Negative 'Downvoting' Removed

orionpeace

TLCstormz wrote:

"American Idol ruined EVERYTHING!" lol

But seriously, it made "the people" believe that they had the right to judge everything, everyone, and every opinion ever uttered / typed. And that is simply NOT how society works.

If you wanna disagree with something, put the effort into a rebuttal. Don't just take the lazy or cowardly way out and click a simple button, because honestly.......no one cares if you simply didn't like what they had to say. That's just an immature power trip that MANY people on the internet feel validation from. You didn't like that was said? Such is life. Ignore it. Keep on scrolling. Get over it. You do not have the right to judge it (unless it was blatantly disrespectful).

Down votes shouldn't be instituted, in the first place. Imagine if EVERY SINGLE TIME your parent or teacher or classmate or co-worker said something you didn't like.....and EVERY SINGLE TIME you spoke up and said "I disagree" or "I don't like that"? Not only would that result in numerous slaps to your faces, but also a lot of disciplinary actions and getting beat up being the merry go round.

So you think agreement and approval should require NO effort, while disagreement should be a Herculean task or just plain skipped? Why is that?

Also, maybe if a few more folks had received disapproval of their bad behavior, they would be doing less of it. Just a thought.

orionpeace

raisinbman wrote:

orionpeace wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

Someone was bullied for making a character vote thread to the point where they decided never to do again, try taking the issue seriously plz

I think a few of your posts and pattern of behavior in the past clearly indicate that it is entirely possible to bully someone without the use of a down-vote.

The removal of the down-vote will achieve nothing. And those that just clicked it and moved on will be more motivated to post something that just bogs down the thread.

Expect to see a great many of the following in the days ahead:

"Disagree"
"Wrong"
"Waste of space"
"Let it be known, in this thread and upon this forum, that my opinion doth differ from the individual that hath spoken first in this arena. Find his words quoted here as a memorial to his or her wrongness"

A) It wasn't me who was bullied, why are you assuming that? You say you follow my posts so you should OBVIOUSLY know who decided never to do a Character Vote again.

And since you follow my posts, you'd have seen my more recent character rankings, meaning, again, this person is NOT me.

Not all of us are self-centered, y'know.

Ok. I suppose I wasn't clear.

I was indicating YOUR posts and YOUR pattern of behavior could be construed as bullying on this forum. NOT that you were bullied.

I do not follow your posts. But I see them often. Sometimes I read them. And sometimes I don't.

And I never indicated that you were self-centered.

Also, you are kinda proving my point with your post. Just FYI.

Take care!

Wonko33

Cymmina wrote:

Was there an actual problem with downvotes? Because all I ever saw was one particular individual (I've deliberately avoided naming names here: this is your opportunity to not incriminate yourself, don't blow it) causing a huge fuss about being stalked/bullied.

I'm a fan of the StackExchange network where downvotes are a useful and necessary tool to identify low-quality content (terrible/misinformed/off-topic answers and lazy/incoherent/off-topic questions get downvoted; correct/useful answers and thoughtful/well researched questions get upvoted).

works for Reddit too - but there as well people who put unreasonable value to Karma, freak out when downvoted and will go to any length to get upvoted.

This is where the discord is right now,
-people who think that downvoting was an attack on their character (reputation etc) feel it was unwarranted, at the extreme even felt bullied.
-People who saw it as a quick efficient way to express disagreement are wondering why a perfect tool to do so was removed.

Unknown

orionpeace wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

orionpeace wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

Someone was bullied for making a character vote thread to the point where they decided never to do again, try taking the issue seriously plz

I think a few of your posts and pattern of behavior in the past clearly indicate that it is entirely possible to bully someone without the use of a down-vote.

The removal of the down-vote will achieve nothing. And those that just clicked it and moved on will be more motivated to post something that just bogs down the thread.

Expect to see a great many of the following in the days ahead:

"Disagree"
"Wrong"
"Waste of space"
"Let it be known, in this thread and upon this forum, that my opinion doth differ from the individual that hath spoken first in this arena. Find his words quoted here as a memorial to his or her wrongness"

A) It wasn't me who was bullied, why are you assuming that? You say you follow my posts so you should OBVIOUSLY know who decided never to do a Character Vote again.

And since you follow my posts, you'd have seen my more recent character rankings, meaning, again, this person is NOT me.

Not all of us are self-centered, y'know.

Ok. I suppose I wasn't clear.

I was indicating YOUR posts and YOUR pattern of behavior could be construed as bullying on this forum. NOT that you were bullied.

I do not follow your posts. But I see them often. Sometimes I read them. And sometimes I don't.

And I never indicated that you were self-centered.

Also, you are kinda proving my point with your post. Just FYI.

Take care!

rofl, I'm a bully? I figured it must've been something crazy since I seen your guild's sig again

Proving your point??????? Ah, gotta remember, don't waste my breath - just hit 'add foe' button

Unknown

blinktag wrote:

I think it's clear from this thread that different people interpreted the down-vote button differently, which of itself is reason to have this discussion. There are generally two views:

A. Down votes are for trolling, insulting, unhelpful, spam, or inane comments without content.
B. Down votes are for all of the above, plus disagreement.

I'm in the A crowd. Because disagreeing shouldn't impact reputation. (Besides, Grimm and Maddox disagree all the time.) It seems to me the mods were in the A camp too, and didn't like it was being used for B.

Some of the best and most professional forums I participate in take implement a dual strategy:
1) Make it explicit what down votes are for. (In that particular case, #1, as disagreement and good debate is encouraged.)
2) Only allow the top x% (say, 60%) of tenure/reputation people down vote. This helps reinforce the community expectations of what a down vote is, and helps mods out by hiding "bad" posts quickly.

Removing down votes entirely is one solution, and better than what we had, but not, I think, the best solution.

Madrox was in the B camp, at least in this post.

Another thing I don't like about this system is if someone posts a stupid straw man argument, instead of other people down voting it with 'straw man', the initial poster is forced to defend themselves with another meaningless post. There's unfortunately no shortage of people willing to take offense at disagreement and blow it out of proportion and into perceived personal attacks. Normally, we'd just downvote the crazies. Now we can't. Not everyone has the patience to explain every misunderstanding, and it just gets frustrating after awhile, especially if we don't have people downvoting.

Personally, I had gotten more cautious in downvoting recently for several reasons:
1. They were being overused by some people.
2. There's a risk of incurring someone's wrath and receiving dozens of retaliatory downvotes.
3. It didn't feel like they would do anything productive.

Also, at least one person saw this coming, lol.

simonsez

Seeing Orion vs. Raisin now getting played out via posts instead of neg wars we wouldn't notice, should serve as a good preview of where the forums are headed now...

DrStrange-616

I would have prefered the mods to get together (since they apparently didn't have any agreement on what the downvote was used for) and come up with a policy. Post it. Enforce it.

This is going to lead to more fights and more work in the long run. Instead of me being able to downvote (a silent, disapproving shake of my head), now I'm going to have to call the person a jerk (in a nice way, of course - or not).

There have been posts on this thread that I want to downvote, but the only viable way to communicate my disagreement is to say "you're being a a tinykitty." And let's face it, some of the people who earn the most downvoted have zero interest in a profitable back and forth. They're just acting out. People can ignore it (as they could before), but you know they won't. Heck, I probably won't and an already tense board will just get messier. And the people who like to stir the pot can do with with impunity.

Cymmina

raisinbman wrote:

Cymmina wrote:

Was there an actual problem with downvotes? Because all I ever saw was one particular individual (I've deliberately avoided naming names here: this is your opportunity to not incriminate yourself, don't blow it) causing a huge fuss about being stalked/bullied.

I'm a fan of the StackExchange network where downvotes are a useful and necessary tool to identify low-quality content (terrible/misinformed/off-topic answers and lazy/incoherent/off-topic questions get downvoted; correct/useful answers and thoughtful/well researched questions get upvoted).

Someone was bullied for making a character vote thread to the point where they decided never to do again, try taking the issue seriously plz

I never take people seriously that use txt speak.

No one is interested in listening to your constant off-topic banter. You've cried wolf so many times that I've made it a point to report every single post that I see of yours that is remotely off-topic. If you have a problem, flag it and let the impartial moderators take care of it.

Unknown

Cymmina wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

Cymmina wrote:

Was there an actual problem with downvotes? Because all I ever saw was one particular individual (I've deliberately avoided naming names here: this is your opportunity to not incriminate yourself, don't blow it) causing a huge fuss about being stalked/bullied.

I'm a fan of the StackExchange network where downvotes are a useful and necessary tool to identify low-quality content (terrible/misinformed/off-topic answers and lazy/incoherent/off-topic questions get downvoted; correct/useful answers and thoughtful/well researched questions get upvoted).

Someone was bullied for making a character vote thread to the point where they decided never to do again, try taking the issue seriously plz

I never take people seriously that use txt speak.

No one is interested in listening to your constant off-topic banter. You've cried wolf so many times that I've made it a point to report every single post that I see of yours that is remotely off-topic. If you have a problem, flag it and let the impartial moderators take care of it.

That's very xenophobic of you

well, least this thread is making ignoring folks easier, and way to miss the point

orionpeace

raisinbman wrote:

rofl, I'm a bully? I figured it must've been something crazy since I seen your guild's sig again

Proving your point??????? Ah, gotta remember, don't waste my breath - just hit 'add foe' button

raisinbman wrote:

That's very xenophobic of you

well, least this thread is making ignoring folks easier, and way to miss the point

He's doesn't see it, does he?

sc0ville

ArkPrime wrote:

TLCstormz wrote:

OMG......I'm reading through pages 2 and 3 and people are so upset that the down vote is gone because "now if I disagree with something, what am I supposed to do?"

YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO MOVE ON! lol. What on Earth? Is this a forum SPECIFICALLY for people judging others? Or thereby having to justify their own opinions, when it gets called out? A political message board? A Great Debaters website?

Why in the world are people so preoccupied with what OTHERS have to say, in the first place????? Life is way too short for that, ya'll. Find something else to occupy your time. Wow.

See, now I have to point out this post is idiotic in writing. Look at the 13 year old grammar. Look at the **** punctuation. Look at how it's about not posting vapid stupidities while doing that exact same thing.

By the rule of transitive property, my upvote of this post is a downvote of TLCstormz, right?

Malcrof

This thread needs to be locked, it was meant as informative, and turned into .. well.. what it is...

Unknown

Well, I'm happy about this. I was hoping that all downvotes would be removed retroactively, but they're staying. That means I still have to deal with the two downvotes I got from the time some people didn't think I had the right to ask who Leah was in the name, "lokivsleah." Yeah, I asked that very question and I got downvoted for it. And that's why I don't think we should be allowed to downvote. Some people abuse the system.

JVReal

Vertigozooropa wrote:

Well, I'm happy about this. I was hoping that all downvotes would be removed retroactively, but they're staying. That means I still have to deal with the two downvotes I got from the time some people didn't think I had the right to ask who Leah was in the name, "lokivsleah." Yeah, I asked that very question and I got downvoted for it. And that's why I don't think we should be allowed to downvote. Some people abuse the system.

Did you ever find out who Leah was?

Cymmina

Vertigozooropa wrote:

Well, I'm happy about this. I was hoping that all downvotes would be removed retroactively, but they're staying. That means I still have to deal with the two downvotes I got from the time some people didn't think I had the right to ask who Leah was in the name, "lokivsleah." Yeah, I asked that very question and I got downvoted for it. And that's why I don't think we should be allowed to downvote. Some people abuse the system.

How did 2 downvotes hurt you, though?

On the SE network, privileges are tied to reputation. Downvoting answers penalizes both the downvoter (-1) and the answerer (-2). If your questions get downvoted enough, your ability to post new questions gets throttled quite severely.

Buret0

My very first post started me off with a reputation of -5.

Obviously I survived the ordeal and continued to post material in a way that this forum thought was more palatable.

That's community enforcement and not community bullying. Had I continued to make posts in that style, my reputation would have gotten to the point where I would not be able to post again.

I learned that it was best to compromise. You can continue to express your opinion without being downvoted so long as you recognize that there are alternative opinions to yours and they may also have merit and value.

Removing the downvote leads to the nonsense that we are seeing in this thread.

sc0ville

raisinbman wrote:

That's very xenophobic of you

well, least this thread is making ignoring folks easier, and way to miss the point

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Unknown

I wonder how many downvotes the OP would have.

Unknown

Malcrof wrote:

This thread needs to be locked, it was meant as informative, and turned into .. well.. what it is...

I can't think of an accurate term for it that will make it through the profanity filter.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

This thread needs to be locked, it was meant as informative, and turned into .. well.. what it is...

I can't think of an accurate term for it that will make it through the profanity filter.

Meekrab