One thing that is seriously bugging me about this new system is that people are downrating completly relevent things in the comments of things. Take a stroll through the Stood in the Fire comments. I realize there are 581 posts but is it really necessary at page 5 or so things hit the 0 votes (if I'm not mistaken every post starts with 1 right?) at around page 7 or 8 they go to negatives. Achievements are pretty much bragging rights correct? Why downrate when someone posts when and where they got the achievement? That seems like a pretty legitimate use of the comment system instead of some whitty joke about his fire giving you a buff or some obscure reference to some movie or thing that has nothing to do with the achievement. Seems like downrating is now the new trolling.
Comments start at 0.Achievements saying when and where aren't helpful and clog the system.By all means, make your witty joke or whatever, but if you're the only one who finds it funny, it probably doesn't warrant a comment either.Edit: sorry, I misread. Regardless, hundreds of people saying when and where is pretty useless. One witty joke that makes a dozen people chuckle is worth more than a hundred useless comments in my opinion (which I find "got it at 9:23 AEST in TH" to be).
why each time i delete a comment i get -1 reputation?Is this part of the new content?
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
A fix to a potential abuse? This should have been "announced" in what way?Such a change is clearly not worth a Global Announcement on all forums or a popup announcement (like contests get). If a new thread were made about it then still only the "forumites" would see it. I don't know why you think it "annoyed a lot of people". It's barely been noticed by anyone.
So you weren't replying to any of the recent discussion in the thread, just making a general comment?Well, you talk abut "forumites" and you're right that there's a very large section of the userbase that don't use the forum at all. How would you suggest a change to the comment system could be announced to people who don't use the forum? Also, in what way do you think that telling people who use the database that a change was coming would have prevented the reaction once the changes went through? People don't like change but telling people a change is coming doesn't prevent the reaction to it when it happens.The changes have been in place now for almost a month and went through a phase of public testing before that. Large changes have been made in reaction to the feedback people have given and the system's teething issues are almost all fixed now. So... what feedback are you giving?
Regarding getting -1 rep for deleting your own comments;I understand and applaud the prevention of abuse argument - I am amazed taht I didn't think of that (I usually do play devils advocate with all abusepossibilities I can think of), but it has an unintended (I assume) sideeffect - it discourages selfmoderation of outdated comments.Now I wouldn't want to delete a comment I made that was outdated, because that costs me rep, but I would want to put it up for deletions, asking for the time and effort of other wowheaders to vote so I don't lose rep.(the "I" in the aforementioned is used in the argumentative sense, not the literal sense)Perhaps have a decay, so you don't lose rep if the comment is X old (as we can assume that it is most likely an outdated comment after a certain point). Of course it would still be open to abuse in some sense, but, really, it would require much more thought and planning than I would assume anyone who would abuse the system would actually care to use - mostly because its easier to get the rep the "right" way at that point.How long a period of time X should be, I don't know - My gut says somewhere in the region of a week, but thats logically not long enough to be a deterrent or to be able to assume the comment deletion is due to age and relevance - so I'm probably somewhere around 6 weeks as the base idea.
No, no. Rep is rep and putting a system in means that the site wants people to get into the idea of gaining it. Also Nooska did just say they like to play devils advocate ^_^ they even mention that in your quoted section.However, I would say that if you put a comment up and it achieves a +7 rating then you've got some rep for those votes. At that point it's better to delete your comment and lose the 1 rep than start getting downvotes when people come across out-of-date info.
As asakawa stated, you're going to be losing a lot more reputation from getting downvoted, than you would by just deleting it. 1 downvote is already twice the reputation penalty than just deleting the comment yourself.Even caring about reputation over keeping the database clean and useful is totally silly, but that's another story.
Man. I just read through some of this ... how could anyone argue with changing Wowhead to be more like StackExchange?