This isn't a new idea. I guess it just had to ferment a while before I really understood it. It certainly isn't my idea, not originally and not alone. For some reason it only became clear to me lately, though. I'll walk you through the associations I made and maybe by the ongoing reaction to this writeup I'll be able to judge if I've made it clear to you, too.

A writeup was published here, as I write this now, a little less than 18 hours ago. In that time it has received 5 C!s.

If I could figure out the html to reproduce a page-top I'd cut and paste the whole thing, as I see it, so I could pose to you one of those "What is wrong with this picture?" questions. As I can't, this paragraph of babble has served well enough as a diversion in time just long enough for me to be able to ask: given those two little clues, what is wrong with this picture?

Some of you reading this have been here a while, you knew by the end of the second paragraph everything I was going to say through the rest of this long-winded plea. Some of you are new, or you found this through a link, and all you can think of is how fabulous it would be to have a writeup with 5C!s - let alone one that was so friggin awesome it could earn them in less than a day.

To the people who have been here awhile this may seem a case of pleading the bleeding obvious. They'll have to agree though, if they've been paying attention, that for a while here it wasn't bleeding obvious - it was plum forgot.

From Voting/Experience System

"Use these chings wisely! Just because you have chings doesn't mean you should use them with careless abandon. Most users view a writeup's chings as an endorsement of quality regardless of the impulsive reason you may have chosen to bestow that "Attaboy". Do you really want your name to be associated with something that we might consider to be stupid ten minutes/days/months from now? Think twice before you click on that C!; chings spent in haste can be regretted in leisure.

A writeup can be C!d any number of times, but only once by any given user."

Quaint, isn't it? So nice, so unassuming. So often ignored...

The most commonly acknowledged noble reason for bestowing a C! is giving a worthy writeup exposure on the oft-viewed front page. One commonly acknowledged benefit of being on the front page is increased exposure to vote spending noders. One rarely expressed woe of C!ing the shit out of a writeup in a matter of hours or days is robbing it of so much more exposure and generally making the persistent audience tired as hell of seeing the same five titles scrolling by for 48 or 72 or 1,087 hours. Geddit?

A C! is more than just a supervote. A C! is not a way of signing agreement with a tolerably stated opinion. I'm going to repeat these every so now and again.

So as not to embarrass the author of the aforementioned writeup I intentionally delayed publishing this for, some, time. I can let that author remain anonymous because the scenario I described is not that hard for most to imagine. That author was receiving the supervote, they wrote a great piece and five people expressed instant gratification gratitude.

A C! is more than just a supervote. A C! is not a way of signing agreement with a tolerably stated opinion.

The second anti-definition I gave for a C! entails some harsh critiquing. I'll go ahead and keep this family-friendly and critique myself. My apologies to the instantly investigatable and incriminated C!ers. I wrote a tolerably stated opinion in A dog is not a house accessory. This was, in my own estimation and I hope it is fair to say for most, a passable piece of writing. It is not rambling or incoherent, neither will it win any awards or move anyone to tears. It gets the job done.

It also expresses something of an ideal sentiment. How many of the 8 C!s I received in the first month or two were for my exemplary prose and how many were rewards for my nobility of purpose and how many were just people who wanted to be associated with the same idea for a little while? Go read a little of it if you haven't yet. Am I wrong? Is it so stellar?

A C! is more than just a supervote. A C! is not a way of signing agreement with a tolerably stated opinion.

Personally, I'd have preferred that most of them saved their C!s for another day if they felt the prose or message was worth sharing - it has been shared well enough in the few months since I wrote it. Even more preferably, if after reading it they felt I'd earned a cookie, they could have hunted up one of my older writeups, perhaps a little better written or also with a message worth sharing, and they could have given that one another peek at the light of the front page.

A haaaa. It becomes clear. Do you see how C!s spent in haste devalue them for everyone? A C! has the power to resurrect for another day a cherished or forgotten gem from yesterday (and also to shower it in another day's votes). A C! can also be so cheaply spent that it becomes a mere "me too" (ever seen a writeup with more C!s than votes?).

By all means, read new writeups, pass votes and share comments with the newer writers. If you find something you like, though, consider for a moment how best you can both reward and serve the author. Then consider the rest of us. For myself, if it has been C!d in the past few weeks? just bookmark it, find something else, C! something you bookmarked a few weeks ago maybe, it'll still be here later...

Now, on E2 there is more than one way to skin this type of cat. I sometimes get involved in projects that have an effect on what E2 will become. I'm involved in one such now that could speak to this issue. In addition, I know I can bend the ear of at least a few admins and by either of these routes some sort of rule might be implemented. I'd hate for this to have to be a rule though, and I respect our administration enough to guess they'd shoot the idea down for similar reasons. We accomplish so many good things through simple peer pressure. It seems to me this is a simple issue of etiquette and therefore it should be regulated by peer pressure - by a majority of noders who demonstrate right behavior through their actions and consequently teach newer noders the same behavior.

If you agree with these ideas then the ways to show that agreement are simple. First, don't C! this writeup. If it has been on the front page in the past few days then just leave it, go spend your C! on something more worthy, something we haven't seen in a while. If you really want to advertise this writeup then wait a while, wait until it is likely to reach people who haven't seen it before. Second, send it as link in messages or use it as an editorial softlink. Shoot, you can even preemptively softlink it to your own new writeups to let potential C!ers know you'd prefer longevity to instant reward. In the meantime you can always send me a message. I value those more anyways...

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