Negative 'Downvoting' Removed

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

Friendly forum users!

As of today, we're disabling Negative Reputation in the forums. Positive Reputation, or "Upvoting" will remain in place. Reputation history and current standings should be unaffected by the change.

Ice IX, the forum moderators and myself have considered and discussed the Reputation System at length and have decided that removing Negative voting was an idea worthy of experimenting with. If it doesn't work out, downvoting can certainly return.

Our hope is that by eliminating Negative voting, many forum users will feel less intimidated to post and quick and easy negativity will be somewhat lessened. Abuse of the system, including "revenge downvoting" of multiple, unrelated posts goes away.

All other functionality will remain in place, so the community will still be able to report any abusive or rule-breaking posts, and of course, comment constructively on topics they might disagree with.

Thanks for working with us to help foster a welcoming, inclusive and friendly forum for all users.

IamTheBiggs

Well okay then. I've always tried to down vote with an explanation, but I think this exercise in the removal of the function has its merits. Let's see how it goes.

stowaway

Aw, and I just received my first ever downvote like half an hour ago! I was ready for the gloves to come off!

Unknown

Interesting choice, but I hope it works. The forums have definitely taken a more toxic turn over the past couple months and I applaud any effort to stop the slide.

wymtime

I think this is a great idea. I have always believed the down vote button was for vulgarity, and name calling. Others viewed it as a way to disagree with the person who posted. I am all for disagreement and discussion, but when you post something and someone down votes you to disagree, but does not post why, or explains why in the comments it can be very frustrating. I know I am proud of my reputation and take the down votes personally.

Thanks for this new feature

Lee T

Seems like a sensible decision. Revenge downvoting is toxic in itself and I won't shed a tear to see it go. If you disagree with something you can always counter argument and any post worthy of being hidden through downvote could just as easily be reported to the mods.

babinro

Bring it back so I can downvote the OP!

Seriously though this is a great idea. Upvoting is great for showing your support or simply agreeing to a comment without having to take the time to add your own.

While downvoting could simply mean disagreeing it doesn't provide any context as to why. If you disagree with someone it's probably best you make a post about it and then others could upvote you to represent their support on your stance.

You effectively create a more positive forum experience without punishing those whose opinions differ.

The only real drawback that I see here is for those who are trolling/advertising/harassing. Makes life a bit tougher on the mods to find these things.

Unknown

This is reminiscence of Twitch chat mods removing Sub-only chat and allowing everyone to speak. This could also unleash the Trolls. It is an interesting decision and hopefully the quality of discussions in here will improve.

Wonko33

IMO this is ridiculous.


Upvoting is good because in theory it removes all the "me too" posts that clog a thread

Downvoting is a way for the community to say: hey dude maybe not many people share this opinion. I know if I got one i would not take it as a personal attack, just some dudes who disagree with me. We lost a quick way to assess, take the pulse of the community without having to read 10 pages of drivel.

But to some people disagreeing is huge deal, "I demand you explain why you disagree with my awesome comment" , expect a point by point rebuttal to the disagreement by the morning. Please, give it a rest...

Unknown

It has always been my understanding that a downvote was for unnecessary negativity, flaming, name calling, trolling, etc.

And it seems that the downvote rate lately has been ridiculous and very over abused. I have seen several people, including mods, get downvoted simply for doing the job that they volunteered for. So I support this decision.

But I also hope the mods are ready for a lot more "report abuse" flags. 5 downvotes before used to hide such post, but now it will be left to mods to edit such post out, or spoiler alert the original content, or something along those lines.

Buret0

Community enforcement is okay, community bullying is not.

Where you disagree with the opinion of the user (and only the opinion), you should not downvote and you should face repercussions for continually doing so (such as community downvoting or removal of your downvote privs). The community tends to recognize where someone has downvoted a post without merit and tend to upvote to balance it out.

The community hasn't been abusing the downvote, so I don't really see the need for its removal.

Then again, it has always been easier to build high reputation through complaining about the devs with the community than it is in supporting the devs through a tough transition.

In that sense, reputation is just a circular tool of self-reinforcement and the removal of the downvote does nothing in that respect.

Buret0

TBH, in the absence of the downvote, I am actually far less likely to use the upvote, as there is less need to positively reinforce good posting when there is no lasting effect to negative posting.

Unknown

Finally, the scattered darkness won't hide the trolls and haters. No longer can they disparage me with voting.

Those who seek to challenge me must do so in posts. Thusly, making ignoring easier and painless.

I stand as an equal to everyone else.


But I will miss downvoting things that are absolute tinykitty so that naive forumgoers would be wary of them.

Buret0 wrote:

community bullying

I'm not gonna comment any further cuz I'll get in trouble, but at least someone brought it up

Esheris

The Red's just didn't like getting downvoted for upsetting game changes. =P

Unknown

The funny thing is, I bet you anything that it was the same people that were regularly abusing the downvotes that were complaining about it so much that it had to come to this. That's usually how this situation goes.

Too bad, now people will have to discuss differences of opinion in public and like grown-ups instead of the whole passive-aggressive "You're wrong, but I can't tell you why" downvotes that serve no purpose other than petty spite.

The kid who was currently downvote spamming me is going to be so sad now too. Wah wah.

Buret0

Esheris wrote:

The Red's just didn't like getting downvoted for upsetting game changes. =P

I'm surprised that the Admin's just didn't make their posts immune.

I've seen other games where Admin posts can't be downvoted.

Arondite

In my opinion, Downvotes were a quick and simple way to say "I disagree" and move on. Abusive, rulebreaking or trolling content was to be reported, not downvoted.

Downvotes, in my opinion, were a way to say "I disagree". If enough users disagreed, that post would be hidden. If a user collected a negative reputation through numerous downvotes, their credibility would suffer.

Downvotes were a way to tell a brand new user who'd never been here before "take what this guy says with a grain of salt...". That's what they've been for on every forum I've ever been to. I've never seen downvotes policed before anywhere I've ever been, and I've never seen someone take them so personally. Every forum I've ever frequented used the reputation system as exactly that - a way to track someone's reputation (IE - the opinion of their forum-peers).

Opinions can be negative.

Unknown

Considering the last time I got downvoted was because someone thought that they knew my sleep schedule better than I did, I'm ok with this.

Unknown

I'm guessing this is a direct response to the devs doing a "5 o'clock document drop" of bad changes and getting massive down votes as a result.

Guess we have to find a filter-approved word to cover those feelings. Ham doctor, perhaps?

Unknown

Potentially a good move.

Although I feel down voting has its merits if the person down voting gives an explanation to why, however getting a person to do as such is more problematic.

On Gaziiiion's forum site they use a slightly different rating system, disagree, agree, insightful, awesome and lol. Not sure this forum would support so many options in voting, but it seemed to get some very useful and well constructive posts here and there

esoxnepa

Teke184 wrote:

I'm guessing this is a direct response to the devs doing a "5 o'clock document drop" of bad changes and getting massive down votes as a result.

Guess we have to find a filter-approved word to cover those feelings. Ham doctor, perhaps?

I think we need to just start quoting a whole post we hate, and typing "neg dude" as the only body of the post.