If we do something about the "sandmen" I might consider treating newbies with kid gloves

Question

Background. SE has periodically pressed forward campaigns trying to make the site friendlier to new users. Summer of Love (several editions), Be-Nice-policy,... Apparently they have largely failed. At least Sara Chipps seems to think so. The latest attempt was to increase rep rewards for questions. While a nice try, I doubt it will do much, because it does nothing to the root causes. I, for one, will continue to insist that the new user searches the site for duplicates before posting, and shows a due amount of effort.

My recovery from the events that lead to this outburst made me realize that I really don't have so much against new users. I quite understand that they have difficulties coming up to speed with what is expected. I have been teaching college math for 30 years, and I know not to stoke newbies math anxieties. Mind you, we actually get enough new users at Math.SE who actually bother to research their questions (I am willing to dismiss homework help seekers, I will educate them on my paid time).

I want to draw attention to a couple of comments:

Shog9: "A big part of solving that comes from recognizing that these sites are a shared resource, and working from that toward some sort of compromise as to how the site should be used."

Shog9: "No amount of pleading or nicely-worded signs are going to convince water to wet your parched plants when it wants to tear out a gully and carry away your precious topsoil."

So why I insist on the strict rules?

At the dawn of the SE network users started developing different ideas about how the site should be best used. Some emphasized quality, organization and generality of answers, others decided that speed and volume (of their own posts) are more important. The notorious 4 camps are just isolated points on a close to continuous spectrum. As explained there camps 1 and 3 have all the moderation power:

• camp 1 = users emphasizing content quality and organization, aka caretakers,
• camp 3 = users emphasizing content volume, I call them Sandmen from the sand vs. pearls dichotomy for the alternative terms are not conducive to dialogue.

The software imposed rules on voting heavily favor camp 3.

• No matter how many duplicates such a user answers per day, there are no consequences to their ability to answer.
• Even if camp 1 deletes 10 dupe answers to FAQs by the same user per day, that user can post many more - to reach the rep cap, or whatever other reason.
• If I downvote all the FAQ/dupe answers of such a user, the system will revert those votes as targeted downvotes.

Let me spell it out for the benefit of those developing the site SW:

No amount of pleading or nicely-worded signs will convince me not to vote to delete unpolished questions from new users if letting those questions survive will give fodder for [term redacted].

Why dealing with this camp 1 vs. camp 3 is important in relation to newbies?

Right now, a few chatrooms in Math.SE are a war zone. I don't think that the relations between these two loosely defined camps are amicable elsewhere in the network either. The war consumes a lot of resources, and probably many would prefer a lean compromise to a continuation of this bloody war.

The two sides have dug deep into their respective trenches. They cannot talk it over in meta for the camp 3s never come there. Or, they only show up to complain about an occasional deletion, but won't change their behavior. Even if some adjust their answering policies, the war will continue as new answerers join their ranks.

In the eyes of caretakers disenfranchised newbies are simply unavoidable collateral damage when fighting the true enemy of the site. Mind you, we will post nicely-worded comments when voting, but the newbies will still get their questions closed/deleted.

What I think should be done.

[Edit: I deleted a suggestion for a newbie tag, albeit with the extra piece of answers not being rewarded generously or at all. Apparently that has been discussed to death already. Concentrating on the (over)eager answerers for now.]

• If I were a dictator the wrongfully earned rep from answering FAQ/dupes would be gone, but... A) that's near impossible to do fairly and algorithmically, B) I said that we need a lean compromise, so the new rules should probably apply in the future only. Suggestions below.
• If you answer a duplicate, or your answer gets deleted because the question was deleted as poor, you get a speeding ticket limiting you to 6 answers per day and 50 per month for the next month (the recent change made the rules more symmetric between the askers and the answerers, and this would be in the same spirit).
• The rep lost on the deletion of an answer is deducted from the daily rep cap of the day the answer was posted (remove the possibility to "prepare" for deletions by answering more than is needed to reach the rep cap).

I think these would be very mild consequences. With 98% of the questions already answered, being limited to 50 answers per month should not really hamper anyone who pays attention. But these SW limitations would show that the software is not all in favor of the camp 3 lifestyle, and would be taken as a sign that the SE is not picking the side of camp 3 (more about that in another thread). Furthermore, these rules would steer the users away from trying to compensate lack of quality by quantity.

After all, Shog9 called for a compromise. Policies where camp 3 carries on unchecked are not compromises.

I didn't make the rules of this game, but I would very much like a level playing field in relation to the camp 3s.

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Edit: Several points have been raised (some I foresaw but left out because this post is long enough already). A main objection being that accidentally answering a duplicate should not have severe consequences. I don't think being limited to 6 answers per day + 50 per month is severe (it would simply steer the answerers towards making their allotted posts better). But how about a "three strikes" -rule with warnings after strikes 1 and 2. Similar to the messages we receive from the review audit engine!

Anything that signals to these answerers that they should do their part in organizing the site, and not simply merrily pick low hanging fruits.

Acknowledging the difficulty of coming up with a rule limiting a practice that is tolerable when accidental, but disturbing and unfair when done excessively. Suspensions are IMHO too harsh a solution. That's why I suggest limitations on the number of posts.

Answer 1

A system like this presumes that duplicate closure is flawless.

And my God, it is far from that.

You're basically punishing people for the fact that the biggest broken thing in all of this is that no one could reliably search for a duplicate question.

Can we just fix broken search instead of shooting someone who may be acting in good faith?

Answer 2

I believe that part of the problem that SE has is a contradiction between two goals. On the one hand, SE intend their network of sites to become a repository of canonical questions and answers. That is, they want the sites to become a reference work or encyclopedia. On the other hand, they want the sites to be a place where anyone can ask a question and get help.

The first goal (the "encyclopedic goal") requires that answerers are experts and that duplicate or otherwise "low quality" questions are prevented or pruned. The second goal (the "providing help goal") requires that the sites are open for anyone and that anyone may ask anything (as long as it is within the scope of the specific site).

The first goal requires that the community has a high participation threshold; the second goal requires that the community is open and welcoming. Both goals are not easily possible at the same time. In other words, the basic problem is conflict by design.

Answer 3

As the "sandmen" are going to get rep, what about "Give an incentive for finding duplicate questions" along with a way they can explain to the questioner why it is a duplicate.

Answer 4

The main problem for Stack Exchange is that their platforms are unwelcoming by design. When new joiners ask a question, they often get dupe hammered, heavily downvoted and/or their question gets closed because of low quality. After asking their first question, their first experience is generally very negative. This has been discussed in many blogs and Reddit threads that I shall not reference here.

The real problem is that this is by design to ensure Stack Exchange sites remain a canonical question and answer site, rather turning into Quora where anything goes. Stack Exchange management basically need to make a decision what direction they want to go in. Being more welcoming will likely compromise the overall quality of questions and answers, however, if they don't become more welcoming, they may not get enough advertisement revenue to survive.

Answer 5

Update: I agree, situations where you have blatant "rep only" hunters that write 20+ low quality answers on low quality questions, that is a nasty issue, and the rules outlined above might help for that case.

But: not every situation is that clear. Grey areas exist, and I see plenty of potential that the proposed rules also hurt other people:

If you answer a duplicate, or your answer gets deleted because the question was deleted as poor, you get a speeding ticket limiting you to 6 answers per day and 50 per month for the next month (the recent change made the rules more symmetric between the askers and the answerers, and this would be in the same spirit).

Problems with that:

• Remember that the relatively new Lifejacket and Lifeboat badges suggest the exact opposite. The badges encourage users to spend time to write up high quality answers, even on questions that aren't too great. And also to invest time to help improving the question quality. The above proposal basically puts a distinct "risk" on people writing answers. An answerer might start with "others just don't see that this is a reasonable question, and I will prove them wrong by writing a great answer". Maybe the answer is really great, but the question stays low, and eventually gets closed and deleted. And now the person who actually did something useful gets kicked for doing so?!
• Then: just this week, the vote count for closure has been reduced from 5 to 3. I personally like that, because quickly putting questions on hold gives feedback and suggestions to the OP asking. That is much better than having them look at -2, -3 votes, for hours, and "nothing else" happening. But just 3 votes also means: it is easier to get the vote wrong. There are not only people hunting reputation by answering all kinds of nonsense, there are also robot reviewers coming to wrong conclusions too often. Now: the sanctions you propose when answering "in the wrong place" will lead to pushback. When 3 votes are good to close, then it only takes 3 well connected camp3-members working together to undo that close, to prevent deletion.
• Leading to: sanctions are nice, but what if a question gets in fact undeleted, re-opened. Maybe the same day, or worse, a few days later. So not only do you increase the potential for people fighting on close/re-open/close/... harder, you also put a sanction in place that can't be "undone" easily (from the perspective of folks who try balance camp1 with camp3 desires).

The rep lost on the deletion of an answer is deducted from the daily rep cap of the day the answer was posted (remove the possibility to "prepare" for deletions by answering more than is needed to reach the rep cap).

Nobody can know upfront "what will be needed" to reach the daily cap limit. Beyond that, that cap limit is in itself loaded with emotions, and adding "more rules" and sanctions has a high risk of conflict, for relatively few gain.

And remember: in the end, you need at least 20 individual upvotes per day to get to the cap. That means that often 20 different individuals found your content worth upvoting. Now, if one happens to add an answer in the wrong place, is it really helpful to turn the reputation gained there into a sanction?! Remember: you talk about answers that probably saw multiple votes, so maybe: they weren't that bad in the first place.

Finally, just for the record: I occasionally comment on "hmm, well okay" answers on bad questions, and explain to the answerer that he might A) send the wrong signal to the OP asking the bad question, but that B) most likely, the answer will be deleted together with the question anyhow (so: waste of time). You now what comes back pretty often: "I don't care about the reputation. I want to help people, even when they struggle to put up a great question". Okay, then their answer gets deleted ... but would you really want to extra kick the people trying to help? Do you really think this will overall improve things?

Answer 6

A lot of criticism of SE is that you need rep in order to do basic things (like comment) and I think that is one of the primary reasons for repwhoring. Get enough points to be able to use the site as many of us take for granted. The site becomes "normal" at about 1 to 2 thousand rep.

Now once upon a time the rep system was useful to generate the site, encourage users to answer and vote and all the rest, but I think those days are done. Now we're trying to attract new users, and the first thing they see when they come here is effectively "you can't do that, you n00b".

So I would propose making the privileges accorded to rep fall into 3: the first tier is to ensure that scammers and spammers cannot run rampant by creating new accounts and commenting or answering with their spam. Then the vast majority of the privileges becomes available to anyone who has 100 rep. Then a few of the best privileges are earned when you get to some heady height of 10,000 rep. (these numbers were taken off the top of my head, and will require more thought, but describe the principle)

Then, the rep becomes useful for the old greybeards who have participated in the site significantly, but the average user does not feel penalised for not getting so involved that they feel they have to answer with poor responses.

It also removes one impediment to retain new users, as they will not feel quite so unwelcome by the site's implicit mistrust of them.