Several real modifications to the code base I work on have taken less than 0.05 programmer-hours. About half of which was booting up and connecting to the server.
In this case, it would be a matter of changing something along the lines of this:
<span class="votes " id="score_<? echo $comment["ID"] ; ?>">
<? echo $comment["up"] - $comment["down"] ?> point<? echo $comment["up"] - $comment["down"] != 1 ? 's' : ''; ?>
</span>
and tacking something along the lines of this to the end:
(
<span class="votes " id="score_up_<? echo $comment["ID"] ; ?>">
<? echo $comment["up"] ?>
</span>
|
<span class="votes " id="score_down_<? echo $comment["ID"] ; ?>">
<? echo $comment["down"] ?>
</span>
)
I don't know the exact implementation details server-side on this, as I don't have access to the LW source code, but it really would be a minor tweak (unless upvotes and downvotes are counted together, in which case it would be nontrivial).
You are talking about code on which you work. That means that you already invested a lot of time into knowing the code base. If SI search someone to implement this they probably need to spend some time to understand the code base before they can make changes.
I don't know the exact implementation details server-side on this, as I don't have access to the LW source code
The source code is open source.
Several people posted recently in a thread on women, mostly espousing feminist views - only to find that someone had declined to respond to their post, but instead browsed their history and downvoted every single comment or article they had ever posted.
I have two questions:
1. Why would you come to a site like this and pollute the karma system? How does it make you smarter? How does it make anyone else on the site smarter?
2. What would be a good technical workaround? In my mind, some system that detects mass-downvoting and flags a user for review would be preferable, but what should happen then? Should the system be more lenient to higher-karma posters? Who should perform the review process? What should be done with those whom the reviewer ascertains are abusing the karma system? I would prefer some kind of lesson that is more corrective than retributive - it seems to me that people who would perform this behavior are exactly the sort of people who need some of the lessons that this site provides. Any ideas?