Has CG gone to the crapper?

[kirants]

IM-very-very-HO, I would think the dots AND the no. of posts ( note the AND ) sufficiently good indicator of the value / reliability of the post. Agree, for newly joined experts this may not be a good indicator, but, overtime, it certainly can be.

It is just a way of weighing a particular post. If it were a single line of comment from a veteran and with good rep points, perhaps there is some info in there that is to be considered and I would ask for more info, where as , if it is the same one liner from a newbie chances are , I will look further and look at what other posts have to say.

It is similar to any reviews we see onsite on products we buy e.g. a music CD. My tendency would be to read through all the comments / reviews posted for a particular album and come up with a judgment myself with all the info I have. I would look at what the reviewers have posted elsewhere and things like that.

To me, rep points is a nice way to say a post is good and gives info in , in my opinion, the direction of doing things the right way or the better way. That is easier to do with rep points than post a reply saying "Oh well, what you say sounds like the right approach". I guess, in this respect, these rep points ARE in fact to prevent such "good answer" spam.

For that matter, why is any info at all required there about the poster ( Join date, Location, member status like Power poster blah blah ) ? What does that mean. Hey !! You better listen to me , cos I am a power poster ?? Why not have something like , say years in software industry ? Maybe that holds much more relevance, maybe not.

As for people having "rate me in their signature" or whatever , I don't care. I don't get swayed by these. It is their signature and they are entitled to put anything there. If someone feels good getting a pat on the back , so be it. What is wrong with that ? It is like anything else, some one posting their photo, some one posting a link to their blog/website. It is ultimately to feel good. If I don't like that, I ignore them. That is all.

[exterminator]

I don't see anything constructive happening here though.. all are biased towards their own viewpoints (may be me as well). It is better that the moderators and the admins decide upon what to keep and what not to keep as far as concerns regarding reps or ads are concerned.

Deleted off-topic post...
Well, you posted something completely off-topic in here to complain about people doing the same to your thread. Right?

Next time, simply PM a Moderator or use the "Report Post" feature.

Sorry Sid, but don't you think it is tough to be on-topic in chit chat. In a way it is related to the concern of the thread as you say.. So, not completely off-topic..

[Siddhartha]

It is true - reputations are liked as well as disliked.

Unlike Flash Advertisements.

[exterminator]

IM-very-very-HO, I would think the dots AND the no. of posts ( note the AND ) sufficiently good indicator of the value / reliability of the post. Agree, for newly joined experts this may not be a good indicator, but, overtime, it certainly can be.

It is just a way of weighing a particular post. If it were a single line of comment from a veteran and with good rep points, perhaps there is some info in there that is to be considered and I would ask for more info, where as , if it is the same one liner from a newbie chances are , I will look further and look at what other posts have to say.

It is similar to any reviews we see onsite on products we buy e.g. a music CD. My tendency would be to read through all the comments / reviews posted for a particular album and come up with a judgment myself with all the info I have. I would look at what the reviewers have posted elsewhere and things like that.

To me, rep points is a nice way to say a post is good and gives info in , in my opinion, the direction of doing things the right way or the better way. That is easier to do with rep points than post a reply saying "Oh well, what you say sounds like the right approach". I guess, in this respect, these rep points ARE in fact to prevent such "good answer" spam.

For that matter, why is any info at all required there about the poster ( Join date, Location, member status like Power poster blah blah ) ? What does that mean. Hey !! You better listen to me , cos I am a power poster ?? Why not have something like , say years in software industry ? Maybe that holds much more relevance, maybe not.

As for people having "rate me in their signature" or whatever , I don't care. I don't get swayed by these. It is their signature and they are entitled to put anything there. If someone feels good getting a pat on the back , so be it. What is wrong with that ? It is like anything else, some one posting their photo, some one posting a link to their blog/website. It is ultimately to feel good. If I don't like that, I ignore them. That is all.

Very good points Kirants! Kudos!

Moreover, such people asking to kill the rep system (ignore my previous agreement about killing the hulk ) - why show even their usernames? Lets all have Guest logins and post stuff.. no info about anything... except for threads and posts... What do they have to say about it?

Lets talk stats now - how many 1000+ rep members are spammers? This is a serious question and I would love an answer... regarding quoting names I am completely fine with it (may be others may be not)

[Sahir]

The spammers are not the problem. IMHO it is the senior members playing the rep game that cause more damage. If 1 duplicated/already answered question receives an answer from a senior member the OP will be encouraged to do that again. And the senior member will answer it again for the sake of the green dots.

If this is true, then it is not the system that is to blame but incorrect usage of the system. CodeGuru members can generally be classified into two types those who ask questions [let's call them type Q] and those who answer questions [type A] with a miniscule population of hybrids [type QA?]. When a Q rates a post all you get is a black (or dark blue) dot with zero points so these strings of green dots can't be built on ratings by Q types. All these points come from ratings done by other A types. So if a Q asks an oft repeated question and a A type jumps in to answer, it is beacuse s/he knows other A types will rate the post.


Now, with all due respect @ those who said they object to the spamming of the tech forums with low quality posts :

You can't stop the Q types from posting trivial questions. Not answering them or rebuking them for not reading the FAQ or searching the articles isn't going to stop the flood of trivial questions. So basically those who have a problem with the spamming of the tech forums with trivial question/answer pairs don't basically have a problem with CodeGuru. They think it's CodeGuru but it isn't CodeGuru. It's the developer community in general. The world is changing. In the past when less than 1% of the world's population were programmers you could get away with saying that programmers largely belong to the set of the smartest 2% of the world's population. Now, such a thing is mathematically impossibe when 15 to 20 percent of the worlds population (a rough estimate) are working in the IT industry. With a marked increase in this percentage each year, there is bound to be a general drop in quality. You have to either learn to live with it or re-train as a neurosurgeon and start posting in BrainGuru

P.S. I notice some guys are making comedy posts in the midst of this serious discussion. Guys, please cease and desist; your attempts at humour are not at all appreciated here. Thank you

[Vanaj]

IM-very-very-HO, I would think the dots AND the no. of posts ( note the AND ) sufficiently good indicator of the value / reliability of the post. Agree, for newly joined experts this may not be a good indicator, but, overtime, it certainly can be.

This is sometimes true...I have helped approx 10 NooB's here in the last 10 days and none of them have rated the post...not even the one thread that had 59 post's to fix/retrain for the problem, have rated the posts, but this thread was rated by a moderator as he saw the value of the post.

Out of all the ratings shown on my CP the person that has the lowest number of post is at 239 posts, so if it weren't for the members that understand the value of the post, I would have no ratings in the CP. Not that I care but it does mean something to others as suggested by Kiran.

[Xeon]

From Sahir:

P.S. I notice some guys are making comedy posts in the midst of this serious discussion. Guys, please cease and desist; your attempts at humour are not at all appreciated here. Thank you.

Isn't this the spirit of CodeGuru's Chit-Chat forum? For serious discussion about the future of CodeGuru, please head over to the Feedback forum.

The thing is : you guys are making a big hoo-ha over a small little molehill.
Tell me what you folks are lamenting about and maybe I can suggest pointers. I mean, come on : I've been here since CodeGuru was using the primitive, text-based forum software. I've been here since those old ancients like Alex Fedotov, Paul McKenzie(still here?), Bill Heffner etc. were here.
I've also been here in the Golden Age of CodeGuru(early 2001 - mid-2002).
In the Golden Age, CodeGuru had hundreds of posts here daily, and 95% of them were constructive and richful discussions. The Chit Chat forum in those days were so lively, funny, high quality and wacky that you had thought David Letterman, Howard Stern and Oprah Winfrey were all posting here. Even those Visual C++ experts and folks from all over CodeGuru's other forums joined in the bash. It was so cool that I got addicted for several hours every day.

The thing is : let's get the problem out straight and direct, put it all on the table and that's it. If there's any "young hacks" trying to humiliate MiCk or something, we can ban him. Straight and simple. It's like the Iraq war : you simply pull out the troops and then settle the consequences later. You don't over-analyze.

See you all,
Xeon.
(I WILL PUT AN END TO ALL THESE **** HERE)

[cilu]

If there's any "young hacks" trying to humiliate MiCk or something, we can ban him.

We, who?

[cjard]

The Chit Chat forum in those days were so lively, funny, high quality and wacky that you had thought David Letterman, Howard Stern and Oprah Winfrey were all posting here. Even those Visual C++ experts and folks from all over CodeGuru's other forums joined in the bash. It was so cool that I got addicted for several hours every day.

All internet forums, irc etc were like that back in the good old days because that's how we made it. Things were raw, ropey, rigged together and if they hung together it was cool. As with everything that evolves and sanitises it's never quite as good as it was back then. Quake3World was one of my typical haunts back in 99 - the forum software was buggy and I had loads of fun inserting bits of CSS and sql injection into my usernames to make my name appear reversed, on a button. People used to graffiti other posts with absolute positioning and all in, it was a proper laugh by a bunch of morons who knew how to screw the system without breaking it. IRC too, back in the day before nickserv and the concept of owning your name - if someone else had it, well tough! (Or collide them off when some buggy server split from the network 'cause you DOSed it). All through, it was a proper laugh but it's a bygone time now. Everything gets more PC, more legislated and more restricted. In some ways it's not a bad thing, but in others, it takes away the very core reasons for participating (enjoyment of the freedoms granted to those who explored them)

I dont know if that's happened here for sure, but it does seem like the community has changed. It wasnt the ratings system, or the ads. I dont know what it was exactly, but the technological shift occurring outside, use of programming languages, and the educated skill of the general users has altered. I personally think that increasingly in these times, people are more concerned with selfish pursuits such as getting the answer they want, and achieving something that looks good no matter what scrap lies underneath. I've seen people buy $200 worth of vinyl stickers for their vehicle because they felt they needed it to look good, yet they neglect an essential servicing to a vital system costing $150.. or they pull their face at it. Vanity rises, interest in others, and getting deep down and dirty falls, sense of community and "were all in the same boat" is stripped away leaving each man an island, playing a pointless game of oneupmanship through accumulation of shiny things he declines to share.

Maybe fightclub was right..

Oh, and.. if you want the good old days back.. I guess it's time to invent a new internet that's new, unstable, and hard as hell to use so that the only the enthusiastic few will use it, rather than the sheep majority.. That's really the only difference between now and then; ease of access for hoardes of (AOL users?)

[Saboor]

Im software student about two years i procrastinatig here and i answered many questions i remember people like Darwen which I learned many things from him but nowadays CG doesnt have tha quality for learning and gurus just answering some repetitive and uncreative questions...

and i dont have any comment on chit-chat because i get banned because of my commnts

I really like to see here more professinal for example guru share their projects for peole like me ,technical forums are not constructive totally boring and uneducative (sp? )

for example there is no guru to drop his projects here and others learn and debate or edit it and improve not just answering some lame & easy questions

[Mick]

Holy pOOp batman!!! Guess I'll have to read this thread *lol*


/Another successful troll by the mickster

[Mick]

My conclusion is: things are not going worse. You come back, and maybe they will even get fun.

Cheers,
Me

Maybe, you give me hope going through the replies kinda funny

[exterminator]

Maybe, you give me hope going through the replies kinda funny

Finaaaallllllyyyy.. you posted...

You really started a real debate with very good points put up from both sides.

Covert that hope into reality.. Good luck reading the whole thread..

[mdmd]

Im software student about two years i procrastinatig here and i answered many questions

Saboor Saboor is offline
Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2006, Posts: 0

Did you post micro-code ?

[Mick]

Take a stroll over to the Feedback Forum, where this has been

discussed.

But not by me. You see I'm one of the priveledged ones

I know at least 4 mods (including one you interacted with) who disapprove

of the system.

Sorry, there was no other that disappoved of it when it was raised.

General Note: There are at least an equal number of Mods who want it to stay in it's current

state, and probably, a number of users too.

Yes, and chaining darkie was well within whities rights. There were and are people that feel

the need to be patted on the back for something. Ok, I pat, but lets get back to a pure

techincal discussion without all the fluff.

Well, as long as we are engaged in heavy sarcasm, I just realized that

you're totally correct, and that it would be best for you to leave before the vortex drags

you down the crapper too.

Mike

I've got triple-ply TP, so that's not going to happen

With a 9:4 vote, I think that kind of speaks for itself...

Well, it's 10-19. I'd say that's pretty much a losing proposition.

I worry more about whether Mick has gone to the crapper (recently) than

CG. It might improve his outlook on life.

Deez Squirrel nuts??? Fark.com would love you

Although not a mod I also shouted against the rep system. The adds are a

nuisance but they don't cause that much damage to CG as the rep system does.

The quality of the topics discussed on CG has indeed decreased steadilly over the past few

years. There are too manny "FAQ" questions, "Help me with my homework" questions and "I'm a

lazy programmer" questions. And instead of being redirected/kicked they get a lot of

answers. Which in turn generates more not-interesting questions. Which get answered ...

Just my 0.02$

A voice in the forest. Gump.