Downvotes

[Bug In A Jar]

@lordbelh @Ninjakitten I disagree. Some people downvoting posts in @Rick-Sanchez's thread caused a bit of an uproar. They were feigning non-interest, but let's face it, it stung a bit. They themselves even got into conspiracy theories about how there's this brigade of people downvoting the whole thread.

So while there might not actually be a conspiracy of brigaders to ruin your karma, there's the perception that there is, especially when you see the same few names up/downvoting the same other few names. I think the presence of this perception is bad. This leads me to my second point.

Only sufficiently karmic posters can downvote. So once your opinion becomes unpopular enough, it no longer matters for the purpose of these up/downvote systems. Basically, it disenfranchises you.

This and other reasons are why I think voting should be done away with entirely.

[Lithium]

@Bug-In-A-Jar Actually that's not true entirely.

I do not care about downvotes. I don't really care about upvotes. It's kind of cool to see who agrees and disagrees with me without them having to write a post to say as such, which is the only thing I really note about upvotes and downvotes.

I don't think they should be removed because sometimes I can't be bothered to actively type /why/ someone is an asshat and I can just click the downvote button.

It matters just as much as my actively posting a negative response.

The plague of people supporting the latest troll from the RPI/MUD community is funny because they are downvoting /because/ they think we care. That's what's funny. That's why it's worth shots in the WORA drinking game.

It's hilarious.

[Coin]

@Bug-In-A-Jar said in Downvotes:

Only sufficiently karmic posters can downvote. So once your opinion becomes unpopular enough, it no longer matters for the purpose of these up/downvote systems. Basically, it disenfranchises you.

The necessary rep points to be able to vote is something ridiculous, like... 10. And it only disenfranchises you if you care about being able to upvote or downvote people, which you would only care about if you ... cared about upvotes and downvotes.

So. Yeah.

[Ninjakitten]

@Bug-In-A-Jar
I don't actually see in what way that contradicts what I said. I said there aren't incentives to having a high MSB reputation score, beyond it giving a vague indication of, well, your reputation on the board. That's not an 'incentive' in the way I think most people would define one in that context.

I don't think most people particularly like being downvoted -- I never said no one cared. Some people don't, some just find it funny, some probably take it as a badge of honour, some care quite a bit. However, the impression I have is that many or most posters here consider it kind of childish and crappy behaviour to downvote based on the poster rather than the post. Now, if a poster is consistently being an ass, then someone may genuinely be downvoting the posts for content and it may still look similar for a while. If someone or someones enter a thread antagonistically and suddenly almost every post on the side the new arrival(s) vocally dislike(s) has a couple new downvotes, it's not surprising that people will perceive a connection. We can't currently tell if they're right, since the ability to see who downvoted seems to have broken again.

If a poster's opinion is unpopular enough -- or IMO more likely, the poster's mode of expression and treatment of others is unpopular enough -- to get things to where they can no longer downvote*, maybe that person should step back and look at what they're actually contributing. I don't downvote frequently, but when I do it's most often for a few specific behaviours, ones that I frankly think ought to harm someone's reputation.

I'd like to have the ability to see who downvotes what again, but with or without it I think the system has been working both fine and as designed.

* Although I seem to recall you need to get 10 reputation to downvote, I don't actually know if you lose the ability if you fall below that again.

[silentsophia]

I get downvoted now and again, I think you have to work at it to lose privileges. It's kind of a bummer, but it's hardly the end of the world.

[ThatGuyThere]

It should also be noted for the most part people are a lot more likely here to upvote rather then downvote, which is likely a positive change from the old WORA.
As far as it being a signal of reputation I think it is more a signal of posting a lot and occasionally saying something intelligent or funny more so then any sort of community standing.
A rep per post measure would be more indicative of actual standing but that just sounds like adding a layer of calculation to the already mostly pointless thing.

[3543thrh67]

Downvotes does seem to be the least used part of here. I was idly browsing users reps just to see how often Downvoting is used.

[Vorpal]

@Coin they had better not catch you rolling 20s, that's all I'm sayin'.

[Arkandel]

@Vorpal I've seen the documentary with Tom Hanks.

[Vorpal]

@Arkandel I regularly have to be pulled back from balconies whenever my character casts a flight spell.

[Coin]

@Vorpal said in Downvotes:

@Coin they had better not catch you rolling 20s, that's all I'm sayin'.

[rolls a d6, rolls a d6.]

[Arkandel]

I really, honestly don't care either way about upvotes or downvotes.

I am however curious about it now because when I get upvoted it comes up on the notification icon, and when I clicked through it was for a joke post I made about that old D&D Tom Hanks movie which came up for several upvotes... it's at 0 karma.

... Why is someone downvoting that? It makes no sense. The whole post was just a URL to a movie!

[Arkandel]

@Vorpal said in Downvotes:

@Arkandel you have to remember we are dealing with trolls with such capacious brainboxes that they could poke both eyes out by falling on a pin. Don't try to ascribe any sense or reason to their actions.

Trolls are fine with me. All I ask is that the noise to signal ratio is acceptable, and if it is being downvoted (other than the occasional head-scratcher) is a very low price to pay.

[Rick Sanchez]

@Arkandel I mean, my main objection here in this thread is that we aren't talking about downvotes, but instead about everything else. I'm going to have to weigh in on @Bug-In-A-Jar's side and say that we should probably do away with voting because it creates a lot of drama, as we have seen in this very thread.

[Derp]

Well, I guess I should tag the guy, since we've now gone through four pages of debates about downvotes (in the Announcement thread) with tons of trolls being trolls and random downvote streaks, so it's probably somewhat important to be able to see this:

@Glitch, the ability to see downvotes with the clicky thing is not working. (I mentioned this four pages ago, but you can see where it went from there... sorry, bud.)

[Derp]

And also:

This is the Announcements thread, as mentioned before. This sort of discussion/behavior is best suited for the hog pit, as @Lithium said. I originally posted in this thread again just to make @Glitch aware that a forum feature was broken, but it's spun way out into left field.

[EmmahSue]

If you'd like to have a thread where you just toss insults at one another (I suggest trying for creativity in word choice), please open one in the Hog Pit for that purpose. Or wait for me to split this one separate, since it's devolved away from the original point, which is Downvotes.

ES

[Thenomain]

@EmmahSue

I need a tutorial on how to split topics, yeah.

[EmmahSue]

This topic was briefly locked while I split it up. It's open again. I'm going to move it to the Suggestions area, since any original Announcing is long since past.

ES