Mass U2U's to correct submissions?

I like the new way of voting for news items, but the only bug bear about it is the mass of U2U's it generates.

Some are generated to help the writer fix any problems within the post.
I think many hit any button without thinking what they are doing. No one is going to admit to that, but it happens.

Hitting the voting buttons at random causes people to get fed up with trying to fix their post, even though there is nothing wrong with it.
How many others have had the same problem and got so infuriated ,that they just want to bin the whole thread?

Would it be possible for the voters name to be sent with the U2U? That way, any problems they have seen could be discussed with the relevant parties, and fix the post accordingly.

[edit on 03/12/04 by Bikereddie]

I'd like very much for that not to happen. People get protective of their posts, and the last thing we'd want is a large argument to break out between two parties.

Besides, it ruins the confidentiality of it all.

When I last submitted news, I was surprised at the u2u's I got, but they were all right on target, and while I disagreed with some of them, I saw a general consensus and understood where they were coming from. The only issue, I think, is the number of them, but that is easily solvable by purchasing a greater quota. 100 extra should give you enough leeway to deal with your submission, and then delete the messages.

I'm all for confidentiality, but some of the reasons behind the votes can be absolutely wrong.

The quota doesn't even work anymore. You can have as many u2u's as you want.... I have like 50 over my u2u quota.

one thing that would be helpfull is that you give a breif explinatin of what the exact problem is. you see the u2u , you look at the artical but can not find anything that seems to be wrong.

chances are that if there is indeed something wrong with it you would have already tried to fix it. not all of us had an english major. heck most of my "english" classes had nothing to do with lanquage other than read a book and answer questions about it. in thirteen years of school i was never even taught how to write an essay. they did try to foucus on spelling, but spelling was something i just got bad grades at, not that that helped me in any way. i am very familier with c, and d as grades, not that i didn't have to work hard to get even those.

to be honest about it i find these "helpfull" hints about as helpfull as school. you did something wrong but if you actualy knew what was wrong, it wouldn't have been done wrong in the first place.

[edit on 9-4-2005 by drogo]

Good point there.

The thing that bugs me is that you can keep forever fixing something that people have found fault with. Its their opinion that its wrong, but in reality, there is nothing wrong with it.

One more point too. How do you get to know how many votes you have before its submitted? I know it needs 15 , but it would be handy to know and to keep track of it.

Yeah, that's too bad. I'd like for the writer to be able to see the current status, but, alas, such is life. It is currently not possible, many have already expressed a desire for this, with good reason.

I've mentioned as well as a few others the need for ATSNN authors to see the current vote count for their own posts, but SO hasn't commented on it yet.

the one good thing in the old way was if your intro wasn't long enough the mod could tell you specifically that. So you did know that specific and generally pretty easy thing to correct. But I honestly don't know how you could do this or you would have 20 buttons for each little catagory.


It would be kind of nice to know you have some yes votes when you are getting all the fix or no votes -- to offset the sting a bit. I always think people are saying no no no and no one is saying yes until I see that it has been upgraded.

What bugs me is that whatever you submit, you're guaranteed to get nine U2Us saying it's not a suitable news topic for a conspiracy forum... by that reasoning we wouldn't know the Pope was dead yet.

The user can send a message to you saying they feel you should fix your intro. There are buttons for headline, intro, and source FIX. This isn't a NO vote, it's a kindness-of-the-heart message. Use them when appropriate, they help a lot.

I posted this item today.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Yet it still hasn't been submitted. Yet another post saying virtually the same thing has been.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

What ever happened to duplicating posts?
Can the mods please delete this thread that i created?
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Bikereddie, that story was submitted by an ATSNN expert, and so doesn't have to go through the voting process.

Regarding the "fix" votes or no votes. it would be nice to have a little dialogue box pop up where you could send an anonymous message to the contributor describing exactly what needs fixing. I had this article receive a number of "Fix: intro" U2Us and also some "no:bias" votes. I didn't change it and it was upgraded eventually, and I still have no idea what people expected me to fix or where there was bias. *shrug*

My point exactly. Where the hell do you start? Why post in the first place if people will randomly hit any voting button?

Just because an article is submitted by an 'expert' after a thread was already started, shouldn't mean it gets priority surely? even if it is automatic.
The 'expert' should have seen that the article was already covered.

Ah well, such is life. Think i might stop posting articles to save me from getting a mass of U2U's and a lot of grief.

[edit on 03/12/04 by Bikereddie]

BikerEddie -- you have me confused -- those news items may be about the same event but they are covering 2 different things that happened there in my opinion --I didn't see it as a repeat at all. In fact I voted yes on yours and I read the other.

Don't be discouraged, BikerEddie. Here's a story about the Israel-Palestine truce being broken and right-wing Israelis clashing with Muslims over a religious site.

www.abc.net.au...

"Gaza violence threatens truce

Israeli troops killed three Palestinian teenagers in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, triggering mortar attacks on Jewish settlements and militant threats to abandon a truce. "

I was just about to write it up, but you can have it. If you get in quick, this story should be voted up no problems.

[edit on 2005/4/9 by wecomeinpeace]

Eddie, two things.

1.) Expert submission do not automatically get upgraded. My submission of the protests to mark the anniversary went through the voting process as well as yours.

2.) like others have said, they appear to be different, as the focus of your story, from the headline, appeared to be the deaths of 15 Iraqi soldiers, while mine focused on the protests.

Who can say why people choose to vote for one, and not another.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. As for the two posts, i read them as being about the same thing. But hey, never mind. We learn by making mistakes eh?

[edit on 03/12/04 by Bikereddie]

I completely agree with you Bikereddie.......I too experience the same problem each time I try to submit an article....

The fact is, it's a new system that's still in development....So as time progresses, we can expect to see it be tweaked left and right....

I think the system itself is wonderful....It just needs a few kinks ironed out....

On simple solution would be to add a NO button all unto itself....

Another solution would be to a NO: COMMENTS button....As many times you'll read a submission and be satisfied mostly with it, but you get to the member's comments and you see they're totally lacking any quality...But there's no button for that.....

Experts still have an advantage, they only need a net +5 votes, where as Contributers need +15 votes for an upgrade.