Possible Flaw in Reputation System (Moderation/Downvoting/Editing)

Question

So as a new user, I'm trying to find a balance between supplying useful answers, getting help that I need, and also trying to raise my reputation at the same time.

A really bad experience, and a really incredibly "good" experience, today has led me to believe that the ranking or reputation system for Stack Exchange in general, while it's needed and provides that anti-Yahoo Answers community, is keeping some other users down. For instance, any issues we may have with the community (such as this post), we could certainly talk about it in a blog, but we don't have the rep for doing that.

My bad experience today was asking a simple Identify this movie question in the Movies Exchange. Although there is a meta question about what makes such questions good or bad, there seems to be this grey line. Apparently, we should be spending our time searching on other sites rather than ask the community what kind of movie we're looking for, says one of the answers to this meta question. However, given my question, I tried to find my movie online afterwards and couldn't get a result. So while we could spend our time on Google looking for our movie, I believe the point of the community is to help give members the answers (and the first answer was what I was looking for). Thus, because of my "lack of details" and the supposed belief that I could simply look on Google, my answer got downvoted to the point where I lost all my rep on the Movies Exchange. Call it a personal problem, but moderators (and I've noticed this in the Sci-fi section as well) are (my opinion, but there may be other reasons) either very picky or very lazy to edit/correct posts, and just downvote or close or put the questions on hold.

My "good" experience was simply working on Stack Overflow. I find it incredibly easy to gain reputation simply by editing posts, particular those with bad grammar. While this seems "great", we know many of these edits may not have been necessary.

So what is the point of reputation if I can exploit certain parts so easily and yet it seems like a waste of time to do (given the amount of downvoting due to lack of moderation)?

Answer 1

To be clear, id-this questions DO NOT require you to spend ANY time searching other sites. They do require you to provide enough details for people to actually identify the movie and to choose a title other than "help me remember the name of this movie." Your first draft was far too terse and didn't actually even ask a question. So people downvoted it. Perhaps because that site doesn't know how it feels about id-this questions you got more downvotes than a poorly worded question about Game of Thrones death counts would have, but that's really neither here nor there. When you don't know how a site works, it's easy to lose a ton of rep. You can get it back by fixing the question so it earns upvotes, or by deleting it - but do that with great care, or you might get question-banned.

You seem worried about the exploit of getting rep on StackOverflow by editing - this is no exploit, it's gamification. You're reading dozens of posts, along with looking at their comments and their vote counts, and learning what belongs and doesn't belong on the site. You're also making the site better by fixing hard-to-read grammar, spelling, and punctuation. So you get rep, which you deserve. Yet when you go to another site, where you don't really know what belongs, you stumble. It's a really common occurrence. It doesn't mean reputation is broken. In fact, it proves that rep really means something.

Answer 2

I'd like to look at one particular aspect of your post:

Call it a personal problem, but moderators (and I've noticed this in the Sci-fi section as well) are (my opinion, but there may be other reasons) either very picky or very lazy to edit/correct posts, and just downvote or close or put the questions on hold.

It seems that you want editors to fix problems in your questions for you. They certainly can - they've earned that privilege - but they aren't obligated to. Yes, it's very nice when high-rep users help new users by editing new posts into shape, but they don't always do that because they don't have a duty to repair other people's content. There's only one person with a duty to make sure your content is high-quality, and that person is you.

You've also said this:

I find it incredibly easy to gain reputation simply by editing posts, particular those with bad grammar.

When you fix other people's content for them, you're helping them, and you're earning trust. Congratulations, that's a good thing! Yet you're not obligated to fix every single post with bad grammar, and I'm sure you've looked at some and decided to let them fall. It's your choice.

Answer 3

Your question was closed and downvoted. Part of that close reason includes a link to the M&TV "on topic" page with a note to review the site's policy for quality in ID question asking.

"Identification questions must contain sufficient detail to meet the site's quality standards and should not be about a commercial or music video. For help writing a good identification question, see: Identify-This-X Questions."

As a site, we have made an effort to help users create the best possible ID questions so that the question can remain on the site. If it fails to meet these guidelines, the question is closed. The requirements are:

Identification questions are currently on-topic for this site with the exception of commercials and music videos. Please try to show effort and give as much detail as possible:

• Plot details of any scenes you remember
• Descriptions of any characters or locations
• Where you watched the movie or TV show
• When you watched the movie or TV show
• Any idea of how old it was
• Any idea of country of origin (if known)
• Whether it was animated or not
• Any other distinctive detail

Also try to give the question a meaningful title that already includes key identifying details (e.g. description of a character, setting or plot) and avoid generic titles like "name of horror movie". See this question to get a feel of what we expect from a well rounded Identify-This-* question.

Here is the content of your question:

I am looking for the title of a movie that follows a group of people in the desert, looking for something. They come upon some jewels with bugs inside, and the bugs break out and start devouring the people.

Out of the eight bullet points above, only the first (and possibly last) are covered in this question. If you edit your question to include these details, it is likely to be reopened and possibly upvoted... and if you can't remember some of them, even noting that you're not sure about them shows us that you've reviewed the guidelines and tried your best.

You seem to expect the users of M&TV to do the work of editing your question for you... which was done... but with an ID question, all we can do is make the question look pretty. We can't intuit the rest of the required info from your head.

Please note, that getting a correct answer does not mean that your question had sufficient detail to remain open.

I'm not really sure, considering all of this help that is available to you on M&TV and was given to you when your answer was closed, why you believe that the users of that site (of which I am one) are the ones at fault here.

We have done our best to help you succeed. We can not fix your question - you must do that yourself.

Answer 4

the ranking or reputation system for Stack Exchange in general, while it's needed and provides that anti-Yahoo Answers community, is keeping some other users down.

That's because the exact point of reputation is this: To benefit from all features of Stack Exchange, you must first prove yourself as a literate user who cares about the site and composes good questions & answers. Those with low rep are basically those who didn't prove themselves... yet!

Most users with 2000+ rep are great examples of "proving yourself".

we know many of these edits [that somewhat improve bad grammar] may not have been necessary.

If your edit will improve anything (no matter what), JUST DO IT! Make your dreams helpful edits come true!