Our friends over at Sphinn are debating the arrival/use of the "Nosphinn" option, it seems to use it you need to leave a "relevant" comment not just a "this post sucks" kind of thing.

Sounds so eminently sensible you'd wonder why they don't use the same criteria to Sphinn a story :-)

Actually, I thought about that. We'll see how Desphinn goes, first.

You might recall here that to cast negative rep against someone, you have to leave a comment (or at least I'm pretty sure that's how it used to be). We did that here because we felt being negative should require someone to take a moment and think more about it.

I think because we do have an ample amount of commenting activity, there's not been that much pressure to say you should have to comment why you are Sphinning an item. Like I said, perhaps it is something that should be required.

One complication is that people can Sphinn items from stories themselves. So say Search Engine Watch had Sphinn buttons on its stories and you're logged in to Sphinn. You read the story, think wow -- that rocks -- and want to Sphinn it to spread the good news to others. Rather than cast your vote, you'd have to get a pop-up asking you to comment, and that might seem kind of funky.

Like I said, I really have wondered if we should ask people to comment when they do a Sphinn -- there are good reasons to do so. But it has been working well without that so far, and we're just being more cautious when you bring in stuff that potentially could be used negatively.

PS: Just looked at the rep feature. To give positive rep, you don't have to give a comment about it at all.

Well IMO it would also cut out a lot of the "messing", that post by one of your mods about being pressurised to vote for stories comes to mind.

You'll have to point me at the post. On the messing, I guess we disagree. Been through that already here in another thread, in terms of yes, we do have comments (indeed, more than at some more established forums) and yes, the comments are more than "i love you" to people. Ultimately, I guess until I see you regularly at Sphinn either submitting or commenting -- with respect -- it's difficult for me to get that bothered about your concerns. I've weighed in at this point to help correct what I feel are some incorrect assumptions about the community and the quality of content there. As for issues about Desphinn, requiring comments for them or comments on stories, I'll respond (and have been doing so) to the people actually on the site. For the record, not a one has suggested so far comments should be required for voting stories -- though ultimately, that might be a good idea. As for Desphinn -- maybe it won't last, but we have reasons explained more fully over there for trying it.

Danny I think it is a good idea... shows that people have dissenting views and is more realistic of human nature - though I respect you and your opinions I am not going to agree with them all.... keep up the great work!

Here you go though it seems to have been cleaned-up somewhat, she was a lot more "forthright" in the original, IIRC.....
http://sphinn.com/story/11229

Either way, having to comment would eliminate a lot of the spurious voting, thus probably making the need for a NoSphinn/Ho-Hum option largely redundant.

BTW, this is a comment rather than a concern, were I a Sphinner, then it might be a concern :-)