Do we *need* Downvoting?

[KChan she/her]

Mm, S'more! NOW I feel the love! <3

And c'mon, Florida isn't THAT bad. The hurricanes keep things nice and cool in the summer, what with all that rain.

[Shivertongue he/him]

Well, she is in Florida. The fire is probably slightly cooler than the daytime high...

 

And the attack dogs probably slightly smaller than the every day cockroaches.

 

 

 

(Remember, kids... we ARE professionals.)

[KChan she/her]

This is true. First, because of the cockroaches themselves (and palmetto bugs, which are basically cockroaches that can fly), second, because so many people down here have tiny yappy dogs that attack people's ankles, and third, we are THE most professional admins around. Totally.

[Joe ST he/him]

My heavens, what is going on in here? ¬.¬ Who let the admins out of their cages? >.<

[KChan she/her]

We're illustrating a point! PM downvoted me, I got over it, we laughed and joked about it, and we've all moved on with our lives. It's a demonstration of how the vast majority of the forum appears to handle being downvoted, and an illustration of why we think the rep system is fine as it is.

See? It totally works! And you guys just thought we were going off topic!

[Chaos he/him]

And it's also a definite example on how, uh, liberal we can be with upvotes.

(I promise we are liberal with others too!)

[Satsuoni he/him]

@Voidus: Yes, that would be nice

@KChan: In short, yes. If I were to go over my backlog of posts that I found rude and aggravating and downvote each of them, I expect about 1% probability of retaliation. That is unacceptable risk. I trust people by default, and don't much care about my private info excepting passwords and the like (want to know my visa id, the only ID i have in Japan?), but once the trust is gone, it stays that way.

 

Also note, that you probably have more than 30% of your social interaction outside this site, hence the relevance is less.

 

And I am aware that most people can get over it I tried to mimic that, but to no avail.

 

Nevertheless, I apologize for my lack of control.

[Joe ST he/him]

Right, you guys best get back in your cages then, your work here is done *tempts Will with waffles*

[KChan she/her]

Also note, that you probably have more than 30% of your social interaction outside this site, hence the relevance is less.

I also had to deal with angry parents when I was a teacher, angry customers when I worked in food service, and handle all sorts of feedback from my co-workers. Have you ever had to tell an angry parent why another kid bit their kid so hard it broke the skin, and explain to them why you can't tell them which kid it was? Have you ever had a customer tell you they wanted the wrong thing, only for you to get in trouble when the kitchen made what they technically asked for but didn't actually want?

Yes, that makes arbitrary reputation numbers less of a big deal to me. But I still had to deal with these very real, often harsh, forms of negative feedback. And deal with them I did. I sucked it up, learned what I could from them, and moved on with my life. Because that's what you do when you get negative feedback, regardless of where it's from.

You say that the majority of your social interaction is here on the site, so we should watch where we downvote, but just remember that there are a lot of us who have to deal with far, far worse. A lot of people would consider you lucky that this is the worst you have to deal with.

[Voidus]

Yeah downvoting an admin doesn't have any dire consequences, they just express their thanks for the criticisms in spike form. And everyone loves spikes, Love the spike!

[Shivertongue he/him]

I also had to deal with angry parents when I was a teacher, angry customers when I worked in food service, and handle all sorts of feedback from my co-workers. Have you ever had to tell an angry parent why another kid bit their kid so hard it broke the skin, and explain to them why you can't tell them which kid it was? Have you ever had a customer tell you they wanted the wrong thing, only for you to get in trouble when the kitchen made what they technically asked for but didn't actually want?

Yes, that makes arbitrary reputation numbers less of a big deal to me. But I still had to deal with these very real, often harsh, forms of negative feedback. And deal with them I did. I sucked it up, learned what I could from them, and moved on with my life. Because that's what you do when you get negative feedback, regardless of where it's from.

You say that the majority of your social interaction is here on the site, so we should watch where we downvote, but just remember that there are a lot of us who have to deal with far, far worse. A lot of people would consider you lucky that this is the worst you have to deal with.

 

Agreed.

 

Downvotes are nothing. I've been through critiques in which work I have spent weeks on, put countless hours into, put MYSELF into, has been verbally torn to shreds as my abilities are brought into question along with my self-worth and self-identity as an artist/designer. Critiques where people pulled no punches, critiques that hurt more than almost any physical pain I have ever experienced. I've seen people reduced to tears, rushing out of the room.

 

You don't survive in the design world without a thick skin, so I developed one quickly. The real world isn't going to pull punches either, regardless of what you do. So if a simple downvote is the worst you ever experience, I'm afraid I have no sympathy.

 

I don't care about the downvotes I get. I look at them, try and figure out why I got them, and then see if that's an area I care to improve upon. I have never held a downvote against someone, and I will never retaliate for someone disliking one of my posts. Yes, I can see who gave rep; I only ever do anything about it if it constitutes abuse of the system.

 

The goal should not be to avoid criticism. It should be to grow stronger from it.

[Voidus]

I think that the other thing in its favour to show that it's not abused is the relative number of downvotes to upvotes, people are much more liberal with upvotes, most regulars are over 100 Rep but I've never seen anyone with anywhere close to that amount of negative rep, or any long term posters even with neutral rep, most members will even out the downvotes that are unjustified or too harsh so its really only on the posts that really need to be worked on that'll still have downvotes on them.

[Chaos he/him]

I think that the other thing in its favour to show that it's not abused is the relative number of downvotes to upvotes, people are much more liberal with upvotes, most regulars are over 100 Rep but I've never seen anyone with anywhere close to that amount of negative rep, or any long term posters even with neutral rep, most members will even out the downvotes that are unjustified or too harsh so its really only on the posts that really need to be worked on that'll still have downvotes on them.

 

This.

In fact, we can check exactly how much that disparity is: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/index.php?app=reputationpoints Notice how low negative reps are by comparison. This is a little misleading though, since we had a member (Zucchini) who was banned and he had like -30 rep. Man, and he so deserved it. If ever there was a case of legitimate downvoting, it was to see how quickly the community determined that he was an irredeemable jerk. In any case, uh, I may have accidentally deleted his account when I was deleting banned spambots. Oops. So that's why he wasn't in the list. Even still, in the case of the most blatantly horrible member we had, he couldn't get that many downvotes. This is probably because if someone really has gotten that many downvotes, they've probably broken the rules and warrant banning, which in this case they did. So, the people with negative rep don't get much time to accumulate it.

But I think you bring up an excellent point Voidus: generally your rep will be, on average, an increasing function, and that the only posts that were downvoted may require some introspection for possible improvement. I do feel downvotes can be used as a learning experience when properly and sparingly used.

[Satsuoni he/him]

@kchan I'll answer when I get home and calm down some.

 

[EDIT] Naturally, as I calmed down I forgot what I was thinking while, well, not calm. Stupid associative memory. Well, the gist of the matter is: Yes, I am an outlier, not worthy of any pity. I know that, and thank you for reminding me. In general terms, my life was very lucky.

 

The rep system is, in general, fine. Pity about the previous plugin, though, since now rep tab often shows me zerovoted posts.

 

Nevertheless, I would like to know why I am being downvoted, for sometimes it is quite  mysterious (were my drawings *that* bad?). Some kind of note would be nice, though probably not feasible.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Satsuoni

[Meg]

I've never participated somewhere with a reputation system (only in real life ) and I didn't miss it. Though I was on my way to grow accustomed to it when the reputation overview (in the profile) showed me both, upvotes and downvotes, so that I could see whether a result shown on the posting is really a result of different opinions or not. I'm sad that this overview doesn't work anymore, as for I think this is more effective in the way of "see, there are people that think about your post and then give criticism". 

 

Is this understandable? I hope that some new forums-update may provide the former solution again. 

 

 

[Voidus]

I think that a bit of the problem, with regard to artworks is that some areas of the forum are more often visited than others so people can counter pointless downvotes quicker by upvoting them.
I do agree with Meg on that one, I was curious as to why we upgraded to a system where you only see the average of up and downvotes, was it just to focus more on the community opinion rather than individuals or was it just a random addition to the massive forum upgrade?

[Joe ST he/him]

I do agree with Meg on that one, I was curious as to why we upgraded to a system where you only see the average of up and downvotes, was it just to focus more on the community opinion rather than individuals or was it just a random addition to the massive forum upgrade?

The change in the user display of reputation was due to the upgrade, I think we'd have kept the old system if we could have.

[Senor Feesh]

I agree with Meg here, it's a shame that we can no longer see how many total up or down votes a post has, only the aggregate. However, it's unlikely to be fixed soon, so I'll just continue to try and understand why I may have been downvoted (assuming I notice, as a post with net positive will only show my total rep for the post).

I try and be sparing with downvotes. If I disagree with something I'll explain why I disagree (as this promotes discussion and community). Personally I reserve downvotes for people being rude or abusive, and a few select other times.

[Observer]

Downvotes seem to be a good way to wave over a moderator if somebody is being an idiot. I think they get E-mailed every time a downvote comes in, which makes abusing the system even harder.

 

Also, holy crap!? I'm on the top 10 rep list? Since when?

[Joe ST he/him]

Downvotes seem to be a good way to wave over a moderator if somebody is being an idiot. I think they get E-mailed every time a downvote comes in, which makes abusing the system even harder.

 

Also, holy crap!? I'm on the top 10 rep list? Since when?

No, we only get alerted if you click the report button.

[Voidus]

With you on that SF, if I just disagree with someone I almost never downvote them, I just try and explain the issues I have, I think most people are the same and just keep downvotes for particularly rude posts or ones against the spirit of the community. 

[Yados]

You want to have a discussion. 

 

 

 

 

My offering of ideas was me contributing to the proposed discussion, presenting my own views on the matter. My views happen to be different from yours; why does this mean that a discussion will not be fruitful? A discussion that consists of people who only agree with you is going to be even less fruitful. I refer you back to my previous post in regards to that.

 

That said, I may have obfuscated my own point. What I was trying to say, is that reputation system is meant to encourage good posting habits in general. If you find yourself being downvoted for a post, perhaps you should look at you content and figure out exactly why people are downvoting you. If every topic you start gets a downvote, perhaps consider that people don't think the topic is useful, and that they might be considering it to be board-cluttering spam.

 

I operate on the principle of 'Assume Good Faith'; the principle that negative rep is not intended as a personal attack, but as a general opinion. Rep should not be taken seriously. It's numbers on a website, and has no effect on your life outside of this website.

 

Oh man, this thread went on long after I went to sleep. 

 

Shivertongue, when I said I didn't think we were going to have a fruitful discussion, I meant because we seemed to be coming from very different premises about what a forum is supposed to be. 

 

Also, I think you think that the reason for these posts was some dissatisfaction on my part with my current rep. It wasn't. I think my rep is appropriate for how long I've posted here, how involved I've been, and the types of discussions I usually get involved with. 

 

I made myself pretty clear that my main concern wasn't myself getting downvoted (let's face it, if that concerned me, I wouldn't have made this thread) but that when new, casual, annoying people are downvoted, it's way more likely that they're going to get a big red thing and insulting (not to mention kind of ableist) moniker. Which I can't imagine makes them feel welcome. 

 

Chaos appears to have agreed with that sentiment and is changing the downvote system to address it.

 

I support that.

 

I don't really care enough about my own rep to make a big thing of it. But when I see new people get slapped with a forum badge of unpopularity, I can't help but find it unfriendly and unwelcoming. I care about that a bit. Enough to make the thread, anyhow. 

 

I have no idea what the rest of this thread looks like. I kind of skimmed it. I think Satsouni posted something about his/her own rep, which wasn't really on point to what I was talking about. Then everyone posted about how it isn't a big deal. 

 

To that, I'd point out that if it isn't a big deal, then we don't need reps to go into the negative. Why do we need a system for the community to designate someone as a pariah (but still allow them to post here because they haven't done anything bad, just unpopular). 

 

Regardless, Chaos has addressed my concerns adequately and politely. And for that I thank him. I'm glad it'll be harder for new posters to get slapped with a badge of unpopularity, even if some people think they deserve it. 

 

We cool?

Edited April 26, 2013 by Yados

[KChan she/her]

I'm glad to see your concerns were addressed, Yados.

As for downvotes alerting the staff, no, we don't get emailed every time someone gets a downvote - however, imagine that I'm posting somewhere on the forums and I see, somewhere, somebody posting who has a significant amount of negative rep. This is a warning sign to me that:

• Either someone might be abusing the rep system, or
• The person in question might be behaving in such a way as to potentially warrant a particular brand of attention from the staff.

From there, I can look at the person's downvoted posts, and if necessary, discuss an appropriate course of action with my fellow staff. In that way, the downvote system can work as a sort of community policing system, when used appropriately - such as downvoting rude, inflammatory posts, etc.

I hope that makes sense to you guys.

EDIT: As for the new way of showing rep, unfortunately, that's just how the upgrade affected the rep system. I would have liked to keep the old system as well, but unfortunately, we can't. Sorry; I'm right there with you guys on this one.

Edited April 26, 2013 by KChan

[Nepene he/him]

I would prefer some slightly more explained system. Perhaps have a wheel of a few options for upvoting and downvoting so you could downvote a post for specific reasons. You'd know if someone disagreed with your tone, or your grammar, or your factual accuracy. And a return to the old system of more detailed reports of rep would be good. As it is, the voting system doesn't really give you a great idea of what people's issue is with you. The difficulty of viewing your vote total has definitely made me less careful in here than on reddit.

 

Sometimes in the future, when more upgrades are done perhaps. I understand it would be a lot of work now.

 

Perhaps for newbies it would be good if they had some small buffer of reputation initially, perhaps 2-3, so they could make some mistakes without being called lame. You are quite sensitive when you first come here, it's good to have a small boost.

[KChan she/her]

We're in the process of fixing the rep system now, so that a negative reputation won't show up as red until enough rep has accumulated. As for a boost right off the bat, I think that intro topics are an excellent place for that. I've upvoted more than a few people just because they made a good impression in their intro post.

As for a "reason for downvoting" feature, that would have to be a plugin that we currently don't have the resources to create or commission. Your best bet in the meantime would be to (respectfully) tell someone in a reply why you downvoted them, or to politely help someone figure out why someone else may have downvoted them. It's not perfect, I know, but any sort of button or entry field that lets you anonymously submit a reason for downvoting somebody is a long way off.