@msh210 But holey donuts or holy donuts? :)

@DoubleAA @msh210 Can we get some featured tags? The upcoming parshiot, and Chaukah too.

And i assume we'll get hatz?

@msh210 When i saw that one i assumed you were here for a visit. Now i guess either it's a very long visit, or you made aliyah, probably over the summer.

@Scimonster We won't decline hats, but it's up to SE to offer them.

@DoubleAA I randomly checked the countdown this morning and it was at 1,000,000 seconds.

@Scimonster re my new comment there (since somebody called my attention to the post again :-) ), I didn't intend to ask you to do work. It was more "did that happen and if so could you link it?", not "could you go get that data?". Sorry for any confusion.

@MonicaCellio I wasn't confused. I just felt like letting you know why, and whether to expect more.

@Scimonster I appreciate the followup. I'll delete the comments now since they've achieved their purpose.

@MonicaCellio I was going to say no need, in case anyone else was wondering, but I see it's already been done...

@Scimonster oh, true. I'll undelete yours, and then you can decide what to do with it. (I think my ping is implied from context.)

And done.

.

I haven't gotten any answers yet, but some folks might find this question interesting:

@MonicaCellio Why is it a technique that needs to be broken. As long as all voting is justified, and certainly if it is explained in comments, then why is it a big; seems like a feature. I see nothing wrong with noting a user and going through a bunch of his posts, any more than noting a tag and going through its related posts. Obviously, the higher percentage of a user's posts are high quality, the more upvotes he will garner, and the reverse is true as well. Why is any of this a problem.

@MonicaCellio That should read "why is it a bug".

@mevaqesh it's something that causes some amount of strife in a community. So it's not a rules violation or anything, and arguably not a bug, but it's something that feels a little off to me, so I want to know what other communities do.

On another site, for example, where I had an upvote:downvote ratio of about 2:1, there were about three users who got almost all my DVs because their stuff really was bad. One of them complained I was targeting him, and I made an effort to read everything to overcome any selection bias I was having. "Read everything" worked on that small site but doesn't work here, so I wonder what else a conscientious community (or individuals) can do to mitigate.

@mevaqesh It sounds to me like the primary problem is that the "targeted voting" algorithm is oversensitive, so @MonicaCellio is looking for a way to prevent it from invalidating people's legitimate votes by, essentially, gaming it. The gaming technique would be along the lines of getting people to broaden their reading and voting which could be considered salutary, secondariliy. (OK, now gonna read what @MonicaCellio just said.)

(Whew, not duped)

@MonicaCellio To paraphrase the James Morrow quote, I agree that if scrutiny to a users posts tends to result in downvotes, that that is a problem. Its not an argument against scrutiny, however. || On that other site, presumably the reason that that user earned a different ratio of votes than other users, wasn't because of any flaw on your part. Rather the limit as fair scrutiny approaches infinity of a users posts, will be their true value.

@MonicaCellio As the scrutiny increased, the votes on posts approached their value, which was found distasteful. While it is understandable that that user would not appreciate this, the alternative, lowers the degree of rigour in the voting, widening the divergence between actual worth, and votes, hurting all the thousands of users of the site!

@mevaqesh I am definitely not suggesting that people should withhold deserved votes. On that other site, suppose that, because of time zones or preferred tags or something like that, I ended up seeing almost everything from one user with low-quality posts and almost nothing from a second such user. I'm still voting honestly but the site would be better if I were seeing that other guy's stuff too. And it wouldn't look as suspicious.

So, what could I do (on a larger site) to see a more representative sample of content, which I will then vote appropriately on?

@MonicaCellio I dont think I agree that voting should be equally distributed throughout all questions on the site. If one encounters a user whom he thinks is truly extraordinary, then it is more likely that his other posts realy realy deserve upvotes; more than other posts; even those that deserve upvotes. It would thus be logical to submit that user's posts to particular scrutiny.

@Scimonster The latter.

@msh210 Mazel tov! Mind if i ask what part of the country?

@mevaqesh I don't think so. That a post may be extraordinary (extraordinarily good or extraordinarily bad) is reason to inspect it, and is also reason to vote on it. But that one may wish to vote on it is no reason to inspect it.

@Scimonster The Sh'fela.

@msh210 It depends if one thinks that keeping actual value of posts in line with their posted scores is an independent objective. If one thinks it is, then that would provide an incentive to read some posts over others. Given that there are no formal guidelines to this, I don't think that there is a right answer. Rather each user has to decide how he thinks he can and ought to best contribute to the site, and try to do so.

@msh210 Cool. How is it to pronounce conversation Hebrew with a Sefardic ת? ;)

@MonicaCellio By extension, if a particular users posts are very enjoyable to read, I see nothing wrong with reading them more than others' posts. This does not in any way decrease the overall accuracy of the site, or the integrity of the votes. (as opposed to my previous example, which actually improves the integrity of the site).

@Scimonster I've done that for years: I lived near Israeli relatives in the States.

@Scimonster At least... I think it's the Sh'fela. Bet Shemesh, to be more precise.

@msh210 Aha.

@msh210 I don't mean to allow the philosophy of reading stackexchange websites distract from wishing you well, hatslaha rabba, and congratulations.

@mevaqesh amen, thanks

@Scimonster amen, thanks

@msh210 I guessed.

@Scimonster Right. I say (e.g.) mitzvos with a s in t'fila, with a t when speaking Hebrew conversationally, and (usually) with a s when inserting a Hebrew word into an English conversation. Same for most Hebrew words. But Yom Haatzmaus I say with a t when inserting it into an English conversation. So I'm inconsistent in my pronunciation. But I still write it with a s.

@Scimonster :-)

@MonicaCellio Do mods actively bring old questions back into circulation? If so, maybe resurrecting this: judaism.stackexchange.com/q/17680/8775 is a bad idea, as any way you slice it, it decreases the perceived severity of suicide. Maybe unlike people, unwanted questions should be encouraged to die with dignity.

@mevaqesh No, a script did that. We have no control over it. It resurrects questions that have no net-upvoted answers.

@mevaqesh there's something to what you're saying. Nonetheless, one must always be careful not to make people feel bad needlessly. Downvoting shouldn't make them feel bad, and if they do then perhaps there's nothing the downvoter can do about it: as you say, downvoting is an important part of how SE works. [cont'd]

[cont'd] (And the system will revert systematically targeted downvotes.) But if it's possible to be "n'kiyim" in appearance also, so the person doesn't think there's targeting, then that'd be better. I don't know how one could do that, but someone mentioned above the idea of trying to read and vote on more posts. [cont'd]

[cont'd] And with commenting (and chat), there's much one can do to prevent someone from feeling insulted by one's words.

@msh210 @mevaqesh Ways to prevent that: 1) Close the question (if worthy). 2) Downvote the question to below whatever threshold (0?) (if worthy). 3) Upvote an answer (if worthy). 4) Write a valuable answer that will attract upvotes.

@IsaacMoses Yes, absolutely.

@Scimonster It is the Sh'fela, isn't it?

@msh210 I think so. But i'm bad at geography. I honestly had to look up where the Shfela is.

@msh210 A fine idea. Unless a user finds critical comments themselves offensive...

@mevaqesh Then one has to see whether the gain (that the OP will fix the post and/or that people be warned not to trust it) outweighs the loss (someone who feels insulted).

@msh210 Of course.

Well, nice chatting with y'all. I must go. Tzt.