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Proper etiquette and timing for voting here on Answers (particularly down-voting)?

woodcock
Esteemed Legend

I am having a disagreement^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^ side-discussion with @lguinn and @aljohnson_splunk (and others?) here:

http://answers.splunk.com/answers/243879/field-extractions-using-regex-not-working.html#comment-2441...

My contention is that we should do as dead people do in Chicago: vote early and often! However I am in the minority of the thread so I thought I would bring the question to a wider audience.

What do you think?

woodcock
Esteemed Legend

There is now a place where such things are (more or less) documented. If anyone wants to view the community guidelines, they are available here: http://wiki.splunk.com/Community:CommunityGuidelines

0 Karma

jsven7
Communicator

Maybe some folks aren't aware how to do this. As a new user I can't find the ability to upvote/downvote answers to questions.

0 Karma

richgalloway
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

To the left of each answer is a number, usually zero, with arrows above and below it. The number is the sum of up and down votes for that answer. Click the arrow above the number to up-vote an answer; click the other arrow to down-vote.

---
If this reply helps you, Karma would be appreciated.
0 Karma

woodcock
Esteemed Legend

Also, the question itself can be voted upon and even the comments, each of which should have a similar "up" and "down" indicator that is clickable.

0 Karma

jsven7
Communicator

Interesting. For some reason the arrows are invisible on my browser (Internet Explorer). Thanks!

lguinn2
Legend

As a final comment, many of us in this discussion thread have extensive forum privileges. We can close questions, delete other peoples' answers, etc.

Unless the content is clearly spam, abusive or obscene, I do not believe that we should be removing content written by others. Period.

I reacted badly to a down-vote (and it is far from the only down-vote I've ever gotten.) That was a mistake on my part.

But if you delete my content, you better send me a private email about the problem. And unless there is a very good reason, I will be pretty unhappy. Discussing, providing alternatives, disagreeing, correcting and down-voting are at one level. But deleting is another thing, and should be avoided altogether if possible IMO.

woodcock
Esteemed Legend

I do not think I have ever deleted anything (other than my own answers and comments on occasion); mostly I fix typos, correct markdown, clarify ESL->English (if I can), and swap comment<->question (which is probably the most common thing I see wrong and fix). I will be most pleased when I can delete entire questions, though, with all the SPAM that has been coming in lately.

0 Karma

lguinn2
Legend

Have you seen a lot of SPAM lately? Since the last update of the forum, I haven't seen any. About a year ago, there was quite a bit of spam getting through the filters, and those of us with question-delete privileges were kept busy tidying up.

0 Karma

MuS
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

There was a wave of Spam in the time Thor's hammer was offline 😉 But not any more 🙂

MuS
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

So, while most of you were sleeping Thor's Hammer was spam fighting and got ride of them mostly within 50 seconds to one hour - killing almost 60 spamerz tonight..... and did not get one single karma for it - and also did not complaining about it and I'm not working for Splunk !

MuS
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

current state: MuS 200 - Spammerz 0 🙂

MuS
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

and another spam wave hit; but no one noticed because Mjölnir was on duty 😉

0 Karma

MuS
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

Thanks @vganjare 🙂

0 Karma

piebob
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

thank you, @MuS !!! we are updating the filters today, this was a new tactic. ugh!

0 Karma

woodcock
Esteemed Legend

In the last 3 weeks or so I have seen at least 1 flood/week of dozens each advertising 800 support numbers (Intuit, Microsoft, etc.) The have always been posted aroumd 6AM CDT.

0 Karma

lguinn2
Legend

I apologize for starting this discussion, as I should have kept my mouth shut instead of posting the inflammatory comment. Heaven knows that I have enough karma to take some down-votes with grace.

The comment caught me in a bad moment, and it was one of several recently that made me wonder: why did you down-vote this comment/answer? As many folks have pointed out, an explanation of the down-vote would (1) help the responder to understand "where I/she/he went wrong" (2) help other readers understand when/if/why they should ignore the advice given.

That said, I don't want the community to get all up in arms or start "enforcing standards." It would be nice to have some posting etiquette / FAQ available, especially for new members. But a lot of people will never read it and some people won't follow it anyway.

We really have a nice forum here. I don't think that a lot of rules (or even guidelines) will really make it better. People do what they do. For myself, I will work on keeping quiet when I don't have anything positive to offer - like my mother taught me decades ago. Mind your mother!

DalJeanis
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

Good point that a down-vote should ALWAYS include a comment that says why the advice given will not work or is harmful.

0 Karma

woodcock
Esteemed Legend

A new feature was deployed that strongly encourages this by adding "I downvoted because" text automatically.

0 Karma

woodcock
Esteemed Legend

There is no need to apologize (well, maybe I should, but I have not made up my mind quite yet). I am very thankful to have this opportunity to discuss this important question that I have been wondering about for some time now (I really don't know why I didn't just ask it in the first place). I am already convinced to change my approach but I am not fully settled on exactly how much. At least for me, this has been very valuable and long overdue so really, I should be thanking you. In fact:

Thank you!

woodcock
Esteemed Legend

I pulled out some of my non-question-actually-answer text from my question so that perhaps (by voting) people would be able to express their agreement with my position (I am assuming that the upvotes for the question are exactly that: it is a good question worth discussing/answering). So this is my non-question-actually-an-answer-as-an-answer-answer:

Here is exactly what I said, which I believe to be the proper mindset:

Voting ( up and down ) is a responsibility that we all have even though it is expensive (lowers Karma). I downvoted (with a very gentle correctionary comment), and also encouraging downvoting, for all of these reasons:
1: It moves the incorrect answer to the bottom so people can focus on (potentially) correct answers and will not waste time on incorrect answers.
2: It discourages people from posting answers that they should not (haven't tested, aren't sure, etc.).
3: It hopefully educates the user who had the wrong answer (it was good for you).

I have been downvoted many times and it was good for me almost every time. I don't like being wrong, but I dislike being ignorant even more.

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