Make it able to downvote

[Dark_Chroma_Prime]

Here in the forums we are able to upvote things to show that it is great e. g. But we are unable to downvote threads, to show disagreement and that its a not good idea, so why not integrate a downvote button?

[krc473]

2 minutes ago, Dark_Chroma said:

so why not integrate a downvote button?

DE likes people to be constructive. A downvote button is not constructive. If someone’s idea is terrible, you should tell them why. You don’t really need to explain why you agree with a thread, so we can have buttons.

[[DE]Drew]

As @krc473 mentioned, downvoting isn't constructive. Disagreement is very important, and it requires nuance and dialogue that a downvote can't convey. 

[GrayArchon]

I believe there used to be downvote options, but they were removed a long time ago because DE didn't like them. I've seen someone who still had a negative community reputation (the number under your profile pic) because they'd been downvoted so much in the past. I agree with others, a simple downvote button isn't good for discussion when it comes to video games.

[Rekkou]

17 hours ago, [DE]Drew said:

As @krc473 mentioned, downvoting isn't constructive. Disagreement is very important, and it requires nuance and dialogue that a downvote can't convey. 

Then can you please at least remove the "haha" button? Because people have been using it as a substitute for downvote button. People don't use it to express "you're funny", people use it to express "your idea is laughable". And ironically this results in people getting a lot of reputation, making it looks like a lot of people agree with them even though it's the opposite.

Edit:

 @[DE]Drew See what i mean? 

Edited September 20, 2018 by Rekkou

[DrBorris]

2 hours ago, [DE]Drew said:

As @krc473 mentioned, downvoting isn't constructive. Disagreement is very important, and it requires nuance and dialogue that a downvote can't convey. 

I'd just like to point out that agreement is kinda the same. If you have a system where negativity requires dialogue but positivity does not, then combine that with a system that requires dialogue in order for a topic to be seen, you get a system that promotes "bad" ideas more-so than good ones. (Adding more reactions did not help this situation)

 

The current Forum "meta" now is:

• Make a topic everyone disagrees with and have ten pages of comments
• -or -
• Make a topic everyone agrees with, get a few reputation points, but only get seven comments.

 

It might be something to consider having reactions 'bump' a thread in addition to comments. I know that is another can of worms, but imo it is better than having disagreement be the most powerful way to express your ideas.

[mrecentric]

20 hours ago, [DE]Drew said:

As @krc473 mentioned, downvoting isn't constructive. Disagreement is very important, and it requires nuance and dialogue that a downvote can't convey. 

Several websites disagree. Reddit, Stack Overflow, etc. I suggest looking at existing UX usability studies before jumping to conclusions.

Edited September 20, 2018 by mrecentric

[Ardhanarishvara]

22 hours ago, [DE]Drew said:

As @krc473 mentioned, downvoting isn't constructive. Disagreement is very important, and it requires nuance and dialogue that a downvote can't convey. 

Here's a thought. Any given reply to a particular post can be marked with 'agree' or 'disagree', which credits said post with agreement or disagreement, such that rather than simply ambiguously downvoting, reason and dialogue is required.

Oh, but then that would lead to a new influx of garbage posts that either repeat what other people say or say very little of actual worth, which would need to be deleted to prevent cluttering the forum, prompting objections and accusations of censorship, which Warframe already has issues with, so probably best not to throw more gasoline on the fire.

Personally I think the best possible option would be a 'reviews' system for individual posts, not unlike Steam's game reviews function, where each post could have tagged replies that become visible when clicking something but otherwise don't clutter the thread, and are moved along with said post. However that would take a lot of time and effort to pull off for something that would ultimately probably not be very much appreciated by the masses.

Frankly speaking, I've got to be very honest and say that, from my perspective at least, it'd probably be best to get rid of the reactions altogether, or at least also blast the upvote button (but then people would just use lotus or applause for upvotes just like they use laugh for downvotes). To me, they make the environment seem far more positive than it actually is, enforcedly so, which seems disingenuous to me. Making something seem more accepted than it really is seems backwards to me if you're looking for actual constructive criticism. Allowing any kind of quick-press, no-effort reaction system defeats the point of nuance in its entirety.

2 hours ago, mrecentric said:

Several websites disagree. Reddit, Stack Overflow, etc. I suggest looking at existing UX usability studies before jumping to conclusions.

The Warframe subreddit actually has a huge warning when hovering over the downvote button that it should not be considered an 'I disagree' button, but rather used exclusively for garbage posts that add nothing constructive. No such 'specific usage' text is added to the upvote button. Selective negativity is being hoped for, but rampant, non-constructive positivity isn't being discouraged at all.

In any case, guess how often it's actually used that way. Talk about optimistic. Anything that the echo chamber doesn't agree with for their own little politics of game design gets blasted to hell and a lot of the time certain key words or phrases are just given kneejerk reactions. When you look at this example, it does kind of make sense that DE wouldn't want a downvote button on their forums. My problem is encouraging mindless positivity in its place, which is a somewhat scary proposition since it essentially passively brainwashes the local culture into only being positive and pleasant if they want to say anything, or to pretend they're happier than they are, even if that's not DE's direct intention.

Encouraging rationality, thought, and civility is one thing. I can get behind that, all the way. Punishing negativity is something else altogether.

[[DE]Drew]

On 2018-09-19 at 7:39 PM, Rekkou said:

Then can you please at least remove the "haha" button? Because people have been using it as a substitute for downvote button. People don't use it to express "you're funny", people use it to express "your idea is laughable". And ironically this results in people getting a lot of reputation, making it looks like a lot of people agree with them even though it's the opposite.

Edit:

 @[DE]Drew See what i mean? 

It has always been a pretty ambiguous button. We don't plan to remove it at this time, but your point is well taken. 

19 hours ago, mrecentric said:

Several websites disagree. Reddit, Stack Overflow, etc. I suggest looking at existing UX usability studies before jumping to conclusions.

Their goals are different than ours. There was no jump to this conclusion. We had a downvote at one point. This is from experience. 
 

The responses here are a great example of what we're striving for: constructive disagreement/discussion. 

[Voltage]

9 minutes ago, [DE]Drew said:

It has always been a pretty ambiguous button. We don't plan to remove it at this time, but your point is well taken. 

We could always bring back this gem:

I can see both sides of this discussion, but the lack of a down-vote option is acceptable in the current state. My only feedback on Community Reputation as a whole would be a place to locate liked comments or Hot Topic discussions in some fashion. We had the Leaderboards on the forums, but as pointed out to me in your thread for proposed Forum changes, they had many downsides opposed to the upside of sorting monthly comments by upvotes. I am curious to see where this goes after the changes go live!

Edited September 21, 2018 by Voltage

[Fallen_Echo]

On 2018-09-19 at 11:39 PM, [DE]Drew said:

As @krc473 mentioned, downvoting isn't constructive. Disagreement is very important, and it requires nuance and dialogue that a downvote can't convey. 

Im not sure just how much constructive or useable information you can get from someone writing in.

"Your idea is stupid!", "Thats a pile of " or other 3-4 word negative critism many people write down.

Also since we are at the haha button, remove the red head too because thats the other substitute for downvotes.

[Zeyez]

i think that before those changes on "like" button, we had almost enough options to say, in 2 clicks, what was our general view about the message, especially with "confused" one, that dictates someone isn't understanding what message that person tried to say... was great for the person with many of those on its post to explain him/herself about what's his/her idea by using another approach

 

right now, what's the difference between "upvote", "like" and "satisfied"? all those 3 says the same message: you agree with that idea
"woah" says that you are surprised, but won't be uncommon for "applause" fall on that category
"haha"... obvious, funny

 

i will bring my quote from post from the moment that changed, almost an year ago:

On 2017-10-06 at 8:49 PM, Zeyez said:

but "Confused" emoji could be used to give some warnings to the writer, especially if others are not understanding his/her PoV of something, as fast feedback

probably many people will read the post, agree, disagree, don't undestand... but will try to give an feedback with 2-3 clicks at most, instead of write something

 

now, its just an option to say that you like the post...  in many ways...

[(PSN)deathwolfclaw666]

It would be handy allowing us to see at a glance how many agree/disagree with an idea, opposed to possibly having a thread with 5 likes and 50 comments disagreeing. As someone else pointed out people already use "ha ha" or "Woah" as a substitute for a dislike.

Also as far as creating dialog goes I could understand that if we were forced to also leave a comment if we wanted to click an emoji. However as it stands I can like a thread without a single piece of dialog or I could waste space in a thread by simply stating that I don't agree which I wouldn't exactly call constructive. 

[mrecentric]

6 hours ago, [DE]Drew said:

Their goals are different than ours. There was no jump to this conclusion. We had a downvote at one point. This is from experience. 

Can you elaborate a bit?

In what ways are their goals different? The goal of organizing content?

You say this is from experience. What data supports this hypothesis specifically? Having downvote doesn't preclude discussion.

[Vox_Preliator]

2 minutes ago, mrecentric said:

Several websites disagree. Reddit, Stack Overflow, etc. I suggest looking at existing UX usability studies before jumping to conclusions.

So, have you never seen a Subreddit that got rid of the Downvote button?  Because in my experience those tend to be way better for discussion than ones with it, because dissent or anything remotely controversial isn't immediately hidden and buried.

Stackoverflow is an enitrely different beast, as it is predominantly used for questions and answers, as opposed to discussions, thus the most helpful and detailed answers tend to, and rightfully should, float to the top while unhelpful or incorrect answers sink.

[(PSN)chris1pat8twins]

Downvote would lead to nothing but trolls trying to ruin people’s reputation and then those who make the posts would most likely never know what is wrong with their ideas/suggestions. If I disagree with someone’s post, I comment not only that I disagree but also WHY I disagree. 

If reputation is the issue with the 😆 emoji, then DE could simply make it not count towards their reputation. But removing it would no doubt lead to the red emoji getting used a lot and then some people will complain about it. So we would be having this same conversation but with another emoji. 

Then once DE has removed all negative/neutral emojis, people will start commenting the emojis. So then people will say that DE should forbid emojis being used in comments. 

But yes some suggestions are indeed laughable due to the lack of thought put into them with the whole community in mind. A lot of posts complaining about warframe are usually selfish posts. And people disagreeing with them are always called names instead of having a logical civil discussion towards a more fair, more equal solution. 

The emojis reflects people’s feelings towards the ideas. But they don’t always reflect what a person truly thinks. And downvoting would only create issues. Go to YouTube and look up harmless funny videos and see all the unnecessary downvotes they’re filled with. 

DE wants logical discussions, not insulting criticisms. Won’t be done if people just downvote without explaining the flaw in the “ideas”. 

[Misanami]

4 minutes ago, mrecentric said:

 Having downvote doesn't preclude discussion.

Posting the wrong opinion or facts they don't like on plebbit gets you downvoted into the negative hundreds up until you're banned or shadowbanned by their mods for """"""hate speech""""""

[JuanS]

Either remove all other buttons and only leave upvote or remove reputation from all the buttons but upvote, some people use those buttons as a way to show disagreement over insults, trolls, "unfair bans" arguments, etc. and the person who received the point end up with more reputation without deserving it as we don't have way to know if is a good or bad reputation when we see the green number under the user name and I highly doubt you need to elaborate and argument to disagree with a troll or an insult.

[Me.KayOh]

On 2018-09-19 at 5:39 PM, [DE]Drew said:

As @krc473 mentioned, downvoting isn't constructive. Disagreement is very important, and it requires nuance and dialogue that a downvote can't convey. 

I am pretty certain that as developers, you all have read threads where you immediately just disagreed and moved on. Some threads you've read the titles of and you never even entered them. And the Warframe forums is not without exceptions of threads of that nature. I've already identified two brand new threads that fall into this category.

Am I really going to conduct nuanced dialogue with someone who wants the clan key to be changed to be a one-time crafted item? I don't have that time to waste unfortunately, nor would I waste time on a thread like that, even if I had the luxury.

If I honestly had a specific response to something (like I do right now) I'd take the time to post it (like I'm doing right now). By the way people are able to use buttons and still reply to messages. So if your goal is to encourage constructive dialogue then make it rewarding instead of simply saying "a downvote button would prevent this" because really, it wouldn't.

[KettleTicket]

Some thought: The Warframe subreddit's downvote isn't meant as a "I dislike this":

"Help keep community morale high by only downvoting if this adds nothing of value to the discussion; this is not a 'disagree button'"

 

EDIT: Thinking from a creator standpoint: Wouldn't you rather find out why people dislike something and how to meet a middle ground than just seeing how many people click a button? Patch notes are long, there are a lot of changes to dislike, and a "downvote" doesn't convey which part you disagreed with.

Edited September 21, 2018 by KettleTicket
more thoughts

[mrecentric]

28 minutes ago, KettleTicket said:

EDIT: Thinking from a creator standpoint: Wouldn't you rather find out why people dislike something and how to meet a middle ground than just seeing how many people click a button? Patch notes are long, there are a lot of changes to dislike, and a "downvote" doesn't convey which part you disagreed with.

Think about it from another creator standpoint: Wouldn't you rather get a broad idea if something is linked or disliked rather than reading thousands of comments? You still have all of the data on who voted. You can contact them for more info later if you need to understand why if they didn't post a comment. Heck, you can tie the downvote button to something that requires a comment before you're allowed to downvote if you really want that comment. That doesn't negate the value of the downvote button.

I deal with user-generated content on a daily basis at work. I know which approach is more useful to me. Granted different people have different approaches to gathering and interacting with data.

[BloodArmoredApostle]

No because no one likes hurt feelings :/. Downvote may cause unprecedented brain damage, and non fixable trigger warnings. Plus, it goes against addictive means of the forums, dopamine for likes and responses versus depression for people who can't handle dislikes, or discourse. 

[Uthael]

I disagree with implementing this. Some ideas which would actually be healthy for gameplay would just get downvoted into oblivion.

I bet there were some topics about "melee shouldn't penetrate walls" before it got fixed. And I bet those got A LOT of opposition.
Now that it's done, nobody is really putting effort into getting it back.

Take a look at my topic here:

4 pages of debate. Would probably get a whole bunch of dislikes. On the other hand, many would appreciate the change and the only counter-argument that's still holding is "It's not REALLY needed.".

[KettleTicket]

19 hours ago, mrecentric said:

Think about it from another creator standpoint: Wouldn't you rather get a broad idea if something is linked or disliked rather than reading thousands of comments? You still have all of the data on who voted. You can contact them for more info later if you need to understand why if they didn't post a comment. Heck, you can tie the downvote button to something that requires a comment before you're allowed to downvote if you really want that comment. That doesn't negate the value of the downvote button.

I deal with user-generated content on a daily basis at work. I know which approach is more useful to me. Granted different people have different approaches to gathering and interacting with data.

Who says you have to read them personally? There's bots that read resumes, so there are bots that read comments too.

[Dark_Chroma_Prime]

On 2018-09-19 at 11:39 PM, [DE]Drew said:

As @krc473 mentioned, downvoting isn't constructive. Disagreement is very important, and it requires nuance and dialogue that a downvote can't convey. 

But isn't it already constructive enough if we show you by a Downvote button that we don't want to have it implemented into warframe?