Unfortunately, the system in
E2 does not
encourage factual writeups. People will vote for what they like, and that generally requires either a
unique piece of information or, more likely,
comedy. And generally, the thing that makes that piece of information unique is that it's funny.
So the goal of E2 has drifted from factual noding to entertainment. You get points for entertaining people. Not for pissing them off. Not for factual noding either. Most factual nodes remain around 0 rep. This node is a fact, but no one likes to hear it, so I have no doubt in my mind that it will be downvoted, just because people don't feel that this should be the point of E2.
However, as it was pointed out through satire in Jesus Christ Trigonal Planar, what we say reality is and what is actually the truth are often two VERY different things. You can say that the point of E2 is to node facts, and that may have been the original intent, but unless the users who control the flow of the nodegel agree, you can never dictate the direction of E2. And it doesn't help that the E2 Gods don't always set a good example......
And as
dem bones pointed out to me... I do not encourage this
comedic style of
noding. I really wish that E2 could be about factual noding.
Fortunately, there's so much freaking information on here that there seems to be enough room for both to coexist. It's just my opinion, but maybe BOTH should be encouraged. And perhaps eventually they'll come up with a designation that you can create for your node - "Serious" or "Comical" or "Other", or something along those lines- and then a user could choose to turn off all nodes of one type or more. The ones who want comedy can keep their comedy - the ones who want seriousness can filter it all out.
Another
addendum -
dem bones made a good point just now. Opinions disguised as facts are BAD! I'm all for comedy. Be as funny as you want. But don't say that something is a fact if it isn't. One might say that this writeup is an
opinion, but I truly believe that this is a fact. And I don't feel like proving it, but I'm sure it could be proven by examining
voting habits on E2.
But posing an opinion as a fact is the one way for you to make information on E2 detrimental to the user reading it...
Let me go ahead and accredit
dannye's concept of
balance to him. He suggested that for every comical node, their should be at least one serious node. And that's great... if you can
enforce it. But the structure of E2 as it is, I believe, is
incapable of such
enforcement... But you want to be popular and generally accepted by the
everythingians, right? That's the way to do it. Balance yourself by including more facts than opinions and jokes.
And concerning
Gone Jackal's wu below, that's still not always the case. Providing extensive information does not always guarantee upvotes (though it does make it more likely). The idea of
spicing up a wu is a very good idea, and that's what I would suggest for a
factual writeup. The problem is that a lot of the people voting on E2 don't really seem too interested in factual writeups... so they seem to read
nodes with funny titles more often. If there's a node that says
Adrastea in the New Writeups list and a node that says
love animals, don't eat them, which are you honestly more likely to read?
Another good point by
dem bones that I'd like to
clarify. This is only true now. As I cannot see the future, I do not know how E2 will change. I would imagine that it would remain much the same unless the developers take it in a
different direction. Or perhaps it will change on its own. I can't speak for the future, but I can speak from the now. And perhaps we can learn from it or perhaps it will
remain true forever.
If I ever see that the attitude on E2 has changed, I will note it here.
Inspired by
Shanoyu - Comical nodes are likely to get extreme votes
either positively or
negatively. So don't think that all comedy will be appreciated. Just because I think that it's OK to node comedy doesn't mean that it's OK for you to node BAD comedy. If you feel the need to node comedy, make it good comedy. That means that it shouldn't
discriminate against anyone, and it shouldn't
offend anyone. And it should be funny, not something that -you- find funny and no one else does.
Someone mentioned that
experiential nodes get upvoted as well. I feel (
OPINION) that experiential nodes are just as factual as factual nodes. Especially if told
objectively.
Let people learn from your mistakes.