Thoughts on adding downvote capability?

[neatfeatguy]

What this all reminds me of:

Me: I'll just check what's happening on TPU quick, see if there's anything interesting.

Oh look! An alert showing me more updates to the "Thoughts on adding downvote capability?" thread.

I'll just *click* on the link.....

(So much drama in this thread....)

 

[jsfitz54]

its called being the devil's advocate, and I employ that method myself as well, it can work miracles in conveying a point people don't want to see.

I'm confused by your, don't want to see, comment. Being a devil's advocate for whom? Aim? What target?
W1zzard started this thread. Who doesn't want to see? That would imply, no steps being taken.

Saying, I would circumvent the rules, to create additional accounts, is unethical. Not sure if I got your meaning correct.
I don't feel that's what was intended, devil's advocate and all. Nor did I get the sense that 's how it was implied. I may have erred.

 

[johnspack]

It seems all to be kiddie stuff. Do we need this in an adult tech forum? Downvotes... sheesh. Let's discuss tech and be done with it.

 

[cucker tarlson]

It seems all to be kiddie stuff. Do we need this in an adult tech forum? Downvotes... sheesh. Let's discuss tech and be done with it.

You don't want those lollipops we were promised for being nice ?

 

[fullinfusion]

yeah whatever W1zzard was thinking of by doing this is complete BS... sure we got DB dads and trolls and such but come on this isn't Reddit ffs

And we all know the mods, let me re-phrase that... some of the mods think their God's and will ban for whatever reason... Totally the wrong place for this shit imho!

 

[lexluthermiester]

I know I'm late to the party again, forgive any repeated info.

Hey everyone, I spent some time thinking about some sort of upvote/downvote system (first suggested by @Vayra86 https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...-qualified-as-low-quality.242395/post-3814084) Maybe we could implement something similar. With constraints like "at least 50 posts, and positive rep before allowed to downvote", "+3 only once per day" etc? What are your thoughts on this?

Good idea. Another limitation should be that users can only downvote if they have at least a certain number(say 200) of upvotes AND have been on the site at least 6 months. There should also be a limit of how many downvotes any one user can give in a given time frame, say 2 or 3 per day. This will limit bullying, trolling and spamming.

if posts receive a certain amount of downvotes they get hidden (a la our Low Quality Post feature).

Also a very good idea.

This game keeps getting better. What is a positive rep? How can i get one?

Given the number of posts vs likes you have, I imagine you'd be ok.

I think we should avoid downvoting, its negative.

I agree. Hiding downvotes from public view would solve that problem. Only after enough downvotes are made does a comment get collapsed/hidden, and no one but staff should be able to see the downvotes.

 

[Vayra86]

I'm confused by your, don't want to see, comment. Being a devil's advocate for whom? Aim? What target?
W1zzard started this thread. Who doesn't want to see? That would imply, no steps being taken.

Saying, I would circumvent the rules, to create additional accounts, is unethical. Not sure if I got your meaning correct.
I don't feel that's what was intended, devil's advocate and all. Nor did I get the sense that 's how it was implied. I may have erred.

A few people have repeatedly voiced an opinion, including Earthdog, about the current moderator team and how there are some essential changes needed there that are simply ignored altogether in this discussion about 'how to make TPU a better place'. There is a very obvious elephant in the room here that no one is supposed to really speak about.

I am not one of them BTW, but it is telling.

 

[jsfitz54]

A few people have repeatedly voiced an opinion, including Earthdog, about the current moderator team and how there are some essential changes needed there that are simply ignored altogether in this discussion about 'how to make TPU a better place'. There is a very obvious elephant in the room here that no one is supposed to really speak about.

This is a general picture of what I see happening.

I don't see how continually berating the staff is helping, unless the intention is shaming or public humiliation.
Intentions become suspect with that sort of tact.
Private agenda's come to mind.

I don't see personal responsibility, leadership or self control being used.
I see trigger finger negative posting without thought.
Maybe the message is drowned out by the distasteful way in which is is being delivered.

A true professional would try another avenue, most likely by private measure, avoiding resentment and gaining acceptance for their viewpoint.
Of course I have no idea if this has been done but it appears that steps are being implemented to make changes.

The loud crying about impending changes, when change has been asked for, is perplexing.
The old rules work, if they are enforced: is most likely open to human error, laborious, tedious, time consuming and unpleasant to administrate.

Some just don't like change.
My only concern has been with regards to fairness in a public voting system.

 

[Totally]

A few people have repeatedly voiced an opinion, including Earthdog, about the current moderator team and how there are some essential changes needed there that are simply ignored altogether in this discussion about 'how to make TPU a better place'. There is a very obvious elephant in the room here that no one is supposed to really speak about.

I am not one of them BTW, but it is telling.

All in all, how I see it is the issue revolves around the report button. What the exact problem is I don't have enough info to make a guess. But since what is being suggested (taking the 'report' and renaming it to '-1') is to subliminally encourage more people to use it thus drawing the attention of mods sooner. The suggestion implies that the current system does not work but what is being implied here and there says the system works but the problem lies with the human element.

 

[Tatty_Two]

All in all, how I see it is the issue revolves around the report button. What the exact problem is I don't have enough info to make a guess. But since what is being suggested (taking the 'report' and renaming it to '-1') is to subliminally encourage more people to use it thus drawing the attention of mods sooner. The suggestion implies that the current system does not work but what is being implied here and there says the system works but the problem lies with the human element.

Not even sure what "system" anyone is talking about to be honest?

 

[eidairaman1]

All in all, how I see it is the issue revolves around the report button. What the exact problem is I don't have enough info to make a guess. But since what is being suggested (taking the 'report' and renaming it to '-1') is to subliminally encourage more people to use it thus drawing the attention of mods sooner. The suggestion implies that the current system does not work but what is being implied here and there says the system works but the problem lies with the human element.

Report the name implies itself. -1 doesn't mean that.

 

[rtwjunkie]

So, has W1z gotten enough feedback here? It's pretty much just he same things being said going round and round at this point.

 

[Totally]

Report the name implies itself. -1 doesn't mean that.

Yes it does not explicitly say that and no it is a demerit that gets a mod attention, reread the thread particularly vayra posts. Now with -1 flagging posts for mods to look at the report button redundant is a bit.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Yes it does not explicitly say that and no it is a demerit that gets a mod attention, reread the thread particularly vayra posts. Now with -1 flagging posts for mods to look at the report button redundant is a bit.

I have not seen any reports of -1 flags??

 

[Vayra86]

I have not seen any reports of -1 flags??

If you build it, they will come...

 

[Tatty_Two]

If you build it, they will come...

In that case we will just ignore them

 

[dorsetknob]

I have not seen any reports of -1 flags??

Would you like me to -1 one of your Posts ( just for the hell of it and the Record )

 

[Assimilator]

So this site is becoming StackOverflowPowerUp? Because all this upvote and downvote and how many times you can vote in a period et cetera et cetera has already been done forever ago by Stack Overflow, and the result is that off-topic/tangential discussion is essentially banned from the main site. But people still needed a place to talk s**t so SO introduced "chat", which is basically only for talking s**t and that's it.

If we wanna go that way why don't we just apply to become a Stack Exchange site?

 

[Kursah]

Because we're TPU, that hasn't changed last time I checked, nope still hasn't. Looks like you'll have to keep going to SO to get that fix.

If W1z wants to implement a feature, he's gonna implement it and test it, doesn't matter if it's been done any other way at any other site, nor should it. All we can do is ask that folks try it out and provide some useful feedback. Some will hate it out loud without even trying it, some hate change period, some will hate it after testing it, some will like it, some love change, many probably won't care, can't win em' all. Either way, this rate feature has grown on me, as honestly I was not for it initially, but I was open to at least trying it out and seeing how it panned out. Again, all we can do is ask that users do the same.

 

[sneekypeet]

@Assimilator needing and wanting are two entirely different things. If you are looking for such a venue, we have the lounge.

 

[dorsetknob]

I think you (the TPU Team) have had a reasonable feedback response from the most Active members here ( and by Active i recon on average thats about 200 ish members)

 

[Totally]

I have not seen any reports of -1 flags??

You didn't see green boxes with numbers in them prior to this discussion did you?

 

[Tatty_Two]

You didn't see green boxes with numbers in them prior to this discussion did you?

I see little green boxes in posts but they are not reported to us, so currently, unless we physically went through every post in every thread we would not know.

 

[Assimilator]

@Assimilator needing and wanting are two entirely different things. If you are looking for such a venue, we have the lounge.

Not the same thing.

You go to the lounge when you know you want to talk crap.
But sometimes you open a thread with the best of intentions of being serious, and you read a post and suddenly your neurons fire and you think of a funny but totally off-topic reply, so you post it.
On Stack Overflow, that sort of irreverence would see your post either get deleted, or yanked out of that thread and dumped somewhere in an arbitrary chat channel where there is no longer any context.

But that isn't how human conversation works in an informal environment (like these forums).
In an informal environment, you can expect all sorts of different conversations and side remarks and interjections to sprout off the original topic. That's because informal conversations are organic - they grow and change and meander along the paths that the minds of the participants roam. And while that often is distracting and can be annoying, it does help to keep the conversation going and can quite often lead it into very interesting territory.

So TPU needs to decide on its policy going forward, and convey that policy to its users. Is it now a formal and focused environment, where going off topic in most subforums is a perilous endeavour? Or does it remain informal and fun, at the risk of getting some shitposts mixed up in the topical content?

 

[sneekypeet]

Tpu was never intended to be humorous or off topic. It is what the members chose to do. We also amended the guidelines, and had you read them, you would see what is expected and what will be deleted.

Pretty sure the adage of give them a foot and they take a mile applied here.