As many have probably noticed, we are under attack from a ruthless band of reposters. Folks who, for whatever the reason, feel the need to constantly post and repost their same comment over and over again. Want some examples? Try here, here, here, and here.
Why do they do it? In some cases its to provoke others, in others it's to erase not helpful votes, and other times it's to make sure their ideology is at the top of the list.
As annoying as it is, reposting is not currently against the rules - unless I deem it to be a deliberate provocation of another user (and yes, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference).
I am looking at ways to eliminate the incentives for reposting the same tired stuff over and over again... suggestions are welcome.
(Editor's Note: There are, of course, perfectly legit reasons for reposting... fixing typos, making changes to your original points, etc.)
4/4/06
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I don't think it's usually to provoke, but it sure as hell annoys at first. Eventually, the comment is recognizable and I skip past it, anyway.
ReplyDeleteAs an idea: is there any way to have it so that RIA can tell if there had been any changes in a post, and if no changes had been made, have a message pop up that says "No changes to your comment has been made. Click OK to return to the last page visited" or something like that. And just have the comment not saved.
That's an interesting idea... but gamable. Once people know the system, they change a word or two.
ReplyDeletePerhaps RIA could make it so a post could only be reposted so many times a within a given time frame. 3 times sounds reasonable - if you can't fix any grammatical or spelling errors after the third reposting.... tough cookie, you'll have to wait another 30 (or even 60 ) days to repost. I can't think of any other way, except for arbitrary intervention by The Administrator (which is perfectly justified, as this is his site ), that would put a stop to this lunacy.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you guys think about making it so reposted comments don't show up in the Recent Comments?
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like pretty good idea to me, LC - it eliminates the exposure these clowns recieve, which, I assume, is the driving-force behind their sociopathic behavior.
ReplyDeleteGood point; it would be fairly easy to just switch up the punctuation to make a post "new".
ReplyDeleteThe "updated-post-not-showing-up-
in-recent-comments" idea sounds like the most straightforward.
Whatever works. Right now, my current solution of "roll my eyes and then scroll down" works pretty well : P`.
I tend to repost frequently, usually because later proofreading shows that I could state my ideas more clearly or more thoughtfully. Other times I simply correct spelling, punctuation or facts I've gotten wrong.
ReplyDeleteWe are currently penalized helpful clicks for cleaning up posts. While I am okay with the new proposal of re-posts not showing up in "Recent Comments", I'd suggest this be done as a substitute to the helpful click penalty and not as an additional penalty of re-posting.
We'd have fewer annoying re-posts for attention, fewer back-and-forth fights, and more people willing to clean up faulty posts. If there is concern with a user re-posting simply to be first on a list, perhaps comments could be sorted by "date first created" instead of by "date changed".
Cheers,
Andrew Scott