Questionable Redaction
Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome to another edition of the Friday Q&A. You might recall last weeks post as a bandwagoning cop-out the anti-censorship movement. This was by design, censorship is a big problem in our society, almost as big as the ██████. It takes a true patriot like me to see everyone doing something and copy them.
Q: Has censorship finally been defeated?
A: My heroic actions taken in saving the Internet seem to have brought about a lasting peace that will surely endure until at least next week. Saying nopa to SOPA is a good start, but evil governments and corporate entities are always working together in hopes of finding newer, better ways to crush our rights.
Q: What are they working on now?
A: Probably some other freedom-grabbing "Act" with a deceptive name. If we start hearing about the Hug Bunnies Whilst Giving our Children a Better Tomorrow Act, you can bet it has a provision hidden somewhere inside that okays the usage of torture on suspected copyright infringers, who will now simply be referred to as "terrorists".
Q: Has Fark's voting system been restored?
A: Unfortunately, no. The powers that be are doubling down on their "best or funniest" idea, despite massive public and private outcry against the changes. No consideration was apparently given toward any third party sites that handle statistical analysis, despite clear evidence that they knew such places existed. In classic Fark fashion, management is absolutely wedded to the dual voting idea, and will not consider changing back, no matter how much we hate it.
That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. I'd like to close by offering my gratitude towards everyone who spoke out against the voting change. I think we all knew that our pleas would fall on deaf ears, but at the least I can take solidarity in the fact that so many share my views on this topic.
Stay tuned for more useless sentiment from the Doctor!
Friday, January 27, 2012
Friday Q&A
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3 comments:
Hello, loyal Minion here. Early last week I submitted a "constructive criticism" Farkback with the notice that their voting system had a potential bug in that folk can vote Best AND Funny giving folk the unholy ability to cast 2 votes. I pointed out that their Fark PS Browser counts both votes, something no contest site allows.
The initial response was that when they applied the 2 button system, they really didn't consider the impact on the PS Browser. I won't comment on that.
I got an email from Mike on Friday that he was going to "fix" the PS Browser; unfortunately, I was spinning uncontrollably at the time and couldn't respond. He "fixed" the PS Browser by only having it count Best votes. So now the Leaderboard and PS Browser match, but both are discounting many votes. I won't comment on that either except to say that wasn't what I requested.
What I did request was a solution within the framework of their 2-button system which I don't believe they intend to remove. I requested that the voting function be changed from Best AND Funny options to Best OR Funny options. They already employ code to prevent a member from voting for an entry >1x; use this code to prevent folk from voting for an entry (in the other category) once they have selected one option. By adding the "Best" Total and the "Funny" Total you would get a true contest total since the values would then be mutually exclusive. This total would be on par with pre-2012 contest tabulation so continuity would be maintained while leaving their new voting options intact.
I'll be honest, I don't know how easy it is to replace a multi-select UI selector prompt with a toggle UI selector in their code (not using PHP, ? if using SQL) then add both totals for a contest total. To be honest, the complexity only comes with reporting the 2 totals in the thread; category is not relevant for the contest total since each user would only get 1 vote per entry anyway. That a user 'voted for an entry' would only need be counted.
SO I sent a follow-up to Mike and Drew Friday PM re-iterating my original request and why this is a sound business decision for them. If you want to sell a solution to Drew, you have to present a business case. I have lots of R/L experience so it comes pretty naturally for me. Consequently no bribes were exchanged. So I guess we will find out next week if this is a possible fix.
Sincerely with Votey-goodness,
i-dig
Scratch my prior response. Not that I was ever the kitteh's meow, but I dont think they give a flying f*ck about me or you or any other shoppers. On 3/2 this trusting idiot will join the ranks of ex-farkers. Goodbye mysterious Doctor, your commenting audience has left the building.
This is very unfortunate. First of all, thanks for at least trying to talk some sense into them. You've already gone above and beyond to help our community, don't beat yourself up if they wouldn't listen to you. There's just no reaching some people.
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