Better forum

[deed]

On Thursday, 6 December 2012 at 07:37:29 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 06, 2012 at 05:11:59PM +1100, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 12/6/2012 4:47 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> >What's the voting supposed to do? What are you voting on? 
>> >Whatever it
>> >is, it can't have any effect beyond those who use the web 
>> >interface,
>> >so unless it's specifically something that only affects you 
>> >account,
>> >I don't see how it could really work.
>> 
>> Also, voting systems are easily manipulated and abused. Fixing 
>> that
>> requires, well, a larger investment in thinking about it, human
>> moderation, etc.
>> 
>> Doesn't seem worth it, to me.
>> 
>> I wouldn't underestimate the ongoing effort forums like reddit 
>> and
>> hackernews put into voting systems.
>
> Voting is one of those things that everybody thinks is a good 
> idea.
> Until it's put into practice, then you realize it needs further
> refinement. Which adds yet another layer of adjustments, and 
> then you
> realize that *that* also has its shortcomings, and needs yet 
> another
> layer of adjustments, ad nauseaum.
>
> But nobody ever takes a step back and wonder, why do we even 
> *need* a
> voting system? What does it mean for a forum post to be rated 
> X, for
> some value of X? I mean, this isn't a popularity contest here. 
> We're
> trying to have a technical discussion. It should be the 
> technical merit
> of a post that establishes its value, not some arbitrary 
> integer that
> got randomly assigned to it. And frankly, when you're browsing 
> the
> archive for past discussions on a specific topic, do you even 
> care how
> many votes it had? What you care for is the meat: the technical 
> points
> raised in the post itself. The number attached to it holds no 
> meaning
> whatsoever.
>
>
> T

If all posts at D Learn could have been tagged by subject and 
easily looked up in a structured subject tree, as in the language 
reference, I belive it could complement the documentation in a 
useful manner.