Sick and tired of trolls

[paolo bevilacqua]

The scenario is always the same:

A no-previous-posts someone comes in with an opinionated believing about something. Often it is in the form of a question, to which only some answer will be accepted.

When the plain truth is exposed to the person, even with plenty of supporting motivation, some insisting reply is received, and then low ratings of 1 or 2 when generous. Typically the person will never shop up on the forum again.

One example for all:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/message/3160586#3160586

I routinely respond to these people, and very interestingly I never get a factual reply to say where I was wrong. Only sometime, I get apologies, of the type "I was new and not sure".

Now, I understand that it maye be difficult, that we should just put up with these, that there can be one hundred reasons against, but I am afraid that unless we can have protection from unmotivated low ratings, I will have no desire anymore to post answers.

[marikakis]

Hey Leo, the "issue" you report is very common or haven't you been to WAN, Routing and Switching lately? I bet Paolo won't like this (I've seen this happening before). Paolo seems quite happier to me right now. Is there a reason we would like this to change?

Regarding the gossiping of another thread, I have self-censored one of my previous posts. It always feels better to remove something at will instead of having the moderator do it!

[Leo Laohoo]

Ok, ok, ok ...

Here's the opposite side of the coin:  https://supportforums.cisco.com/message/3168062

Read the expression on the guy's post.

Love the way when the plan comes together. 

[marikakis]

Hey, Leo, that was hmmm respectful!!! (BTW: we don't have an icon with sb laughing on the floor)

I have a thread that is not funny, but interesting in its own way (look at the rating and the last post): https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/2035232

As Dan already said, we should not assume that the authors are the one's rating us poorly. I've seen threads that look similarly weird (because the authors, based on their past, either hand out good ratings or no ratings at all), but in this one the author (as an experienced user who knows what this means) denied handing it out.

Hey Dan, I wouldn't like to be in your place! Now, I'm sure you and your team are doing your best to handle the situation, but keeping everyone happy is in many cases just not possible (as I'm also sure you already know). One of Rob's previous posts suggests it's hard to please everyone (in another context, but I believe it holds in many contexts, and in politics as well ).

[Leo Laohoo]

Tell y'all what ...

If anyone thinks they deserve a ratings (or higher) but didn't get one, send me a PM or whatever.  I'll rate y'all. 

[Rob Huffman]

Hello all,

I couldn't help but jump back in here to comment on all the great ideas

being bounced around

+5's to Maria, Mike, Leo and Dan for your ongoing commitment to trying to solve

the un-solvable. We'll never find a solution that pleases everyone so I'm going

to back away from my wanting the removal of 1 & 2 point ratings. This clip from Maria

says it all for me;

"One more thing: the solution that leaves the current rating system unchanged is the easiest to implement and become familiar with. It also requires the least amount of agreement among the members. To be honest, this is the idea I liked more from the beginning. It only requires learning to appreciate the benefits that come from the flexibility of the current system and ignore small dark spots."

I had some 2 pointers last week that I thought were undeserved, but instead of

getting upset I grabbed a cross-over cable, made a happy face out of it

(like Zen-master Mike) would do, grabbed a Beer (to have a virtual toast

with Leo) and thought about the tough times that Maria and Jon

have been going through lately and the mess we've stirred up here

for Dan and thought "it just doesn't matter".

Let's get on with the more important things in Life.

You peeps are the BEST!!! Health and Happiness to all of you!

Cheers!

Huff

[marikakis]

Mike, my ideas are not always good. In case you haven't noticed, in my previous post I practically killed my own idea with my own sword. The crying part or Drama Queen (or name it what you will) is just a joke. Other members are more familiar with crazy things I might say and they respond accordingly. Dan for example suggested the "you are the woman" solution for the 5 rating. [This might actually be good. Me and the ladies get the 5's and you guys start begging the authors to give you lower ratings. Most authors will be more than happy to do so, so things will go your way. And when the authors want to punish you they will give you a 5. This is actually perfect! ]

Rob, I can't believe I missed you getting 2's. I thought I had fixed at least the most recent of those around. If I ever see such a thing I will see what I can do to fix it. Generally, if member remains polite and has a cross-over cable around with a happy face, that's what I will do.

The fact that I have various serious issues to deal with right now (or my personal opinion about the true value of ratings) is not really the reason the recent rating discussions initially made me hold my head in despair. I could see the dead end coming. It's just that I've seen this before (or "the scenario is always the same" as Paolo would say):

1) members complain about the unfairness of the rating system

2) Dan recognizes what we are going through and offers a shoulder for us to cry on

3) Dan inevitably asks for solutions

4) solutions are proposed in the best case (otherwise this step is skipped), but Dan has the responsibility if there are bad consequences from any selected solution, we don't (and wouldn't even like to take this responsibility)

5) everybody goes away until the next time and here we go again.

If this topic is indeed very important for members and is brought up again, I would personally like us to have cold heads, go directly to step 4 and stay there. As usual, trying to solve a problem yourself and assume responsibility for the solution is the best way to see how hard it is.

[Jon Marshall]

Maria

If this topic is indeed very important for members and is brought up again, I would personally like us to have cold heads, go directly to step 4 and stay there. As usual, trying to solve a problem yourself and assume responsibility for the solution is the best way to see how hard it is.

Couldn't have put it better myself. We have numerous discussions on ratings and we still don't seem to have "solved" the problem. Personally i would like to see -

1) removal or remarking of 1 or 2 that are given unfairly. Of course what one person sees as unfair another may not !  I am all in favour of having a moderator for each major forum who can do this but that moderator would have the final say ie. no arguments on what they decide. Who that moderator is is the difficult question. Dan was talking about having Cisco people rate good answers that have been left unrated. I'm not against this but i think at least as importantly it would be good if these people could take on the role outlined above.

Not sure how practical that is Dan ?

I still can't see the justification of removing 1 & 2. Some answers are just downright dangerous and could lead to a network being down and we surely need a way to mark this as such. Although they are usually caught by another poster saying "for crying out loud don't do that.

And it's a slippery slope from there. If we don't like 1 or 2 lets be honest none of us are too keen on 3 either. So why not remove that as well. And if you are going to remove 1,2 & 3 then what's the big deal of removing 4 because everyone would rather get a 5 than a 4 right. Now we have a forum that you can only give a 5 rating on and to me that just seems totally wrong.

2) Modification of the meanings for each rating. I have to say i'm not too keen on 5 being right and documented because sometimes the answer just doesn't have supporting documentation ie. it comes purely from experience. The rest i agree with.

I would like to see something done on 1) as the most important simply because we risk losing very good people, like Paolo, if we don't sort this out.

As for 2) it would be a nice to have but not that fussed.

As for all the great posts that go unrated there really is no easy solution. I have to be honest and say that when i first started posting questions to NetPro i got some great help but didn't rate. Not because i couldn't be bothered but because i just wasn't aware of it (i have since gone back and rated just to be clear )  So i don't think for the vast majority of people it's because they don't want to rate, it just doesn't occur to them. I am not in favour of any system that makes it mandatory though as this will just put some people off, all we can do i guess is to just keep persevering.

Jon

[Rob Huffman]

Hello all,

Great, great input (and funny) from two of my FAVES Maria and Jon

+5 to both of you for the obvious thought you have put in to this rather

perplexing issue.

I'm going with #4 from Maria;

4) solutions are proposed in the best case (otherwise this step is skipped), but Dan has the responsibility if there are bad consequences from any selected solution, we don't (and wouldn't even like to take this responsibility)

All blame for bad ideas must go directly to Dan even if he has nothing to do with coming up with them

I also agree with Jon in this statement, it's like getting a trophy for finishing in 15th place in your race (what's the point!)

And it's a slippery slope from there. If we don't like 1 or 2 lets be honest none of us are too keen on 3 either. So why not remove that as well. And if you are going to remove 1,2 & 3 then what's the big deal of removing 4 because everyone would rather get a 5 than a 4 right. Now we have a forum that you can only give a 5 rating on and to me that just seems totally wrong.

Cheers!

Huff

[marikakis]

Thanks for your input guys. I thank even Jon who gave the last hit to my bad ideas in this thread!

Dan and his team will decide about what's going to happen in the end. There is no doubt about that. If we want this solved, the best we can do is to propose (i.e. stop crying and start trying).

Ideas don't come just like that and even when they come they might not be perfect at an initial stage. If members have some ideas, I would suggest they tell us, whether they think those are bad or good. Even if an idea doesn't look good, it might just need a little bit of fixing. Keeping it inside you until it becomes perfect is a waste of time. We have many people here and they might come up with a better idea based on your idea. It doesn't matter whose idea it is in the end. Do we want this fixed or not?

All this doesn't have to happen overnight of course. In the end we might come up with a list of proposals with possible pros/cons. To make the decision process easier, we could start a poll in the main page and ask members what they think about the ideas to improve the rating system or whether they think something else will improve things. What do you think about that? This might also have the side-effect of helping new members notice that a rating system exists. Ok, you might not like this idea, but at least it came to me and I said it. After all my bad ideas in this thread I can assure you I am still breathing!

[marikakis]

I went back to this thread: https://supportforums.cisco.com/message/3071067

I agree with Tim's post. I also agree with Jon's posts (nothing new about that ). An interesting part is Edison's idea about the e-mails. There are some doubts, but Mike takes it and modifies it. Jon takes it a step further: "Perhaps rather than sending separate e-mails we could tack a reminder onto the e-mail that gets sent when someone responds with an answer ?" I think this is good, since many members "attach" a "please rate helpful posts" or variations of it anyway. This idea automates the procedure without extra e-mails, makes it impersonal, and who knows, maybe one day authors could rate by clicking on a link embedded in the e-mail. In my opinion, that thread stopped at the best point (edit: I mean, at the most interesting point).

p.s. As for Leo's theory on selfishness of the authors at the dying breath of that thread: Leo, you might also be interested in reading the theories about what motivates people to participate in online communities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_participation#Theories).

Message was edited by: marikakis