What does the "Out of date" option actually do now?

Post by Lovestar

I know you can Archive your own comments, but I'm curious what the "Out of date" selection actually does when selected for someone else's comments.

I've marked a ton of things as out of date (for good reason) since the VTD system was eliminated, but checking back I notice no change ever occurs to the comment.

For example, on the Essence of Water page, there's many comments talking about fishing in Azshara. Those nodes were removed with the zone revamp in Cata, making the comments misleading and potentially harmful (wasted travel time, confusion, etc).

I feel bad downvoting these types of comments, because they were absolutely valid/helpful at the time of posting so it seems unfair to punitively damage the poster's Reputation with a bunch of -2 hits simply because the game itself changed.

That's why I liked the Out of Date capability in spirit (even though it was horribly abused/misused in practice), since it formed a happy medium between eliminating now-unhelpful comments and not punishing people for an evolving game.

So TL;DR: What is actually happening when I select "Out of Date" and type in my reason? Should I even bother spending the time to do it, or just downvote and move on?

Post by felhunter

if i understood it correctly, if you put up a comment for out of date now. the moderators/admins decide whenever you were correct or not and then delete it/keep it if they disagreed.

Post by hatman555

So TL;DR: What is actually happening when I select "Out of Date" and type in my reason? Should I even bother spending the time to do it, or just downvote and move on?

Right now when you flag something as "Out of Date", the comment gets flagged in out system. As soon as another person also flags the same comment "Out of Date", the comment jumps to the top of the list. We read the comments that have gotten 2 flags, and then action on them. If we think you are right, the comment gets yellowed out, and you get a point towards the "Clean-up" achievements. If we don't think agree, we clear the flags and those 2 people get -3 credit points towards the "Clean-up" achievements.

You can vote comments down any time you want. Out of Date comments are no longer good comments and should be voted down. Of course, just like you we feel bad, and and think that some comments that were once really good, deserve a little protection. This is why the Out of Date system yellows the comment and drops it to the bottom. Keep flagging stuff, cause it only takes 2 reports for us to action on it, and we do check them every day.

Cheers,
Hat

Post by hatman555

So I just check the OoD comments, and 1 has come up flagged by you and another person.

This comment
You wrote: These 2 items no longer share an icon; this comment is outdated. by Lovestar on 2012-07-14 14:38:31
Someone else wrote: No longer correct; Connective Tissue has a different icon by blank on 2012-06-29 12:04:29

Now there are flaws in lots of systems, and we filter the reports by 2 people flagging, because it takes WAYYYY more effort to look through the comments that have single flags. 2 flags, and you end up losing lots of the spammers, and the angry people, and the people that just like to press shine buttons.

Anyways, I read both peoples reports, I look at the comment and the replies, and agree that this comment is OoD. I'll flag it as such, and the next time you click on that link, it will be yellow. You and that other person both get +1 points for the "Clean-up" achievements.

Cheers,
Hat

Post by Lovestar

Ah, thanks for clarifying all that! ^^

That makes sense I guess, and that system is perfectly reasonable. I don't mind requiring some democracy in order to get things OOD'd — it's possible for even the most well-meaning contributors to make mistakes.

Confirmation that flagging OOD actually does do something is all I needed to know, so I'll continue to make the effort.

It might be helpful if this new system was explained more clearly somewhere on the site; "Comment added to out-of-date queue" is really ambiguous. Something more like:
Comment flagged as out of date. If other users also flag this comment, a moderator will review it.

I also had no idea what the golden comments meant when I first came across them. I don't think it's intuitive for new users (or players) that some comments are still readable, but a different color, with no other explanation — maybe a simple This comment contains outdated information. at the top of yellow'd comments would be appropriate.

Post by Sas148

Comment flagged as out of date. If other users also flag this comment, a moderator will review it.

I could have sworn I saw this exact same quote at one point. I could be mistaken though.

Post by hatman555

Post by Bratamoli

Post by Adamsm

I wanted to add that I think this is a bad thing. Wowhead tracks a user's overall upvote/downvote total, and I feel like this punishes the user and tarnishes their reputation because of changes in the game. Imho, these comments should no longer be votable.

How does it punish a user? You don't lose rep for a down vote anymore, and if someone doesn't find a comment helpful, then it should be voted down.

Post by Sas148

I also had no idea what the golden comments meant when I first came across them. I don't think it's intuitive for new users (or players) that some comments are still readable, but a different color, with no other explanation — maybe a simple This comment contains outdated information. at the top of yellow'd comments would be appropriate.
The current system makes it obvious that something is different about these comments, but I don't think it is intuitive that these are now outdated, and I also would like to see something letting users know that this is historical/outdated information.

This is something we agree with and have placed a request for a more obvious distinction to be added. In addition we've asked for collapsed comments (ones with an overall negative rating) to be more obvious that they must be clicked on to read the comment within. Right now we receive several reports claiming the comments are "blank" even though they are not.

You can vote comments down any time you want. Out of Date comments are no longer good comments and should be voted down. Of course, just like you we feel bad, and and think that some comments that were once really good, deserve a little protection.
I wanted to add that I think this is a bad thing. Wowhead tracks a user's overall upvote/downvote total, and I feel like this punishes the user and tarnishes their reputation because of changes in the game. Imho, these comments should no longer be votable.

As Adamsm pointed out, there is no hit to a persons reputation from a down vote. Therefore, if it's outdated and someone chooses to down vote it that's not a problem but it would be more helpful if they'd click the Out of Date button rather than down voting, but there is nothing wrong with doing one or the other, or both.

Post by Nooska

I think what Adamsm is getting at is that you can see the average score of a users comments on their userpage, and downvoting instead of outdating means the average get slower depsite a high score being warranted (the users contribution doesn't become less because changes in the game outdates the help given).

Its a Reputation (system) versus reputation (what youcan find out about a user) thing, I think.

What does the "Out of date" option actually do now?

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