A thought about thumbs down option

[Erebus.7568]

> @SkyShroud.2865 said:

> > @Erebus.7568 said:

> > > @SkyShroud.2865 said:

> > > > @"The Revenant.4970" said:

> > > > Except...it's not...because it's not silencing anything. It's criticism of the most benign form. If someone thinks they have an 'oh so great idea' and brings it to the table...they should be eager and willing to handle any criticism it elicits.

> > >

> > > Did you not notice our difference in understanding of the thumbs down?

> > >

> > > For your case, you think thumbs down is a disagree button.

> > > For my case, I believe thumbs down should be use on posts that is verbally offensive. This is purely base on logic that if I am not liking a post, is it not sufficient enough to say that I am not supporting it? It is the same thing for election, you either vote or abstain.

> > >

> > > This difference in understanding on thumbs down lead to the meaningfulness of it arbitrary.

> >

> > that would be against forum rules.

> > if you dislike a post enough for you to believe it "shouldn't be there", like verbally offensive, aggressive etc. behavior, then the forum rules stated to report it and not respond to it.

> > in that manner, it keeps the forum cleaner and you avoid the warnings which come from responding to something you see as "unacceptable behavior".

> >

> > which also furthers the argument that downvoting should be removed :)

>

> Yes, it would be in this forums but on reddit devote design, it is used as a user-based regulation, we have a lot of gw2 redditers. The problem is defining what it is for this forums and how can you be sure others too have the same definition. Likewise, new users who don't visit reddit at all. There is a conflicting social norm on what thumbs down is.

>

> Many forums I have visited regularly, really populated forums, they only have like button.

>

> Edit: I also forgot that it also create a peer pressure effects which I have posted earlier.

ty for your answer :)

 

I agree it is a lot about the community behind it and some are better than others.

my view, in this case, is that it doesn't add anything positive to the forum and it will guarantee to add something negative for some people. therefore I don't see any reason to keep that option.

especially because we already got a "like" option which will basically say the exact same thing overall "how many people like this compared to the constructive argument which was answered to that post", and from there it is pretty easy to see which arguments have the biggest support. there is simply no need for an individual bottom which shows how many people "disliked" your post, as it is irrelevant if someone disliked it but relevant if they had an argument or suggestion which was liked far more than your original post.

 

it's also a question of giving off a positive environment on the forum, as positive breeds positive. so keeping unnecessary negative away is a good thing imho :)

 

however if anyone got an argument for how downvoting someone brings something positive to the community, then please stated the scenario so those of us that can't find one might understand the positive side which it can/would add ^^

 

edit: fixed quote, missed the first > ^^

[The Revenant.4970]

> @Erebus.7568 said:

> I agree it is a lot about the community behind it and some are better than others.

> my view, in this case, is that it doesn't add anything positive to the forum and it will guarantee to add something negative for some people. therefore I don't see any reason to keep that option.

> especially because we already got a "like" option which will basically say the exact same thing overall "how many people like this compared to the constructive argument which was answered to that post", and from there it is pretty easy to see which arguments have the biggest support. there is simply no need for an individual bottom which shows how many people "disliked" your post, as it is irrelevant if someone disliked it but relevant if they had an argument or suggestion which was liked far more than your original post.

>

> it's also a question of giving off a positive environment on the forum, as positive breeds positive. so keeping unnecessary negative away is a good thing imho :)

>

> however if anyone got an argument for how downvoting someone brings something positive to the community, then please stated the scenario so those of us that can't find one might understand the positive side which it can/would add ^^

 

There have been several arguments brought forward already, as to how downvotes are beneficial. You've clearly chosen to ignore them (surprise).

 

How can it be a positive environment when it's been nothing but complaining for 5 years?

 

This is a much needed reboot for the official forums. The course needs to change, lest this will devolve into the same sycophant sludge it's been for years.

[Palador.2170]

I'm thinking that maybe they should relabel the "Thumbs Down" and "Thumbs Up" buttons to make it more clear what they intend for them to be used for.

 

Barring that, I'd say to do away with the "Thumbs Down" button. If people post why they disagree with a post, then you can just "Thumbs Up" the disagreeing post instead. Or write your own, if you disagree for another reason. A blind "Thumbs Down" without any reason behind it won't help anyone to refine ideas or understand WHY people dislike their idea.

[Panda.1967]

To be completely honest, thumbs down is only abusable when our names are not attached to our votes. As is currently the case, and hopefully will only be the case while they sort out the avatar clutter... and quite frankly, most people have an attachment to their Forum identities as an extension of themselves, attaching their forum name to a vote they don't actually believe in is unlikely to happen from most people. People feel more obligated to vote truthfully with how they really feel when their name is attached to something.

[crashburntoo.7431]

> @"The Revenant.4970" said:

> > @Erebus.7568 said:

> > I agree it is a lot about the community behind it and some are better than others.

> > my view, in this case, is that it doesn't add anything positive to the forum and it will guarantee to add something negative for some people. therefore I don't see any reason to keep that option.

> > especially because we already got a "like" option which will basically say the exact same thing overall "how many people like this compared to the constructive argument which was answered to that post", and from there it is pretty easy to see which arguments have the biggest support. there is simply no need for an individual bottom which shows how many people "disliked" your post, as it is irrelevant if someone disliked it but relevant if they had an argument or suggestion which was liked far more than your original post.

> >

> > it's also a question of giving off a positive environment on the forum, as positive breeds positive. so keeping unnecessary negative away is a good thing imho :)

> >

> > however if anyone got an argument for how downvoting someone brings something positive to the community, then please stated the scenario so those of us that can't find one might understand the positive side which it can/would add ^^

>

> There have been several arguments brought forward already, as to how downvotes are beneficial. You've clearly chosen to ignore them (surprise).

>

> How can it be a positive environment when it's been nothing but complaining for 5 years?

>

> This is a much needed reboot for the official forums. The course needs to change, lest this will devolve into the same sycophant sludge it's been for years.

 

@"The Revenant.4970", I can appreciate where you're coming from, even if I don't agree. I think you've helped illustrate one of the arguments that's being made here. When you disagree, it's great to discuss it in more detail. Whether the Thumbs Down remains or not, the real value will be in the feedback. I hope you can agree to disagree with some of the other folks here and keep an overall positive outlook. While I did see complaining in the old forums at times, I felt like it was a pretty great place to find information, ask questions and generally enjoy the community.

[Lord Velar.1509]

> @Evga.2471 said:

> The Thumbs Down option reminds me of another forum. Can't mention said game and forum. But anyway if you had a negative rating everyone disliked what you said no matter what.

 

That sounds like the WoW forums, their absurd amount of stupidity is honestly what made me switch over to here.

 

I remember there was a post on the forums one day about introducing "real races" into the game

 

I ofc had something to say against it (because ofc its a game, its not meant to be real life, if you want real life go look outside imo)

 

Long story short, even though I tried being polite and explaining why I thought it was just a crap idea, because the OP didn't like like what I said, my comment got "eaten by a black hole" due to too many dislikes

 

So yeah, that was my same thought when I first saw that the new forums had that

 

I'm half and half on it OP because ofc people are going to abuse the thumbs down button, if they abuse the report button then the thumbs down button shouldn't really be an issue since at that point it's all about the other persons feelings. The way I see it is, yeah, someone didn't like what you said so they down voted it, welcome to life.

 

People aren't always going to be nice nor agree with you. To add on to that this is the internet. I'm not saying let people run wild, but you should expect to come across a holes everyday you so much as decide to hop on Facebook and its funny cause this a forum site, based on a video game, on the internet. See where I'm going with that?

 

However OP as previously stated I'm 50/50

 

I do agree that people have a tendency to just move to the bandwagon side of things and just hop on the dislike train just because. I come off as rude and heartless, but that is life. Everyone is different. Just cause someone somewhere in the world decides to spam my comment with dislikes and it doesn't bother me, that doesn't mean that it doesn't bother someone else.

 

Some people (as crazy as it may sound) sometimes seek emotional clarification or uplifting in places like the forums, sometimes we realize it, sometimes we don't

 

Those dislikes could be the very opposite of what they were looking for causing them to dive deeper into their emotions (not a good thing if you're depressed)

 

TL:DR I have no clue on what side I want to stand for

 

Half of me says if you don't like it don't look and the other says that people shouldn't be a holes

 

[Zedek.8932]

> @Cyprien.4208 said:

> > @Metavahn.7293 said:

> > Thumbs up is all that is needed, period.

>

> Why? If one isn't allowed why should the other be as well. Why is it okay to like something or agree with someone but to express your concern or disagreement not okay.

>

> Thumbs up or Thumbs down doesn't make reddit a cesspool many forums and other things has this type of method of rating content (even netflix). The major problem with reddit is that it goes the extra mile and hides comments and topics which been thumbs down by the mass majority the system here doesn't.

 

Excelsior.

You know, Google has this system for years in their comment section. You could downvote as much as you wanted, it would not display anything, not changing the numbers at all.

The same on Disqus. You could downvote, but it did not change numbers. I really like that. I really think there are clever people behind that and they did / do that for a reason.

 

Look, on the old boards, being a super hardcore Asura fan, I would sometimes just drop by and leave some banter comment like "We need more Asura, not more cabbage". I don't think I'd do that anymore because as soon as your name is permanently in connection with downvotes, everyone will just dislike you. I've seen that in League of Legends boards for 7 years now straight. If you are not mainstream, sometimes I even got downvoted for using periods and commata (!), and then you had a reputation. There is a guy on the forums that would constantly report my posts - now he downvotes and starts a similar chain. On other news sites, I often browse comments by checking for the star comments, skipping all the ones which might be controverse. That's a terrible thing and working against any sense of a discussion forums. I am glad we don't have thread clusters yet (comment on comment of a comment which has been commented...), but this pre-sorting of information, regardless of actual content or time posted, is one of the diseases of Web 2.0 media since 2005.

[Erebus.7568]

 

> @"The Revenant.4970" said:

> > @Erebus.7568 said:

> > I agree it is a lot about the community behind it and some are better than others.

> > my view, in this case, is that it doesn't add anything positive to the forum and it will guarantee to add something negative for some people. therefore I don't see any reason to keep that option.

> > especially because we already got a "like" option which will basically say the exact same thing overall "how many people like this compared to the constructive argument which was answered to that post", and from there it is pretty easy to see which arguments have the biggest support. there is simply no need for an individual bottom which shows how many people "disliked" your post, as it is irrelevant if someone disliked it but relevant if they had an argument or suggestion which was liked far more than your original post.

> >

> > it's also a question of giving off a positive environment on the forum, as positive breeds positive. so keeping unnecessary negative away is a good thing imho :)

> >

> > however if anyone got an argument for how downvoting someone brings something positive to the community, then please stated the scenario so those of us that can't find one might understand the positive side which it can/would add ^^

>

> There have been several arguments brought forward already, as to how downvotes are beneficial. You've clearly chosen to ignore them (surprise).

>

> How can it be a positive environment when it's been nothing but complaining for 5 years?

>

> This is a much needed reboot for the official forums. The course needs to change, lest this will devolve into the same sycophant sludge it's been for years.

 

when my response is that I see no valid scenario where the downvote option would add something positive to the forum, that means that I don't see any. you saying that plenty has been posted doesn't change that opinion. so if you actually got one then stated that scenario, if you do not then I don't understand what that part of your answer is trying to add to the conversation? if so, please clarify it.

 

as for complaining. it is a forum for a game and as with all games there is always something that someone thinks can be improved. in most cases the improvements for a product comes from the feedback from the user base, which will always come in the form of complaining, hopefully, constructive feedback of what is liked/disliked and suggestions to changes.

so the forum having people posting idea's for improvements and changes is exactly what it is there for, so I don't understand your attitude towards this either? unless of course, you are complaining that the complaints aren't constructive feedback but just a "thumb down" bottom which gives the devs nothing to work with/towards, is that the case?

and if so, I hope you can apply that logical thought pattern to this discussion where you seem to currently be of the opposited opinion.

 

rebooting the forum I see as more of a technical upgrade than to try and reboot the personalities on it, and if you believe that "downvoting" is going to stop some people from posting, which wasn't already stopped by the moderators following the rulesets that Anet says is what they don't want on the forum, would simply be equal to allow bullying some people until they gave up and left the forum, for no other reason than someone not liking their suggestion; which is something that should neither be allowed or ever happen as it creates a horrific community and eliminates people which could potentially have their next idea be amazing and useful for the devs.

 

[Lyp Sao.1375]

Downvoting is so negative.

(_feel free to downvote my post_ :p )

[Greymarch.3291]

> @Danikat.8537 said:

> > @Greymarch.3291 said:

> > Are you actually able to upvote or downvote yourself? Seems kinda weird......I don't think we should have that option.....But that's my opinion take it with a grain of salt.

>

> Nope. The buttons appear but if you click them you just get a message saying you're not allowed to react to your own posts.

>

> I don't know why they appear at all though. The edit button only appears on your own posts, so it seems like it should be possible to customise those buttons too.

 

Oh ok thank you that helps a bit, I just found it weird they appeared like such.

[Palador.2170]

> @Panda.1967 said:

> To be completely honest, thumbs down is only abusable when our names are not attached to our votes. As is currently the case, and hopefully will only be the case while they sort out the avatar clutter... and quite frankly, most people have an attachment to their Forum identities as an extension of themselves, attaching their forum name to a vote they don't actually believe in is unlikely to happen from most people. People feel more obligated to vote truthfully with how they really feel when their name is attached to something.

 

Maybe there should be a way to easily tell if someone tends to vote more heavily up or down? That way if you see someone has given you a thumbs down, you can quickly check to see if they're just a generally negative person here of if it might actually mean something. And yes, I do want to know who gives thumbs down or up to my posts. I heard that was part of the new forums, but I'm guessing it's not working at the moment?

[Zedek.8932]

> @"Tearthy Flame.1463" said:

> Reddit isn't a place for opinions like mine that are critical towards something ArenaNet should have considered doing. Yet people are afraid of ArenaNet taking that feedback out of context and instead of a QoL improvement it will be a nerf and ruin everyone's day. And I agree GW2 forums shouldn't become something that hides away strong opinions and a different point of view. Thumbs up or down should be a matter of like or dislike and doesn't act like a voting system.

 

Excelsior.

 

I received an infraction once for telling the permanent "Anet sucks" guys to simply leave and let the satisfied players have a peaceful forums.

Their posts stood there, mine has been removed without any actual violation (I sorted that out with the support eventually).

So there is already a lot of criticism allowed. The problem I see is more a dynamic from different groups of members. I am very happy with Deadeye. Back then I could voice my opinion, now all the unhappy QQers are going to downvote like crazy. As a 26-year old, I could say "Whatever", but let's be honest, you won't post more when you know your reputation if low for no actual reason.

[Haishao.6851]

> @SkyShroud.2865 said:

>

> If you disapprove of something, shouldn't you speak up against it? Isn't that what a discussion forums is? To discuss?

> Also, on the earlier post, I also wrote about how it can become a form of peer pressure to conform people to specific ways even if their ways aren't objectively wrong.

 

You can disagree with things without wanting to say more about it. Like you can agree with something without wanting to say more. Showing you disapprove something is speaking against it.

 

Sometime discussions leads nowhere and everybody in a thread are only repeating what others have already said numerous time. I prefer to have the option to show I'm in disagreement with an opinion using a thumb down than to also repeat what a few others have already said. Plenty of threads got closed in the old forum because discussion was nothing more than people repeating the same thing for 5 pages. Having option to only like/dislike help just showing agreement/disagreement without redundancy.

 

There's also that when you send a suggestion to arenanet, they ask you to post it in the forum to see whether people like it or not. Having like/dislike make it a lot easier to see if your suggestion is liked or not. Then you can see comments and read why not, and the best reason will have the most thumbs up.

 

There are also threads that comes back every weeks. Like dueling, making the game easier, Gift of battle. At some point it becomes useless to repeat the same thing in those thread. Simply liking or disliking allow you to give your opinion without having to beat the same dead horse again and again.

 

There are also people who are not very good at writing or are simply not native english and long discussions are harder to maintain for them. Like/dislike allow them to participate by showing their agreement/disagreement toward something without having to spend their day writing a along and elaborated reply that will most likely get ignored anyway,

[Erebus.7568]

> @"The Revenant.4970" said:

> > @Danikat.8537 said:

> > Problem is a straight 'no' vote doesn't give you anywhere to go from there.

> >

> > If I say to someone "We should get ice cream" and they just say "no" then that's the end of it. No way to explore the idea further.

> >

> > If they say "I can't eat ice cream because I'm lactose intolerant" then I can modify the idea to find something that works - maybe I suggested ice cream because I want something sweet and we can get pastries instead. Or if they say "I don't want ice cream because I just ate" then we can shelve the idea for now and come back to it later.

> >

> > If they say they're morally opposed to farming cows, consuming dairy products, artificial refrigeration and commercial products which push excess sugar on consumers then I know for future reference that suggesting ice cream is never going to be a good idea and not to bring it up again. (And maybe just to avoid discussing food in general unless I'm prepared for a debate.)

> >

> > Providing context to your opinion opens up the opportunity for discussion which has the potential to lead to a suitable compromise, or at least an understanding of other people's views on the subject. Whereas simply stating your opinion as a way to shut down another person's does the opposite - it's actively preventing any discussion. Which is a bit of a dead end on an internet forum.

>

> I don't want to get ice cream.

>

> Not everything warrants a discussion. Critical thought, on your own, will come up with possible reasons as to why I don't want to go get ice cream. Self contemplation...more effective than someone arguing from behind a keyboard that won't change your opinion one bit.

>

> Everyone acts like they are nice, rational debaters on here. I'm sure you've brought some bad ideas to the table...did you acknowledge that when someone disagreed with you? Somehow...I doubt it. I've yet to see "my bad guys...bad idea" from anyone in the 5 years these forums have existed...

>

 

true not everything is worth discussing for everyone and if you meet a subject which doesn't hold enough interest for you to want to respond to it, then don't. you don't have to engage in every post that is made, and if you do not want to engage you shouldn't be allowed to simply jump in "throw gasoline on the fire" and jump out, leaving a negative impact on the conversation while adding nothing of use or positive neither to the conversation or the community in it.

 

saying that "you are too stupid to think and you should rethink yourself without me telling you what I don't like" is very negative and arrogant all through the sentence.

you are not only saying that someone's suggestion is so stupid you don't even want to post to it, you are also saying that your argument for that belief are so perfect that there doesn't exist a valid or good argument against it, as well as saying that if someone can't figure out why you didn't like it then they are just too stupid and should go think more about it because of course your instant response which took less time for you than putting together a simple post, or reading the discussion, is so much better than anything anyone could come up with and Yet everyone should be able to figure it out by simply seeing your "downvote".

 

those two statements are completely contradictory.

1. you believe you are so much smarter than the OP that you can instantly say with 100% that you are right and you need no argument to say so.

2. yet you believe that from nothing else than a "downvote" the OP is so smart that he can magically mind-read exactly what your problem with the text was and why it was a bad idea.

these two doesn't make sense, if you are vastly smarter then there is no chance he can figure out what you were thinking and which part of the suggestion needed work/didn't function. if he is vastly smarter, he had not only already thought of your argument but taken it into consideration, thereby meaning that your downvoted is wrongly put as your argument for doing so would already be countered by the OP if you had cared to show it.

which means OP would either not know what the problem with the downvote is or believe that you simply did it because you didn't know better and didn't care to learn.

no matter which it will not bring anything positive to the conversation.

[Panda.1967]

For those asking for a positive outcome of downvoting... allow me to outline a few.

 

1) downvoting trolls rather than responding to them. Most trolls want to get a rise out of others, but when the option exists to give a down vote, a lot of people will be more inclined to just hit that button and move on rather than actually respond to them. This can ultimately cut back on trolling.

 

2) it helps to cutback on redundant and repeated posts. If someone posts something that people disagree with and someone else responds with the reasoning/opinion you share on the topic, if you don't have anything else to add to it you could simply downvote the post you disagree with and upvote the one that shares your view rather than adding yet another copy of the exact same post to the discussion adding nothing to it.

 

3) when looking at suggestions for new content or requests for buffs/nerfs the up/down vote can give a quick visual representation of how many people agree with or disagree with the suggestion. This can actually be a useful metric not only for the playerbase, but for the devs when assessing suggestions.

 

4) sometimes a suggestion receiving a lot of downvotes might actually point out an issue that people want to ignore, and as a result draw attention to it. This can actually result in some long needed balance fixes on abilities that are overpowered/underpowered. The same thing can even happen with posts that are massively upvoted.

[Zedek.8932]

> @Panda.1967 said:

> To be completely honest, thumbs down is only abusable when our names are not attached to our votes. As is currently the case, and hopefully will only be the case while they sort out the avatar clutter... and quite frankly, most people have an attachment to their Forum identities as an extension of themselves, attaching their forum name to a vote they don't actually believe in is unlikely to happen from most people. People feel more obligated to vote truthfully with how they really feel when their name is attached to something.

 

Excelsior.

 

The difference there is however: Do we dislike the actual content or, for example, the way it has been brought in?

For example, I would want to Thumb down this comment, because I do not agree. But then, why would I slap that tag on your comment, when you are 100% right to express that? I rather type out what I think. Imagine in real life, at a meeting, you sit on a roundtable, and one guy makes a stupid comment about the companie's next step. Instead of saying: "No, I don't think that'll work, because..." everybody just walks by, slapping him once in the face. That's disagreeing without any point and not helpful at all, yet is fulfills the same strawman reasons as these thumbs buttons.

[Neural.1824]

> @Panda.1967 said:

> To be completely honest, thumbs down is only abusable when our names are not attached to our votes. As is currently the case...

 

This thread is a perfect example. You can tell who is on what side of the debate without reading their comments, just look at the like/dislike. Rev vs. Erebus, and there are 2 likes/dislikes per post based purely on the user name.

 

 

[Erebus.7568]

> @Panda.1967 said:

> For those asking for a positive outcome of downvoting... allow me to outline a few.

>

> 1) downvoting trolls rather than responding to them. Most trolls want to get a rise out of others, but when the option exists to give a down vote, a lot of people will be more inclined to just hit that button and move on rather than actually respond to them. This can ultimately cut back on trolling.

>

> 2) it helps to cutback on redundant and repeated posts. If someone posts something that people disagree with and someone else responds with the reasoning/opinion you share on the topic, if you don't have anything else to add to it you could simply downvote the post you disagree with and upvote the one that shares your view rather than adding yet another copy of the exact same post to the discussion adding nothing to it.

>

> 3) when looking at suggestions for new content or requests for buffs/nerfs the up/down vote can give a quick visual representation of how many people agree with or disagree with the suggestion. This can actually be a useful metric not only for the playerbase, but for the devs when assessing suggestions.

 

tyvm it is nice to get some concrete examples ^^

 

1. if it is truly a troll you don't downvote it but report it instead and moderator takes care of it. in any other situation it is simply you believing, for whatever reason, that it is a troll and when moderators says it is not Then by the forum rules, which is the "law" of the forum, it is not a troll and you downvoting have all the negative effects that have been listed and it is all then done by you misinterpret the poster as a troll. Also keep in mind that actual trolls does it to provoke people, doubt they will stop because a bunch of people downvoted them. if anyone doesn't care about getting downvoted it is someone doing it specifically to get hated for it (it is likely to do the opposite of what you described).

2. as you already have the "upvote" the one you agree with, why would you need to downvote? as stated earlier the upvote is a good function which adds positive spins to the situation while the downvote does the opposite and is a redundant function if you have an upvote already. so in this case you are simply stating that a "voting" system is positive, which I agree with. however strongly disagree that it should be based on a negative reinforcement setup oppose to a positive, and it is redundant to have both.

3. the same as 2, it is redundant to have both a showed like and showed dislike, as you only need one of them to gain this data. besides those same arguments as nr. 2 :)

 

because of these, i will still say that we need a scenario where having the Downvoted oppose to removing it adds a positive to the community or developers process/abilities/etc.

[Rauderi.8706]

While I agree there's some reason to be wary about Thumbs Down, it can have it's benefits. @"Panda.1967" and @"Haishao.6851" laid out some good ones.

Which means my list might get a little redundant. Please bear with me though.

 

* The downvote can serve as a voice for those who disagree but for some reason don't feel the need to elaborate: their idea has already been said, their thoughts are still fuzzy on it, they don't want to enter the morass of a highly-charged argument. It reinforces Revenant's notion that one can disagree without *needing* to explain why. (Good discourse *should* explain, but again, there's reasons not to.)

* It can remove ambiguity about why an idea didn't take off. Getting no/low upvotes on an idea can mean that no one was looking or interested. Getting no/low upvotes and a bag full of downvotes means that idea is *probably* not popular in the section you posted in. (ie, Gift of Battle in the WvW forum) It's a sign to either accept the forums aren't keen on it or to give it a try with another population (like General).

* With sufficient self-reflection, downvotes can chastise uncivil behavior. I guarantee some downvotes are going to happen because of a person's tone, sarcasm, and incivility, regardless of the goodness of the idea presented.

[Erebus.7568]

> @Neural.1824 said:

> > @Panda.1967 said:

> > To be completely honest, thumbs down is only abusable when our names are not attached to our votes. As is currently the case...

>

> This thread is a perfect example. You can tell who is on what side of the debate without reading their comments, just look at the like/dislike. Rev vs. Erebus, and there are 2 likes/dislikes per post based purely on the user name.

>

>

 

I don't downvoted anyone as I find it a bad practice which only adds a negative to the conversation.

now it is always abusable even with names attached, we see this on facebook where even with real identities people don't mind abusing it. so believing in-game names would stop it more than rl identities doesn't sound right to me :)

 

now i think the entire discussion should be based more around the question;

"Does it add more positive to the forum than it adds negatives".

I personally would be able to say with as close to 100% as I can come "No it absolutely will have zero chances of adding more positive feeling and impact on the community than it will add negative feelings"

 

now, this should be the discussion as that should be what matters in this case.

[SkyShroud.2865]

> @Haishao.6851 said:

> > @SkyShroud.2865 said:

> >

> > If you disapprove of something, shouldn't you speak up against it? Isn't that what a discussion forums is? To discuss?

> > Also, on the earlier post, I also wrote about how it can become a form of peer pressure to conform people to specific ways even if their ways aren't objectively wrong.

>

> You can disagree with things without wanting to say more about it. Like you can agree with something without wanting to say more. Showing you disapprove something is speaking against it.

>

> Sometime discussions leads nowhere and everybody in a thread are only repeating what others have already said numerous time. I prefer to have the option to show I'm in disagreement with an opinion using a thumb down than to also repeat what a few others have already said. Plenty of threads got closed in the old forum because discussion was nothing more than people repeating the same thing for 5 pages. Having option to only like/dislike help just showing agreement/disagreement without redundancy.

>

> There's also that when you send a suggestion to arenanet, they ask you to post it in the forum to see whether people like it or not. Having like/dislike make it a lot easier to see if your suggestion is liked or not. Then you can see comments and read why not, and the best reason will have the most thumbs up.

>

> There are also threads that comes back every weeks. Like dueling, making the game easier, Gift of battle. At some point it becomes useless to repeat the same thing in those thread. Simply liking or disliking allow you to give your opinion without having to beat the same dead horse again and again.

>

> There are also people who are not very good at writing or are simply not native english and long discussions are harder to maintain for them. Like/dislike allow them to participate by showing their agreement/disagreement toward something without having to spend their day writing a along and elaborated reply that will most likely get ignored anyway,

 

Yes, I understand where you coming from, I do encountered a lot of people repeating same thing over and over again. However, we also need not forget that this forums has poll feature as well. Why not we just use the poll feature for the main post to keep people on topic for their suggestions?

 

Also, we need not forget that this is a MMORPG game, there are individuals who have issues with other individuals, it won't be a rare occurrence where they bring their personal conflict into forums to harass, thumb downing every post he or she made. *ehem* p....v...p....w...v...w... *ehem*

 

I don't really see a purpose to mimic thumbdown and thumbup (dislike or like) review feature which more commonly found on youtube etc. Likewise, I still think it will have a peer pressure effect which is isn't good.

[Jaysin X.6740]

A lot of good points from several people. I can see a thumbs down becoming a problem, but I can also see how it could urge people to post more responsibly. The GW2 community is more mature than most so I'll adopt the wait and see approach for now.

[Panda.1967]

> @Erebus.7568 said:

> > @Panda.1967 said:

> > For those asking for a positive outcome of downvoting... allow me to outline a few.

> >

> > 1) downvoting trolls rather than responding to them. Most trolls want to get a rise out of others, but when the option exists to give a down vote, a lot of people will be more inclined to just hit that button and move on rather than actually respond to them. This can ultimately cut back on trolling.

> >

> > 2) it helps to cutback on redundant and repeated posts. If someone posts something that people disagree with and someone else responds with the reasoning/opinion you share on the topic, if you don't have anything else to add to it you could simply downvote the post you disagree with and upvote the one that shares your view rather than adding yet another copy of the exact same post to the discussion adding nothing to it.

> >

> > 3) when looking at suggestions for new content or requests for buffs/nerfs the up/down vote can give a quick visual representation of how many people agree with or disagree with the suggestion. This can actually be a useful metric not only for the playerbase, but for the devs when assessing suggestions.

>

> tyvm it is nice to get some concrete examples ^^

>

> 1. if it is truly a troll you don't downvote it but report it instead and moderator takes care of it. in any other situation it is simply you believing, for whatever reason, that it is a troll and when moderators says it is not Then by the forum rules, which is the "law" of the forum, it is not a troll and you downvoting have all the negative effects that have been listed and it is all then done by you misinterpret the poster as a troll. Also keep in mind that actual trolls does it to provoke people, doubt they will stop because a bunch of people downvoted them. if anyone doesn't care about getting downvoted it is someone doing it specifically to get hated for it (it is likely to do the opposite of what you described).

> 2. as you already have the "upvote" the one you agree with, why would you need to downvote? as stated earlier the upvote is a good function which adds positive spins to the situation while the downvote does the opposite and is a redundant function if you have an upvote already. so in this case you are simply stating that a "voting" system is positive, which I agree with. however strongly disagree that it should be based on a negative reinforcement setup oppose to a positive, and it is redundant to have both.

> 3. the same as 2, it is redundant to have both a showed like and showed dislike, as you only need one of them to gain this data. besides those same arguments as nr. 2 :)

>

> because of these, i will still say that we need a scenario where having the Downvoted oppose to removing it adds a positive to the community or developers process/abilities/etc.

 

1) While yes, you should report the troll. Some people (really a lot of people) have a bit of impulse control issues when dealing with trolls and can't help but to give a reaction, allowing them to downvote gives them an outlet to react that is safer and more constructive to themselves and the community rather than rage posting and regretting it later.

 

2) Sure a lot of people would prefer everything to only show positives. But, quite honestly, negatives are still beneficial. If someone posts something that is contriversal and gets 5 responses all disagreeing with them all of which have say 10 upvotes each, and their post has 20 upvotes, someone looking at upvotes might think "oh so more people agree with the OP than disagree" when in reality, those 10 upvotes each on the disagreeing posts may have come from as many as 50 different people. Including a downvote gives a more accurate representation of where the opinions actually lay.

 

3) Simply not true. You absolutely need both views for this metric to be reliable. If you only allow for upvotes on suggestions, then you will only ever see a positive trend to all of them. The comments could be overwhelmingly negative, but comments alone don't paint an accurate picture. We've all heard this before at some point, Forum posters are a vocal minority, the real view of any situation come from the silent majority. Well, a sizable portion of that silent majority does tend to view forums, they may not post but they do view them, and given options to vote on things many of them will toss out a vote. Now, comments on a suggestion may say one thing, but the voting of the silent majority will paint the real picture, but only if they can vote both ways. If they can only vote positive then you will only ever see the positive, even if the reality of the situation is that the suggestion was negatively received. A post with 100 upvotes but 20 negative comments would look like there were simply 20 people opposed to it, however if the same post had 3000 downvotes, it'd be hard to argue that it wasn't negatively received by the community. Imagine if the devs implemented a requested feature that the majority of the playerbase disagreed with simply because it received a high number of upvotes. You'd probably be outraged, but if the suggestion had downvotes outweighing the upvotes, such a scenario would almost never happen (almost never, because of the occasional situation of people mass downvoting to try and preserve an exploit or overpowered ability).

 

 

[Einlanzer.1627]

My biggest issue with both thumb up and thumb down is their tendency to enable intellectual laziness as well as exacerbating the whole phenomenon of group-think, which can easily bury good ideas/thoughts and muck up discussions for very arbitrary reasons. The overwhelming majority of thumb down reactions, as well as a fair chunk of thumb up ones, are simply reactionary rather than thoughtful, and I don't see that as contributing much to an online forum. But at least thumb up responses generate positivity, and also help to give a snapshot of the overall support for an idea. Thumb down reactions don't do much of anything useful and only contribute negativity, IMO.

 

The mature thing to do if you don't agree with something for specific reasons is to respond to it with constructive criticism. The mature thing to do if you don't like the sound of something, but don't care enough to give it serious thought, is to just leave the topic alone rather than "contributing" in a reactionary, unthoughtful way to it by downvoting and turning people and topics into pariahs.

[Nick Lentz.6982]

> @Jaken.6801 said:

> > @"Nick Lentz.6982" said:

> > > @drkn.3429 said:

> > > The thumbs up and thumbs down system is a good indicator of what's happening within the community; not only what do people think about certain ideas, but also what kinds of reactions are more popular, and allow to ascertain why that might be.

> > >

> > > I would imagine people who only downvote others' posts without any other contributions might get banned from the forums after some time.

> > >

> > > The major difference is that downvoted posts do not disappear from the main page of a category here, whereas downvoting on Reddit casts threads into oblivion.

> >

> > Had they started this before announcement of mounts, would we still get mounts? More likely. The thumbs up and down do nothing but grief. It would be better to have the +1 system so Anet sees iwhat people like.

>

> That's what we had before. They had it in place for exactly that reason.

> We could see if someone got over a certain thresholds of upvotes.

> Giving no thumbs would be the same as being indifferent or not agreeing.

>

> It's weird to see them throwing things like that out.

 

they should have kept it, or make it so we can not see the thumbs up or down. Most time anyway good ideas get thrown into a mega thread.