Reading posts such as this and this tells me that there is a significant issue we should address.
Should there be a minimum number of contests for a user to be able to comment, upvote/downvote and post blogs (different number for each, maybe)?
This way, people can't simply make new accounts and upvote/downvote. It would mean upvotes/downvotes are more genuine (less people upvoting reds blindly). It would mean that people are less likely to make many accounts to downvote out of hate.
StackOverflow, for example, doesn't allow users to upvote or downvote unless they have a certain amount of positive contribution. I'm not saying we should do this, but I'm just showing how it can work in practice.
Finally, I know this isn't a new idea and I'm not saying it is perfect. That's why I created a blog so hopefully we can have meaningful discussion about this in the comments, to keep our community healthy.
What are your thoughts?
Thank you!
I believe the voting system doesn't work this way..
My friend and (sorry) me has tried to make new account and tried this attack but doesn't work so we conclude that unnrated one can't vote (they can vote, but it will be "unvote" automatically in few minutes)..
Additionally there are more amazing fact (based on my and my friend experiment) canditate master's vote on comment or blog will be counted as 5 votes.. If you don't believe me try this experiment: goto old blog or comment that rarely visited so the number of vote is stable, then try up/downvote it.. And wait several minutes (until about 1 hour) the number of vote will be increased or decreased upto 5 votes if you are candidate master.. I don't know about other rank, because all my friend are moatly canditate master.. I wonder if legendary grandmaster's vote will be conted as 10 votes(?)
No, I think it is 2 (or possibly 1). I once experimented (sorry) and then got 2. I don't know the coefficient of reds or targets.
I (still) believe it's 4 or 5.. I've repeating this experiment for (sorry) about 10 times :)
interestingly, according to this, I am unrated. (I upvoted/downvoted 6 comments/blogs, and 5 of them change back to 0, while the last one got +1) (i mean relative upvote). I suspect there is a heuristic and it does not depend only on colour. Maybe there is algorithm that detect if a person is spamming upvotes or downvotes. (this may explain my situation and I tend to spam upvotes and downvotes when I agree/disagree with someone)
Thanks for your effort doing this experiment..
This make me even more curious about voting calculations, indeed when I vote using candidate master account some got +-4 and some got +-5 votes, this make me suspect that there is posibility that number of votes is actually floating point that is rounded when displayed in website..
I wonder why cf admin "hides" actual formula for voting and contribution calculations(?)
Well, I think hiding the calculations makes it less easy for people to manipulate the system (i.e. figure out how to most effectively downvote someone).
The secrecy makes 'cheating' the system more difficult.
You are upvoting/downvoting comments with rating zero, right? The comment with rating -5~0 is printed "0", and if you upvote/downvote, it prints +1/-1. And if you press F5, it prints 0 with high probability.
that's why i choose those with high upvotes or downvotes. :) I think you misunderstood me. I thought it was clear since I added (i mean relative upvote)
Sorry my bad, I misreaded, and also I thought it was a joke :)
Just remove this stupid voting system, every third message is about contribution/why downvote/why that guy have so much upvotes/blah-blah-blah, WHO CARES?
This is also a valid proposal...
I guess the system is to promote contest writers. Maybe comments shouldn't affect contribution? I don't know. Do you have any ideas?
But this may demotivate people from answering question though. or make humorous comments.
Another idea would be to only allow the user to see the score of a post after it votes for it.
This should reduce the "herd effect" of upvoting or downvoting a post just because it has many up or down votes.
This sounds pretty good but I feel it isn't worth the effort to maintain the list of posts a user has already voted on for every user in database. Another approach I've seen on Reddit is to hide the score for a certain amount of time (varying from a couple of hours to a day).
It's maintained anyway so that you can't vote again
Gee, how did I forget that...
I don't think it's a good idea, since an important(I would go so far as to say, the main) purpose of voting is for people to easily see which blogs/comments are useful and which aren't.
This is where codechef wins.
Not anonymous voting system. You can see who upvoted/downvoted you.
Non anonymous Voting System like fb is optimal solution to all kind of problems related to contribution
Enchom, we have a great job for you)
Thank you for gongy to react my funny story and write a blog. (My Blog's Link) Thank you very much.
By the way, I was very disappointed when I see the blog again. I wrote the first one in gongy's blog, but the blog's rating is too negative, -19, bottom of the bottom in entire codeforces blogs.
I considered the reason of negative feedback, and the result is following:
This is also "A mystery of feedbacks" and so mysterious. I thought these two cases, but the reason might be different. So I wrote this comment. Why minus?
UPD 1: Now the post rating was -10, bottom in entire codeforces blogs. But there is a few upvotes in the blog. It's happy, but there is so many downvotes in my previous blogs, even 2-months ago. Especially, this post's rating is drop from +9 to -2. This is really mystery. What do you think about?
UPD 2: The incidence got worse. The post rating is -19 and still decreasing. In addition, all of my blog's downvoting is continues, even faster than yesterday. Did you say me to quit codeforces now? This is really, really mysterious. Why these things occur!?!?
UPD 3: The incidence really got worse. Finally, My many blogs were downvoted -208 votes in total because of the serious incident. In addition, the post rating is now -53, and I think it is in the record of worst 10 in entire codeforces blog. Why!?!?!?!?!?!?
Seems like you are surely and highly getting involved a serious incident; almost all blog including written a month ago is suddenly got 10 or 20 downvotes TODAY or yesterday (not 2 or more days ago). I know you are sad but I don't know the reason of this. Do we think about fake accounts users when we post blogs or comments?
UPD: I found my opinion and I think inactive blog that no update or no comment in 24 hours should be disable to vote, but what is your opinion?
UPD2: I also wanted to say, Codeforces is not a hate site, so it is bad to occur things like "I don't like him, so I'll make 10 fake accounts and downvote all his blogs and comments", but it is exactly what happened to E869120's blogs. It's very discouraging, and I heard that he is already expecting that his contribution decrease from 107 to -107. Of course it's a joke, but he says dropping to 30~40 is possible. And he also says:
He continues competitive programming for 18 months and he is doing codeforces for 6 months, so I believe that he won't quit, but if it happens to other people, I believe it is one effect of quitting competitive programming. Right?
I read the comment, but contribution +107 to -107 is not a joke. I really, really expected this can be occur in 5% probability approximate.
It can be occur in two ways:
I hope these things can't be occur because these things are immoral, but in the reality, which cheating can be occur, I'm very worried about this.
Your comment includes small joke part and large non-joke part :)
It should be a joke... Hack (it is not hacking in contest) password shouldn't be a reality...
I don't know how contribution value is calculated, though many user believe that downvoting blogs results -1 of blog rating. If he/she have a time, he/she may create 299 accounts and all use for downvote and can make a worst record in blog rating, with one person.
I strongly believe you can't make 100 fake account and downvote, you probably need to join some contest and stuff(as the comment above states that unrated votes and not considered). and there should be algorithm to detect for such thing, so I don't think some one would bother with that.
Here's an hypothesis for your downvotes:
1) You have attract not 1 but quite some hater for posting a lot. Probably some people are jealous that you get 100+ contribution in such a short amount of time.
2) Maybe people are annoyed as they see you make too many comments or blogs complaining about upvotes.
3) People get bored of your post about statistic and think you got too many upvotes for something not quite interesting.
I see. Though, he said that he don't want to make a record of negative side. For example, if there is blog with rating -100, he will be known as "person who wrote a blog that rating is worst 10".
But all the condition that rating could be -100 is on:
a. The blog is currently highly (like -20) downvoted.
b. There are external link form a codeforces blog to the blog.
This case is very rare that he may get -100 rating or more like -200, right?
I doubt it will happen. My advice is just contribute without caring too much about upvotes(or at least pretend not to care), and he will do fine.
Here's a strategy next time when it gets too low (probably wont work now since I suggested it):
Get a red to ask why is this blog getting so much downvotes(and add some nice reasoning behind it). and it should do fine. :)
I agree, especially (1), (3).
In (1), I posted 5 blog in June, and my contribution increases +32 to +107 in 25 days. In addition, I'm a 9-th grade student, so I think many people gets jealous is right.
In (3), recently there is many mysteries in codeforces is true. This is said by many commets. In addition, the post rating decrease from my 1st mystery to 4th mystery. So I think some part of people get bored is right.
But as written in the blog of 10, there must be some notorious coincidence in the incident. All blog's rating decreased exactly 10!
This is my opinion. Thank you for advice.
I'll give you the most possible reason you got many downvotes recently.
A lot of people are annoyed at your garbage comments and hated your act, the two of you.
Posting the monotonous "mystery" posts all the week? Editing little by little and adding meaningless comments frequently just in order to be featured in "Recent blog" and get upvotes?
I think it's disrespectful. Do you know the meaning of the word "contribution" is? It's not popularity. It's the act of causing a good effect on Codeforces community.
If you really want to contribute to Codeforces, stop posting meaningless comment every hour and filling the recent blog tab with inappropriate articles, and do something more productive. (c.f. making tutorials, beginning youtube lectures, holding contests, or getting higher rating to show your tutorials more reliable)
I read whole this comment, but this is especially very impressive.
I'll use this comment in future. Thank you for EnumerativeCombinatorics. First, I'll do training very much and increasing rating. Second, I'll do training and increasing rating. Third, something more productive. (c.f. making tutorials, beginning youtube lectures, holding contests, or getting higher rating to show your tutorials more reliable)
But I have only one worrying about it. When I contribution to codeforces, most people will downvote because the blog/comment author is E869120, which is the person who wrote 4 mysteries, downvoted and became the bad-people list in most people's brain, though it is over 1-years later.
For example, it can be occur if I do writer, downvote because he wrote mysteries, and finally the announcement post rating will be -1000.
This is only one worrying for me.
At last, I'll say why I wrote mysteries. The reason is I really interested about codeforces something distribution.
This is the end of the comment. Thank you!
you forgot to say "sorry for my bad english"
I think that some ideas can help this. I have observed that the CodeForces forums are a closed community and any newcomers are fiercely fought away and downvoted.
I recommend that the weight of an upvote is proportional to strength. (Greys get +1 upvote. Greens — +2, Blues +5, Violets +10, Orange +20, Red +30) But, a downvote (from anybody) only results in -1. Also if you downvote somebody it should count as -1 on your reputation too even if the post truly deserves it. (Stack Exchange does this).
I also recommend that if a blog post is truly bad, (abusive or un-helpful), then the admins close it and give the poster the oppurtunity to delete it.
I don't understand why people feel the urge to go and rage downvote someone. If you don't like some thing, don't read it. In my opinion the only time someone downvotes is if it is a negative contribution to the community like an abusive post. Clearly, the posts in question were not negative contributions or abusive. They were good-natured, well-intentioned comments.
I have spoken to the author in question and was quite surprised to find out he's just a ninth-grader and gets quite deeply affected by downvotes. As competitive programming attracts a lot of kids, I think these measures are necessary to prevent rage downvoting. (I can handle down votes now but I was and still am a pretty sensitive person and if I was 11-15, these constant downvotes would really impact me psychologically and emotionally). Unfortunately, adults who blindly downvote posts without reading them on this site don't always realise that there might be a sensitive kid at the other end of the post who will take it to heart and feel extremely hurt and sad.
TL-DR — My recommendations to prevent this is to 1. Associate weights with upvotes in proportion to rating but have downvote be -1 for all rating strengths 2. Downvoting a post should cost you a point from your own contribution rating, regardless of how much the post deserves it. 3. You can't downvote unless you're cyan or above.
P.S. — I know this comment will get downvoted without being read because the author is not red.
And E869120 is 15 years old.
As much as I agree to some of your points, I think you idea is too naive.
1.In my opinion the only time someone downvotes is if it is a negative contribution to the community like an abusive post.
2. Downvoting a post should cost you a point from your own contribution rating, regardless of how much the post deserves it.
This sounds really nice and all, but imagine if codeforces implement this concept. What do you think would happen. Nearly all post(regardless of how useless it is) would now have positive contribution right? So this would most likely cause codeforces to be flooded with useless post asking question, since most people would even get (at least 0) upvotes for asking useless question or (mostly) useless tutorial teaching about bfs or dfs. And if this were to happen, do you think all those highly rated would frequently visit this site? just to see not very helpful post? In a long run, there would be more questions asked and way less question answered. So I don't see much wrong with downvoting things you don't want to see. He would have to learn on what he should write and what he shouldn't. This would be useful for his future when working with people as well.(sadly this is how the world is) However, I disagree when personal grudge were put into action when making votes, as we can see in this comment which initially attract 20 downvotes.
3. You can't downvote unless you're cyan or above.
Seriously? So we should discriminate against them and not let their voice be heard just because they are worse at CP?
I know this comment will get downvoted without being read because the author is not red.
I am tired about how you frequently blame not being red the result of your downvotes. Look at some other green coder, I don't see most of them being downvoted for no reason(some of them are even in the top 200 contributors list), and why is that? Furthermore, looks like your comment are attracting a lot of upvotes here. I do agree that higher rating tend to get upvotes easier, but I barely seen green getting downvoted because they are green. There is mostly a reason(with a few exception) for it. Instead of blaming your colour, maybe you should reflect on the reason you are being downvoted?
Regarding your third point, my intention was not to discriminate based on competitive programming ability but rather to have some kind of cut off to stop someone from making a fake account and downvoting right away.
If you like, you can replace that suggestion with having participated in a minimum of X contests.
I only said cyan because it will take someone some time to downvote from a new account and the person can't downvote right away. It wasn't to discriminate based on ability. You could probably make a new cut off like minimum of X contests participated or minimum contribution rating of X. [Stack Exchange does this. You need to meet certain criteria before you have the power to downvote].
There's nothing wrong with sacrificing one of your points to maintain the website.
Keep in mind that if the entire culture of the website changed to become more open and with weighted upvotes, points would be more liberal and everyone would have more points to deal with. Right now, even the top contributors of this website have less than 200 points which I find very strange.
If something is truly useless, I recommend closing it before it attracts too many downvotes. Although, for this keep in mind that something useless to a Candidate Master like yourself can be useful to a beginner.
people are generally selfish. I don't know if I would be willing to sacrifice my points to do that.
The reason top contributors are less than 200 is because the contribution isn't linear. It takes more than 100 upvotes to increase by 1 contribution when you are above 100.
I agree, so I generally dont downvote anything except things that I think have too much upvotes, things with misleading/wrong information or things I greatly disagree with. However, keep in mind that this is a community and things should be cater to the majority. If the majority thinks it is useless, then they will downvote it and this would somewhat maintain some sort of quality control.
Although I will admit that stopping rage downvotes based on personal grudges was the primary driving force behind that comment.