Nov
24th
2021
Rules of thumb · 6:52pm Nov 24th, 2021
- The more red and/or black tags a story has, the more likely that story is an invitation to suffer, relying on or even wallowing in shock value and sensationalism rather than quality of writing. Okay, technically the colors are moderate scarlet (mature), pink (warnings), moderate red (certain categories), and dark gray (certain other categories), but I think the point in general stands. Obviously it’s not true in all cases, but it definitely is a red-flag warning.
- If a story has only a few downvotes, likely they’re just expressions of disgruntlement and can be discounted. The voters in question might have a personal grudge against the author, the topic, the perceived activism, or just about anything else with even the most tenuous connection. If indeed the number tends to be fairly consistent across an author’s works, it seems probable they’re from the same coterie of serial downvoters.
- A large number of downvotes, on the other hand, generally stems either from a genuine lack of quality or a political element—portraying something in a positive light others perceive as negative. It might be a mob scene, but even that can be traced to the aforementioned motivations, just compressed into a short time period.
- If a profile or story card is ostentatious about mentioning Christianity, that too is a red-flag warning. This can be generalized to any placard-waving for any agenda—religious, political, or economic.
More as I think of them, and folks are welcome to offer their own suggestions.
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Dave Bryant · 226 views
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I collected a bunch of those a while ago. Gotta find the file with them.
I have been pleasantly surprised a few times, but misspelling in the title or description is almost never a good sign.
Not a suggestion, but a question regarding these parameters based on some of my own personal experiences:
Let's say a user (admittedly, in this case, me) has 3-4 downvotes on every story they've published. Going off of your parameters, this matters less perception-wise on stories with upvote counts in the 40s and 50s, but if another story by that same author only has 9 upvotes to offset those 3-4 downvotes, then do you think the resulting ratio would reflect badly on that particular story, with or without the aforementioned context?
5610801
That’s a fair question. I usually look at an author’s “Stories” page and glance down the voting ratios to see if a pattern emerges. I generally assume, if an author has a fairly consistently good ratio on many or most of their stories, any anomalies are due to a story being new, overlooked, or vandalized.
5610782
Good point. I might add that to the list, more generalized to something like “poor spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the story card also is a red-flag warning.”
5610803
Makes sense. Thanks for the clarification!
Ftfy
5610843
Well, you’re not wrong. . . .
5610843
Bonus points if the user's icon pic is a red and/or black alicorn.
5610953
Um, uh… does this count?
:P
5610984
Section 56.3a of the Rules of Thumb sez no.
5610998
Rule of thumb? Odd turn of phrase for a horse.
5610804
Like, all of that's fixable. This is the internet, someone will be by to correct or complain at you shortly. If it's staying incorrect, it's either laziness or obstinacy, neither of which bodes well.
I'm not including deliberate off spellings or the like in that, of course. Or funetik aksents.