RE: Increased Incendiary Behaviour on the Forums.

Unknown

?Maybe we could change it to:
Direct, or indirect, attacks on a person's character, quality of opinion, or otherwise.

simonsez

GothicKratos wrote:

We have maybe four or five guys that would just mass downvote each other like at least once a month.

My reaction to this would be "So what?" I'm willing to assume that apart from those directly involved, few, if any, people were even aware this was going on. Because there's no reason for anyone else to care. But hey, it's great you guys put a stop to those sorts of shenanigans. With no other outlet like the downvote button, we're all reaping the massive benefits of some truly stellar exchanges.

Wonko33

simonsez wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

We have maybe four or five guys that would just mass downvote each other like at least once a month.

My reaction to this would be "So what?" I'm willing to assume that apart from those directly involved, few, if any, people were even aware this was going on. Because there's no reason for anyone else to care. But hey, it's great you guys put a stop to those sorts of shenanigans. With no other outlet like the downvote button, we're all reaping the massive benefits of some truly stellar exchanges.

if it was just 4-5 guys doing it wouldn't it have been easier to just take away their reputation points so they could not use the downvote button?

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

We have maybe four or five guys that would just mass downvote each other like at least once a month.

My reaction to this would be "So what?" I'm willing to assume that apart from those directly involved, few, if any, people were even aware this was going on. Because there's no reason for anyone else to care. But hey, it's great you guys put a stop to those sorts of shenanigans. With no other outlet like the downvote button, we're all reaping the massive benefits of some truly stellar exchanges.

More to the point, there are also a bunch of us on the forum (I've done this, and I've seen others do it to) that would upvote a post with a -1 on it that didn't seem earned in any way just to counteract the downvote. I think a lot of those downvotes were getting cancelled out.

jimstarooney

I actually thought its been more civilized round here lately, what did I miss?

Unknown

Tannen wrote:

fight4thedream wrote:

... honestly I don't think you have to worry about any mods going rogue and carrying personal vendettas ...

https://d3go.com/forums/reputation.php?mode=details&u=1423

That last reputation event, issued by IceIX with the perma-ban? That was a mod going rogue and carrying on a personal vendetta.

Cheers.

Ben Grimm wrote:

simonsez wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

We have maybe four or five guys that would just mass downvote each other like at least once a month.

My reaction to this would be "So what?" I'm willing to assume that apart from those directly involved, few, if any, people were even aware this was going on. Because there's no reason for anyone else to care. But hey, it's great you guys put a stop to those sorts of shenanigans. With no other outlet like the downvote button, we're all reaping the massive benefits of some truly stellar exchanges.

More to the point, there are also a bunch of us on the forum (I've done this, and I've seen others do it to) that would upvote a post with a -1 on it that didn't seem earned in any way just to counteract the downvote. I think a lot of those downvotes were getting cancelled out.

ya this place is weird, obsessed with 'balanced' voting....so strange compared to reddit

lokiagentofhotness

I remain deeply sorry they removed downvoting.

Unknown

lokiagentofhotness wrote:

I remain deeply sorry they removed downvoting.

Agreed. I think Down Votes should be re instituted. Sometimes all i want to do is click that little disagree icon and give a 3 word explanation of why i did it. Sometimes i want to click it and don't give an explanation at all.

I don't always want to type or have enough content to merit an entire post. In a case like that when i disagree with something, the down vote button was perfect.

Removing it definitely made things a lot more argumentative and ugly at times and now Gothic has instituted a whole policy to combat this unanticipated ugliness. Monitoring all of that is going to take a lot of his time once this goes into effect.

I'd so much prefer to have that little red thumbs down return.

easy...marc

DaveR4470

djsquillz wrote:

lokiagentofhotness wrote:

I remain deeply sorry they removed downvoting.

Agreed. I think Down Votes should be re instituted. Sometimes all i want to do is click that little disagree icon and give a 3 word explanation of why i did it. Sometimes i want to click it and don't give an explanation at all.

I don't always want to type or have enough content to merit an entire post. In a case like that when i disagree with something, the down vote button was perfect.

Removing it definitely made things a lot more argumentative and ugly at times and now Gothic has instituted a whole policy to combat this unanticipated ugliness. Monitoring all of that is going to take a lot of his time once this goes into effect.

I'd so much prefer to have that little red thumbs down return.

easy...marc

This is a bit of a hijack... sorry in advance.

Marc, you're being perfectly reasonable here, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with how you feel. The problem is that downvoting in this forum -- which is, more or less, an off-the-shelf forum DB package that's been tailored for D3's purposes -- is not meant for that. That's not an opinion -- from a technical standpoint, downvoting is a community self-policing device. Downvoting doesn't just express an opinion -- it has a substantive effect on the user you're downvoting, which, in the end, can effectively prevent them from posting entirely. The red thumbs down is not an expression of disagreement -- it's a vote to EXCLUDE the post, and the poster, from the discussion ENTIRELY.

Eliminating downvoting is a good thing, because it prevents otherwise good-intentioned people like yourself from distorting the intended technical purpose of the system inadvertently. Which was, in this forum, becoming the dominant use/effect of the downvote; not its functional purpose, which is to self-police.

If I think posting an unpopular opinion is going to get me downvoted to the point where my forum rep is ruined and nobody will see my posts without actively seeking them out -- the actual, technical, and intended effect of downvoting -- I'm not going to post the opinion. So the forum becomes an echo chamber of the "popular" opinions, rather than an actual forum for debating the relative merits of different opinions.

Would it be nice to have an "I disagree" button to easily express disagreement? Sure. But the downvote button in this forum software package is not that. It has implications beyond disagreement to the post and the poster. That was the problem, and I'm glad it's fixed.

DaveR4470

Side note: GK, I'm not going to say anything that would potentially violate your guidance -- much as I would DESPERATELY like to note the utter predictibility of some responses here, and express my rather pointed opinion as to such in rather impolite terms -- so I'll just say, good luck and I hope this has the results you desire....

Unknown

GothikK - with regard to the OP - I honestly think this is really unnecessary.

I had no idea some guys were trolling each other to tears, or down voting each other into oblivion. It wasn't affecting my time here. Why should we all be punished?
I'm not one of those guys who argues on the internet but I do love it when other people have a good-old flame. Those argument threads are usually quite funny and break the monotony of the forum.

If I knew how to insert a meme; it would be of Kevin Bacon dusting-off his dance shoes.

user311

I don't understand why this was removed. Do people really care about Rep points? I don't remember ever seeing anyone boasting about it. If a non-troll loses a few points then so what. The system was only really there to prevent or hide troll and spam threads.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

More to the point, there are also a bunch of us on the forum (I've done this, and I've seen others do it to) that would upvote a post with a -1 on it that didn't seem earned in any way just to counteract the downvote. I think a lot of those downvotes were getting cancelled out.

I always gave balance points when I seen something that was out of wack. A persons rep shouldn't be affected by a difference of opinion.

But as others have said, I think we need better options than just upvote/downvote. That system was broken and never explained properly until it was far too late and everyone had their own opinion of how it should be used.

Something slightly more Complex but quick and simple to use. Something like:

Great Post (+1 Rep)
Meh (no rep effect)
I disagree (no rep affect)
LOL- Funny Post in good taste (+1 rep point)
Inappropriate Post (-1 pt - mods notified)

jackstar0

DaveR4470 wrote:

This is a bit of a hijack... sorry in advance.

Marc, you're being perfectly reasonable here, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with how you feel. The problem is that downvoting in this forum -- which is, more or less, an off-the-shelf forum DB package that's been tailored for D3's purposes -- is not meant for that. That's not an opinion -- from a technical standpoint, downvoting is a community self-policing device. Downvoting doesn't just express an opinion -- it has a substantive effect on the user you're downvoting, which, in the end, can effectively prevent them from posting entirely. The red thumbs down is not an expression of disagreement -- it's a vote to EXCLUDE the post, and the poster, from the discussion ENTIRELY.

Eliminating downvoting is a good thing, because it prevents otherwise good-intentioned people like yourself from distorting the intended technical purpose of the system inadvertently. Which was, in this forum, becoming the dominant use/effect of the downvote; not its functional purpose, which is to self-police.

If I think posting an unpopular opinion is going to get me downvoted to the point where my forum rep is ruined and nobody will see my posts without actively seeking them out -- the actual, technical, and intended effect of downvoting -- I'm not going to post the opinion. So the forum becomes an echo chamber of the "popular" opinions, rather than an actual forum for debating the relative merits of different opinions.

Would it be nice to have an "I disagree" button to easily express disagreement? Sure. But the downvote button in this forum software package is not that. It has implications beyond disagreement to the post and the poster. That was the problem, and I'm glad it's fixed.

Just wanted to quote this in the hopes that more people read it.

darkmagearcanis

One thing that must always be taken into consideration with forums such as these on the game that it discusses, is that the game itself was built for children, thus children will come here to the forums to play and cause some of the chaos. So yes seeing a post that is viewed as an attack on a person that shows that the person is acting like a child is probably because they are a child.

The rules that are expected to take place in the near future are read in a heavy handed way only due to the way it was written. However, I do implore that each person read the OP again from the view point of the Mod and how they are to deal with forumites that are children. They are doing a school teachers job for free.

As for misuse of power of mods, no one mod can guarantee that another mod will not do something shady and/or go rogue. Is there any guarantee that a report of a mod to a red name will go anywhere if said mod is friends with the red name?

While I hope the forum starts to go the route that I believe is intended by this post, I do expect that the mods will need to borrow Thor's hammer to get the ball rolling.

Will the Forum rules be updated to include the information that was set in the OP?

Unknown

DaveR4470 wrote:

djsquillz wrote:

lokiagentofhotness wrote:

I remain deeply sorry they removed downvoting.

Agreed. I think Down Votes should be re instituted. Sometimes all i want to do is click that little disagree icon and give a 3 word explanation of why i did it. Sometimes i want to click it and don't give an explanation at all.

I don't always want to type or have enough content to merit an entire post. In a case like that when i disagree with something, the down vote button was perfect.

Removing it definitely made things a lot more argumentative and ugly at times and now Gothic has instituted a whole policy to combat this unanticipated ugliness. Monitoring all of that is going to take a lot of his time once this goes into effect.

I'd so much prefer to have that little red thumbs down return.

easy...marc

This is a bit of a hijack... sorry in advance.

Marc, you're being perfectly reasonable here, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with how you feel. The problem is that downvoting in this forum -- which is, more or less, an off-the-shelf forum DB package that's been tailored for D3's purposes -- is not meant for that. That's not an opinion -- from a technical standpoint, downvoting is a community self-policing device. Downvoting doesn't just express an opinion -- it has a substantive effect on the user you're downvoting, which, in the end, can effectively prevent them from posting entirely. The red thumbs down is not an expression of disagreement -- it's a vote to EXCLUDE the post, and the poster, from the discussion ENTIRELY.

Eliminating downvoting is a good thing, because it prevents otherwise good-intentioned people like yourself from distorting the intended technical purpose of the system inadvertently. Which was, in this forum, becoming the dominant use/effect of the downvote; not its functional purpose, which is to self-police.

If I think posting an unpopular opinion is going to get me downvoted to the point where my forum rep is ruined and nobody will see my posts without actively seeking them out -- the actual, technical, and intended effect of downvoting -- I'm not going to post the opinion. So the forum becomes an echo chamber of the "popular" opinions, rather than an actual forum for debating the relative merits of different opinions.

Would it be nice to have an "I disagree" button to easily express disagreement? Sure. But the downvote button in this forum software package is not that. It has implications beyond disagreement to the post and the poster. That was the problem, and I'm glad it's fixed.

Completely 100% agree. We need downvotes or when the chips are down, these civilized people? They'll eat each other.

simonsez

darkmagearcanis wrote:

the game itself was built for children

Geez, I hear enough of THAT from my wife...

simonsez

DaveR4470 wrote:

it has a substantive effect on the user you're downvoting, which, in the end, can effectively prevent them from posting entirely.

Given that Tuscan Panty Raider was never barred from posting, despite an impressive negative rep, the cutoff on that must have been so low that it would've been impossible for anyone to have ever gotten that low. He was trying his hardest, and still couldn't do it.

darkmagearcanis

simonsez wrote:

darkmagearcanis wrote:

the game itself was built for children

Geez, I hear enough of THAT from my wife...

You're not the only one that hears that. *Pointing this poster*

aesthetocyst

johnaaron33 wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

More to the point, there are also a bunch of us on the forum (I've done this, and I've seen others do it to) that would upvote a post with a -1 on it that didn't seem earned in any way just to counteract the downvote. I think a lot of those downvotes were getting cancelled out.

I always gave balance points when I seen something that was out of wack. A persons rep shouldn't be affected by a difference of opinion.

But as others have said, I think we need better options than just upvote/downvote. That system was broken and never explained properly until it was far too late and everyone had their own opinion of how it should be used.

Something slightly more Complex but quick and simple to use. Something like:

Great Post (+1 Rep)
Meh (no rep effect)
I disagree (no rep affect)
LOL- Funny Post in good taste (+1 rep point)
Inappropriate Post (-1 pt - mods notified)

Adding my agreement that downvotes were too easily abused/misunderstood/misused, and that a more sophisticated feedback system is needed. Better feedback would be nice, but, until that day, the removal of downvotes was an improvement. The downsides and their fallout were headaches for people who don't need more headaches (mods!).

I only had a small downvote campaign directed at me once, downvotes to random posts in random threads. That does nothing but harm to the value of the forum.