BBO Discussion Forums: One last plea for allowing downvoting - BBO Discussion Forums

The idea has been raised by two other people in page 4 of the discussion. It will certainly ensure up and down votes will be distributed in a more concentrated manner. Not sure that that's a good thing.

This whole up- and downvoting can have some advantages if it's used correctly, but it's not worth the effort imo. What are we trying to achieve and what's actually happening? Like I predicted, it's become a pure popularity contest. If a popular guy posts something, whatever the content, he gets upvoted when people agree. He hardly gets downvotes whatever he says, even if it's rude. On the other hand, unpopular people never get upvotes (even for posting the same stuff earlier than a popular guy did) but they get lots of downvotes for the smalest things (like using 'advanced' in the topic title when it's a simple problem, or making a choice that's not popular).

From the beginning I've not been a fan of upvotes only because they don't achieve their goals, and I'm even less fan of up- and downvotes together because the situation is even worse. Making the votes public will make this an even bigger popularity contest. If a popular guy votes a whole crowd will follow. And if an unpopular guy votes, a whole bunch will vote the opposite to cancel his vote and support the poster (+ probably some extra downvotes for the post he makes later in the thread).

If you all really want to keep the system, then perhaps we shouldn't be able to make for example 10 downvotes without a single upvote. Otherwise the average reputation will be very bad.

 Antrax, on 2011-June-10, 03:10, said:

Yeah, noticed now. Sorry. Just add my support for the idea, then (although I think that some of my post was unique)

Also I have mixed feelings about whether votes should be anonymous. I can see benefits for both arguments (not least among which would be the complexity of programming involved).

What would perhaps be quite useful is to have your profile display not only your own net reputation (perhaps split into plus and minus totals), but also the total number of plus and minus votes that the user has cast. Of itself, this measure would not limit the number of downvotes, but if you are concerned that you might be seen to be a prolific downvoter, the "name and shame" aspect might act as a disincentive to use downvotes frivolously.

If you were to decide to go down the route of stripping the anonymity of votes, the above measure would have added value. If someone identifiable were to downvote a post, then the poster could look at the stats of the voter to see the rep of the voter and also his propensity to vote in one way or another. Both of these stats would be of value to the poster in determining how much weight he should place on the vote as being justified.

 1eyedjack, on 2011-June-10, 03:01, said:

I would like this very much. I have distributed loads of upvotes when trying to hit "reply" or "multiquote". While this is not really a problem, now that we can downvote I may give them out accidentally too, and I would hate to do that.

Names of voters enabled (for now).

I can't see options to limit -votes by the person's individual reputation, but changing the +vote/-vote ratio is certainly possible.
Also cannot see options to change votes that are cast.

If most votes are used to rate particularly good posts, then the few who vote for other reasons wouldn't matter as much, theoretically, right? BBFers are more mature/intelligent than almost all other forums I've ever frequented, so this *could* work.

I've mentioned why we decided to go ahead with voting when the new forums was created (wanted to let good posts rise to the top and be displayed more prominently). It's just that we haven't really gotten round to implementing this.

Interesting.

Looks like yellows can vote up/down, but cannot be voted on? Seems odd.

 gwnn, on 2011-June-10, 09:06, said:

I don't see a problem with this. If you strongly disagree with something a mod says or does, you should post about it and address it.

rather than be able to up/down-vote on the forums I would like to have a feature where I could up/down-vote commentators on vugraph.

Sure, but they're not really mods usually. Most yellows moderate only rarely.

My concern is this:

I believe the officially appointed post moderators have done a fine job for the most part. They move threads when appropriate. They delete certain posts when appropriate.

There are many hijacks in threads which are let go; even minor squabbles between posters are let go, and they contain items of interest mixed in with the vitriol even if I might not agree with them.

The problem comes when self-oppointed monitors decide when humor is or is not okay, or when they just don't like what is being said; and they just press their little red button, rather than produce words to express their dissatisfaction.

The minuses don't mean much to me, but an objective disagreement does. Others might feel they should stifle their creativity to accomodate the self-righteous monitors and their own numerical "reputation". That would be a shame.

Quote

I didn't know about this up/down voting feature before and I don't care as I think it's silly on internet forum but you get my first and probably last upvote ever for this

 aguahombre, on 2011-June-10, 09:19, said:

If you're referring to my earlier post, I had no intention of offending anyone. It was just a handy example to showcase a phenomenon I feel is both very common and quite damaging to the goal of attracting new posters. I wouldn't have done so in public except in the past I've PMed a moderator and was ignored, so I find it difficult to rely on what standards I think are common to forums on the internet.

Isn't the little red button just a modernized version Pavlovian training?

 aguahombre, on 2011-June-10, 09:19, said:

 Antrax, on 2011-June-10, 09:50, said:

Actually, no. You didn't merely press your little red button; you also produced words to express your dissatisfaction. Why would I be offended by reading your opinion, whether I agree with it or not? Your words didn't attack anyone, and last I looked it is o.k. to excercise the right to express one's self.

Thanks, just making sure.

The plot thickens

 Antrax, on 2011-June-10, 09:50, said:

I see you have several reasonable posts in this thread that got downvoted by the same poster. I don't understand any of these downvotes and it seems to be a good example of a misuse of downvoting.

 cherdano, on 2011-June-11, 08:35, said:

How do you know this? Is it possible now to track downvotes?

 Vampyr, on 2011-June-11, 08:55, said:

Click on the number that shows the vote totals, like a green 2 or a red 4.

But back to cherdano's point about proper use of the voting. I myself was adding a down vote to each of the post in the "Plus vote give away" thread started by gwnn, where he promsied he would give you an upvote if you respond to his thread. The reason I was doing that was because I thought giving upvotes for a mere post in a thread was the wrong use as well. Perhaps I should have just deleted the thread instead, but I thought by giving a down vote, it would "fix" the problem. A couple of problemns with this occurred to me later. I couldn't remember who I had downvoted so I know I missed some, and I probably downvoted one or more post more than once for the same reason, so I stopped downvoting any of them. In hinsight, I probably should have deleted that thread I guess... or posted in and and then written an angry response when gwnn didn't vote my post up...

Do yellows really have the power to downvote more than once?