problems here: bad answers and XP points. Although in a way, it is sad that bad answers sometime gain XP points, and mislead people to believe that was correct after all.
Considered (planetscape): SSDD, anonytroll
Unconsidered (holli): Enough Keep votes (Keep: 9, Edit: 0, Reap: 10)
Very often, people post answers that are wrong, I hate that. Although this is not altogether avoidable, because of different levels of tech background, btu at least be nice not to answer questions that one is not familiar with.
You are correct: it is not uncommon for a thread to contain a reply that is not necessarily 100% correct. There are many reasons for this, and your statement highlighted one of them. In addition, the author may have misinterpreted the question or posted an answer after the OP updated the question. In general, replies are offered with the hope of being helpful to the OP. This site provides a place for people at any position along the Perl learning curve to ask questions and provide answers.
We encourage people to ask questions (after reading the appropriate documentation and using node 3989, of course), since PerlMonks would not be what it is without them. Similarly, we should encourage people to post answers. IMO, the richness of the site is derived in large part from the diversity of responses. Some replies may offer a snippet of code, some may suggest or explain an algorithm, some may provide a technical explanation that provides a glimmer into the guts of perl, some may provide links to previous threads or off-site resources, and some may touch on other areas. Responses are based on the authors' experiences and knowledge, and they do not all approach the same problem in the same way. Individually, each reply might not answer the question completely, but hopefully all replies taken together will address all of the important parts of the question.
IMO, even partially-correct replies have value. Such replies typically encourage a post from someone else, who gently corrects the errant information or points out a caveat that might have been overlooked. Occasionally such a post will initiate a spirited discussion that delves into a dusty corner of the language or uncovers a new quirk. Most of the time those subthreads go well beyond my understanding, but I still find them useful because it gives me another opportunity to learn. PerlMonks is about learning: by reading threads, asking questions, offering solutions, and every now and then by being corrected.
As an aside, and prompted by your reference to the "ugly thread about Oracle" in Re^2: To help not to misguide:
IMO, it is not the initial "incorrect" reply that makes that thread ugly, rather it is the insulting posts by Anonymous Monk that followed. There is a difference between correcting an errant statement and launching a personal attack on the author. The former helps to educate everyone that might have had the same (incorrect) thought as the author, but the latter only clutters up the thread with posts that contain no meaningful content.
Perhaps you should go to www.everyonehereisperfect.com. In the real world, people make mistakes. Learning is not a process of always getting the right answer, it is a process of gathering information about a subject from right answers, semi-right answers, semi-wrong answers, wrong-answers and everything in between. Sometimes a wrong answer makes an assumption about the problem and just seeing that assumption sheds light on the problem so the wrong answer ends up being helpful. If you can't learn from mistakes (your own and others'), you can't really learn.
There are a slew of reasons that people post replies that are incorrect in some part. Most often it is an oversight and almost always the problem is picked up and discussed by others.
Imploring people to only provide "correct" answers not only doesn't fix the problem, it actually lowers the quality and value of PerlMonks! One very important aspect of the PerlMonks community is that discussion of questions takes place on many levels and therefore matches well to the many levels of understanding of the various monks. A simplistic answer may miss subtle but important issues, and therefore be "wrong", but will very likely provide a stepping stone to greater understanding by the author of the "wrong" node as well as greater understanding by other monks at a similar level in their journey to mastering Perl and its environs. Wrong answers are often much more valuable for this reason than a simple reply giving some correct code without exposition.
Reputation is important here. It encourages people to post and helps maintain high quality posts. The XP system expands in node reputation by providing a sort of global reputation based on participation and quality of participation. The system is somewhat open to abuse, but generally works very well. A major reason that the monastery is such a welcoming and helpful place is that the XP system encourages that atmosphere and encourages participation.
Remember too that a node's reputation is not available until after you vote for the node except through best nodes. By the time a reply accrues enough ++ votes to hit best nodes it has been seen by a good number of people and it is pretty unlikely that a significant error will go unnoticed.
The system currently works well. Wrong answers seldom go unanswered. Leave well enough alone I say.
DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel
-
Very often, people post answers that are wrong, I hate that.
Very often? What is your definition of very often?
In my experience the number of right answers I've seen to questions far outwieght the number of wrong answers I've seen. If you were going on about wrong questions I'd be right there with you.
The few wrong answers I've seen have have been dealt with via the experience system or by follow up answers contradicting them. There certainly are monks here that won't hesitate to point out when someone is wrong. Some more harshly than others.
I'd also rather see a wrong answer to a question than no answer at all. Although if I don't know the answer to something I'm not liable to post a follow up if I am not sure of my answer. Still a wrong answer can be an opportunity to learn.
How can you learn from a wrong answer? Well... first off if you know enough to know that an answer is wrong then follow up yourself and point out what is wrong with the answer and post corrected information! This provides us all an opportunity to learn something.
Lastly, you never know your own perceptions of an answer might be wrong. You follow up with a post and say "NO! Grass is orange!" and you can be sure you are going to find out in glorious detail that no, grass is green. Unless it hasn't been watered in a while... and then it's brown. :-)
Anyway... don't get too bent out of shape if you see a wrong answer. Post a correction and let the exchange of information, knowledge and ideas happen. That's what makes PM so great!
Peter -at- Berghold -dot- Net; AOL IM redcowdawg Yahoo IM: blue_cowdawg
-kulls
Hey Kull,
It appears that when you are replying to nodes you are putting the message inside the HTML tag labeled
How does that help Perl and its community? Perl is percieved to be hard, and hard to find good information. Sorry, but I don't see any value in providing someone with false information. And I find Perlmonks to be in a very sorry state that instead of trying to improve matters, people try to justify it.
It reflects poorly to Perl and the community, in exactly the same way as it would reflect poorly to Amtrak if an inquiry about depart times was answered in five different ways.
I don't see a significant difference in the result.
Perhaps you don't see it as an answering machine, but that's how PM is being marketed ("if you have questions, Perlmonks is the place to be"), and that's how the largest and busiest section looks like.
I think the main problem is that everyone has a different definition of a wrong answer. Consider this: No one will post a wrong answer intentionaly (at least I hope not). You then have to wonder where these wrong answers come from. Assuming no one intentionaly answers questions wrong, then you have a couple of flavors I can think of: Now if you look at those options (and please feel free to add more if i'm missing something because I could be "wrong") you should see that general a "wrong" answer could be caused by many things. The only truly wrong answer is the last one in which case the person answering doesn't know they are wrong. This is the case I think most the "pro-wrong" have been supporting. The belief is that at least the person answering the question is going to learn what they did wrong, and others who may also falsly think are right will learn as well. No bad comes from someone learning like this. Consider however that we tell everyone not to answer unless they *KNOW* they are right. Now the last answer is never given, never corrected, and many people out there continue on thinking they are right when in fact they arn't. Perhaps you don't see it as an answering machine, but that's how PM is being marketed ("if you have questions, Perlmonks is the place to be"), and that's how the largest and busiest section looks like. A place to get "answers" and a place to find a "machine" to get answers are two seperate things. A machine doesn't make errors, humans do. Therefor perlmonks is not a "machine" because we never ever gauruntee 100% accuracy.
What you're supposed to be discussing is what to do about wrong answers.
Nobody is trying to justify wilfully providing false information to legitimate questions, or encouraging it.
Stop inventing facts.
___________
Eric Hodges
i'm really sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your suggestion.but
I wouldn't normaly have replied like this, but i've messaged you several times with no response.
I guess i didn't get any messages from you.
- kulls
As long as people posting valid questions rather than for points, His/her should responsible to picking up the correct answer,if they got multiple answers.
Right, and if you call Amtrak to find out the next departure time of the train to Miami, you're perfectly happy if you get five different times, and consider it to be your own responsibility to pick the right time (if any), don't you? That's what everyone expects, don't they?
Is that equation really that hard?
Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
You think one mainstream opinion that is seen as "the correct way for it" is the way to go? I for one see TIMTOWTDI as one of the biggest features of Perl, because the techniques, tools and strategies can evolve.
For every poster of a wrong or not-optimal answer there surely are hundrets with the same opinion who'd just have thought "Naa, not how I do it, has nothing to do with it" or something else. "Wrong" answers bring themselves into public, where they can be discussed. I'm not a fanatic follower of the Thesis/Antithesis/Synthesis dogma, but I think it applies quite good here.
How does that help Perl and its community? Perl is percieved to be hard, and hard to find good information. Sorry, but I don't see any value in providing someone with false information. And I find Perlmonks to be in a very sorry state that instead of trying to improve matters, people try to justify it.
I see Perlmonks as a community where people learn, where people make errors, were new ideas come up and evolve. I don't see PM as an answering machine and am really glad that it isn't.
It reflects poorly to Perl and the community, in exactly the same way as it would reflect poorly to Amtrak if an inquiry about depart times was answered in five different ways.
Again, Perlmonks is not a service company. You'd be right if everyone in here would be an employee of Perlmonks Inc. And to use your own argumentation again, why is it PMs fault that people come here into the *community* and expect an *answering machine*? The community is in my opinion one of the big pro's of Perl (besides TIMTOWTDI, CPAN, ...) and if someone comes here looking for a straight answer it'd would be best for him to recognize that this is not a company selling Perl solutions, but a community that makes the big, stable and proved fundament we're all standing on.
I don't see a significant difference in the result.
This is Perl, the result depends on the context, so calculate it in.
Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
You think one mainstream opinion that is seen as "the correct way for it" is the way to go?
The premise of this entire thread is wrong answers. The fact that many problems have multiple solutions isn't being disputed. The case of a question receiving multiple answers in itself isn't being discussed either. The problem being discussed is wrong answers.
I don't see PM as an answering machine and am really glad that it isn't.
Perhaps you don't, and if you restrict yourself to "discussions" and "meditation", you'll see it isn't an answering machine. But almost all threads in "Seekers of Perl Wisdom" start with a question - from someone seeking an answer. The few top-level postings in SOPW that aren't questions are often considered whether they ought to be moved to a different section.
You think there's a straight limit between "wrong" and "not-optimal"? I don't think so, and I think the important part is where they meet. If someone states 'perldoc -f print' is the documentation to the integrated space-ship, this is clearly wrong, and someone will correct this. Sure, *you* know something is wrong, but you can't be sure the poster of the "wrong" answer has the same opinion. I'd rather say he must have any reasons good enough for him to post it.
Perhaps you don't, and if you restrict yourself to "discussions" and "meditation", you'll see it isn't an answering machine. But almost all threads in "Seekers of Perl Wisdom" start with a question - from someone seeking an answer.
Maybe that's not the optimum then. You can't write wisdom down, you can't categorize wisdom. You do that with knowledge, and I thought that's what Tutorials, Q&A etc. is for. I still see the main advantage of PM in being a community based on discussions, but perhaps you don't.
Perhaps you don't see it as an answering machine, but that's how PM is being marketed ("if you have questions, Perlmonks is the place to be"), and that's how the largest and busiest section looks like.
The existance of questions and answers doesn't mean it's an answering machine. The question is: where is the answer found? An answering machine takes the question, makes an index lookup, posts the answer. The benefit of a community is the open discussion that leads to answers, ideas and maybe even better answers. Or are all other communities offsprings of Project Chaos and don't allow the asking of questions?
Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
___________
Eric Hodges
The problem being discussed is wrong answers.
Wrongly. Thats what you've steered it towards after others said that wrong answers can inspire good answers.
Reason: [Tanktalus]: spam, spam, spam and troll
You may view the original node and the consideration vote tally.
I can't speak for anyone else, but when I answer a question, I answer to the best of my ability, with the knowledge I have today. If we all waited until we knew Perl perfectly, none of us could answer. Of course our knowledge is imperfect. It always will be.
The problem is that it's very difficult to know what you don't know - to realize that your knowledge about something is faulty.
The XP system is imperfect, of course. Sometimes mistakes get upvoted, often because the answer is a common mistake that many people make. It happens, and sometimes you get complete nonsense passing as solid gold.
It seems to me, though, that more often someone out there knows what s/he's talking about, and offers a correct answer, or a correction to a mistaken answer. Then you have to decide who to believe - and the right answer might not get as much XP for any of a number of reasons.
Bottom line: at the Monastery, as in real life, we have to use our own minds, come to our own conclusions, do our own reality testing. Relying on XP to guide us is misguided, because XP is mostly a measure of a post's (or poster's) popularity, not its accuracy.
Finally, after a few erroneous answers, you get to know who has a clue, and who's just guessing. Even the experts make mistakes, though, so you still have to check everything yourself.
This is not meant to be a popular node, but I beg your people to keep this post, and allowing opposition as long as it bear truth.This struck me a little. I don't know a place where the power of deleting a post is handled as responsible as here. Even a clear troll node (here in this thread) that says "Fuck you all" in bold big letters gets only "reaped", meaning that one can still access and read it by one more click. In theory, nodes can be totally deleted (nuked), but I haven't seen that yet and probably will never.
This is not XYZ-forum with a single admin.
holli, /regexed monk/
In theory, nodes can be totally deleted (nuked), but I haven't seen that yet and probably will never.
Site policy is that we don't nuke nodes. Even duplicate patches don't get nuked despite the fact it would make no difference to anybody if they were. In the olden days we used to nuke occasionally, but these days the policy is that once a node is created it can change type but will never be destroyed.
$world=~s/war/peace/g
Perhaps we could tackle this "problem" from a different direction. Head them off at the pass so to speak, by limiting the possibility of erroneous replies.
Add a new button to the consideration nodelet that is only presented to those monks that have never posted an incorrect answer.
All new nodes would be locked, and no one would be able to post a reply until that select band of Uber-monks have "signed the post off", by clicking the above button, indicating that they either do not know the answer, or cannot be bothered to post one.
Only once all Uber-monks have so signed a post off, would that post become unlocked. and so become open to the rest of us mere mortals to post our thoughts, half-remembered plagerisms and wild-arsed guesses.
I was half way into coming up with an elaborate scheme for determining who should be afforded the privaledge of Uber-monk; by analysing their XP/posts ratios, probably limited to first child replies or similar; a cross-authorisation scheme; and a few other frills; when it struck me.
Most of them seem to already know who they are, so maybe we should just let them "sign up" for Uber-monk status via a button on their preferences?
Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
if every problem and discussion can be solved by exaggeration,
Not every problem for sure, but in this case, there is a fairly strong precedent. Even if, like me, you are not of the christian religion, you've maybe heard the quote "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"? Most other religions have a similar parable, though the wording may vary.
And I'm more for the saying: Don't invite people that have excremented in your home in the past, and I can see some benefits in regulating powers.
Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
- The person who posts the wrong answer will almost always be corrected by someone who knows better, and hence will learn from it
- People who thought the wrong answer was right, and just another way of approaching the problem, will see the correction and realise that it was wrong. They also will learn from it.
- Sometimes an original post will not make the question clear. Occasionally an answer will be posted that others disagree with, and the OP will later state that the 'wrong' answer correctly interpreted the question.
- Not infrequently a wrong answer will cause the