I’m not very good at written debates or arguments or counter-arguments. It’s not my forte and not something I enjoy. I can never organize my thoughts. Arguments in person are always more effective because most people will bow down to a forceful voice and can be shut down with intimidating body language. But I think I’m losing my taste for that too, because nobody ever changes their ideas in a debate, they just get more defensive.
That said, I type this with a bit of trepidation, because I can’t stand toe to toe with the unChing node above on logic, but I will try to convey why I find this idea so distasteful.
I’d rather not go line by line deconstructing why I think is a horrendous idea because wordnerd’s points are very sound and probably would foster more debate. The unChing! isn’t a bad idea, much like communism isn’t a bad idea. But I can’t see it working because of the way people work.
What I see is this:
“Wow, this new write-up is a pile of shit. Downvote….”
“ “What the fuck? It’s at (+21/-4)? And has four chings?”
“/msg author: Hey, your new wu is rambling, has poor grammar, and doesn’t add anything to the database!”
Author of shit nodes says something slightly smarmy and while apologetic and thankful for the criticism, indicates that he has no intention of changing shit node.
“That fucking bastard. Well, here have an unChing! That’ll teach him, the prick.”
LameGuyThomas says “Hey, BookReader just unchinged your write-up October 31, 2007. Suck it, bitch.”
“What! Well fuck him. Here’s another unChing.”
It’s petty and I don’t like petty things. I spent most of my high school “career” being petty and dealing with petty people and it gets tiring. I personally don’t want to be petty and I will not support any system that encourages pettiness either consciously or unconsciously, even though wordnerd assures above that there can be checks for this sort of thing. I’d like to think of myself as an optimist, but I doubt this sort of thing changes with age. And I will leave the website the moment a bot like LameGuyThomas is created to help those who in their overzealous march to foster debate would knock egos down to build up their own. (“Well, fine, BookReader. We don’t need you,” they say nodding to themselves and smiling knowingly.)
I know the retribution issue is addressed in point number two above. But the process by which one gives out the uC is mired in pettiness. The clique bit can be solved. On an individual level I don’t see how this would work. Klaproth exists so that editors afraid of retribution from high powered noders don’t have to put themselves into anybody’s crosshairs. I am not an editor. If I knock down some high level user, who is not as nice of a guy or gal as he seems, what do I do? Just suck it up? There was an ability to curse noders that gods have, it might still be around (even if seldom used) and it is anonymous, unlike the unChing!. Then we get the danger of systematic downvoting.
Why don’t we just get rid of anonymous voting all together? With every vote signed we don’t even have to bother with unChings. Or chings. wordnerd says that the ching is "HEY EVERYONE THIS IS AWESOME READ IT NOW READ NOW PLEASE READ NOW!" Yeah, that’s exactly right. That’s what I do when I cool a write-up. Or use it as a boost to encourage budding talent. If you’re not willing to cool for the ages, why cool at all? The unCool does say “Let’s delete this foul shit” because it works as a negative to the existing ching and I have a hard time viewing it as anything else.
Hmmm. This all was a bit longer than I intended.
LameGuyThomas says “Hey, your write-up unChing! has just been editor unchinged. Your reward is smelling like dog shit."