[655321]

Rain, on 2011-January-19, 13:41, said:

Anyway, downvoting:
We can consider. Probably not immediately, but sometime soon. So not a "no" to downvoting, actually probably a "yes", but in due time.

Are we there yet?

[mtvesuvius]

655321, on 2011-April-04, 19:44, said:

Are we there yet?

"How about now?" - Voice from the back seat.

[shintaro]

Isn't Sarcasm merely the lowest form of Wit ???

[1eyedjack]

shintaro, on 2011-April-05, 06:17, said:

Isn't Sarcasm merely the lowest form of Wit ???

Actually, Oscar Wilde never actually said that. What he really said was

"Sarcasm is the highest form of wit. ...................... I THINK NOT!"

[shintaro]

1eyedjack, on 2011-April-05, 06:36, said:

Actually, Oscar Wilde never actually said that. What he really said was

"Sarcasm is the highest form of wit. ...................... I THINK NOT!"

hyah

[Bbradley62]

cherdano, on 2011-January-19, 11:52, said:

I would like to make the case for allowing a small number of minus votes just one more time.

It appears that downvoting is now allowed.

[mgoetze]

Yeah one poster even has a reputation of -19 already.

[cherdano]

I am surprised that the number of downvotes per day is so high. I would have thought a downvotes means "This post does not belong here", not "I disagree with this post". There are a few a day of the former type but not 20.

[Bbradley62]

cherdano, on 2011-June-07, 06:41, said:

I am surprised that the number of downvotes per day is so high. I would have thought a downvotes means "This post does not belong here", not "I disagree with this post". There are a few a day of the former type but not 20.

I would think a downvote says "this post is unnecessarily rude or completely absurd". Each poster's tally of upvotes vs downvotes received is called his "reputation"; hopefully, that is not a measure of our ability to file posts under the proper headings.

I'd expect a high per-day total for the first few days while people go back and downvote things they wanted to downvote before that was possible. Where do you see that statistic?

[cherdano]

cherdano, on 2011-June-07, 06:41, said:

I am surprised that the number of downvotes per day is so high. I would have thought a downvotes means "This post does not belong here", not "I disagree with this post". There are a few a day of the former type but not 20.

Bbradley62, on 2011-June-07, 06:49, said:

I would think a downvote says "this post is unnecessarily rude or completely absurd". Each poster's tally of upvotes vs downvotes received is called his "reputation"; hopefully, that is not a measure of our ability to file posts under the proper headings.

I'd expect a high per-day total for the first few days while people go back and downvote things they wanted to downvote before that was possible. Where do you see that statistic?

Sorry, I didn't mean "doesn't belong to this subforum but to a different subforum" but "this is the kind of post I don't want to see on BBF". Pointless flamewars, rudeness to newcomers, etc.

[nigel_k]

I'm pleased they have allowed it but can't say I am surprised people are downvoting choices they disagree with.

[cherdano]

nigel_k, on 2011-June-07, 14:26, said:

I'm pleased they have allowed it but can't say I am surprised people are downvoting choices they disagree with.

I assume you mean this post. Generally I agree that one shouldn't downvote posts just because one doesn't agree with them. But if someone makes a post in the B/I forum that is quite categorical, and contrary to what the majority of experts would recommend and bid, I can understand why someone would want to mark it as a minority view.

[nigel_k]

cherdano, on 2011-June-07, 15:11, said:

I assume you mean this post. Generally I agree that one shouldn't downvote posts just because one doesn't agree with them. But if someone makes a post in the B/I forum that is quite categorical, and contrary to what the majority of experts would recommend and bid, I can understand why someone would want to mark it as a minority view.

I don't agree with your view of what experts would do and my tone in that post was more directed at the level of certainty of the previous posters. In any case surely that post isn't a case of "this is the kind of post I don't want to see on BBF", unless you want BBF to be a much smaller and less interesting place.

[cherdano]

nigel_k, on 2011-June-07, 17:59, said:

I don't agree with your view of what experts would do and my tone in that post was more directed at the level of certainty of the previous posters. In any case surely that post isn't a case of "this is the kind of post I don't want to see on BBF", unless you want BBF to be a much smaller and less interesting place.

Agreed.

[JLOGIC]

Now that there are downvotes it is imperative to make who repped you available to the person. There should also be a way to see which of your posts were repped so you know. But if rep is not transparent then you can easily just get downvoted 100 times by someone who doesn't like you for no reason with no reprecussions to them.

[Antrax]

I think it's a good idea to let people know what their "influential" posts were - in some ideal world, it might even offer people a chance to mend their ways. However, I'm not sure what the expected outcome of letting people know who voted how for them is. Most likely minus-vote flame wars? I think BBF staff can be notified of irregularities (by people affected by them) and can decide if someone is misusing his rights.

[JLOGIC]

No, it stops minus-vote flame wars. If someone downvotes you 20 times for no reason, you know they did it, and then it will happen to them. That may seem like creating a minus-vote war, but in fact it stops it from occurring. If someone can downvote 20 times anonymously, they can do it without fear of getting it back. If combined with a rule that retaliatory downvotes are not ok for a 1 time downvote, then you get a reasonable system.

[Antrax]

I agree people are more likely to downvote for no reason if there's no fear of retaliation. I'm not sure I agree that fear of retaliation from other users will be deterrent enough. I hesitate to bring it up, but nothing is required to sign up many times on these boards for the sole purpose of downvoting someone about whom you feel strongly. So, the potential for retribution is effectively unbounded. Hence, I think moderator intervention might be required in some extreme scenarios, and since it's sufficient, I believe that's the way to go.

[JLOGIC]

I mean, see, you just got downvoted twice for no reason (no it was not me, but it might look like it since you have no idea where it came from!). Making these things transparent would lead to silly things like that not happening. If you do not want your downvote to be seen by someone you probably shouldn't be making it anyways. Also, if someone more reputable was downvoting me that would mean more to me than some random downvoting me, so it would be useful from that point of view. I see no upside to anonymous downvotes.

Also, an easy fix to the "you can easily make multiple new accounts and downvote/upvote yourself" is to simply require a minimum of 100 posts on the forums before you can use the rep system. Yes people could make gimmicks with 100+ posts to do this, but it is probably good enough for BBF.

The BBF management seemed to want to add rep which was fine but did not seem to think of any of the ramifications when doing so. Adding downvoting is a good step but now there needs to be more safeguards in place to avoid the inevitable person x being downvoted 200 times. Maybe some people will say "who cares?" but if that is the attitude then why have rep at all.

A way to search users by rep also seems obviously overlooked. Right now you can search by number of rating stars, but not by rep. One of the main uses of rep is for new people to a forum who do not know anything to be able to search by rep and find which users posts to look out for/read. You can also look to see who has negative rep in order to avoid them. Presumably this is the use of search by rating, and since rep is more used than rating why not do this for rep?

[Antrax]

Oh wow, I totally didn't see that coming. I have seen the error of my ways. How ironically justified. Or something.