Downvote!

[Thor]

You could just downvote me, but as we know, downvoting adds nothing valuable to the conservation.  So now you need to write a detailed post explaining to me why Larches, fascinating as they are, are not really relevant to the topic at the end.  Because you have nothing better to do with your time than read about larches and respond to this silly post.

 

Alternatively, you could skim the post, which should take less than a few seconds, realize that it's entirely offtopic, and proceed to hit the Report button and report it as such, which would lead to a moderator coming in and removing the offtopic post. That'd work too.

[TheErebus.]

The post about downvoting has the largest amounts of upvotes I've ever seen.
Also, I'd rather not have them back as they simply look un-appealing.

[[DE]Skree]

Imho, feedback loops are useful, but downvoting dampens the spirit of intellectual/creative collaboration and constructive criticism  Participation is to be encouraged and welcomed. If the content of that participation is in question, forum moderation will take care of it. :) /spaceninjahugs

[SymphNo9]

Imho, feedback loops are useful, but downvoting dampens the spirit of intellectual/creative collaboration and constructive criticism  Participation is to be encouraged and welcomed. If the content of that participation is in question, forum moderation will take care of it. :) /spaceninjahugs

 

What a headshot!

[Kyrkitao]

Imho, feedback loops are useful, but downvoting dampens the spirit of intellectual/creative collaboration and constructive criticism  Participation is to be encouraged and welcomed. If the content of that participation is in question, forum moderation will take care of it. :) /spaceninjahugs

 

Refer to:

 

I don't think the point of 'void disagreement' was to stimulate debate.  Sometimes ideas were bad and unsalvagable.  If someone felt strongly about an idea and had meaningful feedback they were likely to post it regardless.  Removing the ability to say "I disagree" quickly isn't going to dramatically increase the number of valuable ideas contributed to threads.  

 

[Callback]

Imho, feedback loops are useful, but downvoting dampens the spirit of intellectual/creative collaboration and constructive criticism  Participation is to be encouraged and welcomed. If the content of that participation is in question, forum moderation will take care of it. :) /spaceninjahugs

If you really want to force discussion, you could experiment with a variation of deviantART's system that lets you mark your post with how you feel about the topic, and displays the full tally at the top.  You may or may not want to mark only the first post by a single user.  This way, you can see from a glance how the community feels about the topic, but you still force people to put in the minimum effort of posting (even if the post only says "+1" or "no.") in order to "vote".

[Kattefjaes]

I don't think the point of 'void disagreement' was to stimulate debate.  Sometimes ideas were bad and unsalvagable.  If someone felt strongly about an idea and had meaningful feedback they were likely to post it regardless.  Removing the ability to say "I disagree" quickly isn't going to dramatically increase the number of valuable ideas contributed to threads.  

 

Yep, that's just it. When a thread starts from a premise just so broken and daft that you would need to write a small novel to explain why all the assumptions were so incorrect. It's discouraging- especially when the OP has reached that position by not reading or paying attention to anything. A carefully-worded rebuttal is as likely to bear fruit as issuing an an owl with car wash tokens.

 

In cases of facepalm-inducing idiocy, it's probably better for civility and the SNR to quietly register a downvote and move on to more constructive discussions. You've read it, you've registered your reaction. No need to slam your head against the thread further.

 

Sadly, in this age of prizes for all, downvotes were obviously too close to unforgivable emotional violence for the beautiful and unique snowflakes. Wonderful.

 

Edit: "thread", not "threat". l2type.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Kattefjaes

[cedekane]

Agreed and support.  I treat up votes as popularity weathervanes.  Lately, I feel like I'm only intereracting with posts I feel positive about, simply because I don't have time to have long winded conversations.  Won't this create an inaccurate perception of popularity?  If this is the case then DE should consider removing positive upvoting for the same reason. 

 

Would you take offense that your comments has low ratings?  Really?  I don't even know you, only your potentially well thought out but unpopular opinion.  As life goes on, prepare yourself for the eventuality that whenever you put an idea out there, there is a distinct possibility for it to be heavily criticized...It doesn't mean people don't like you personally.  

Edited May 7, 2013 by cedekane

[Aerensiniac]

If you have valid feedback, even if negative, post it. If you cannot formulate why you disagree, maybe you have no reason to disagree.

This. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

The thread is basically saying "take me and my opinion serious, but allow me to skip reasoning and handing out rational/constructive criticism".

 

 

 

The up votes on OPs post serve as a pretty accurate measurement as to how many trolls are in the community since anyone who upvoted this reasoning:

Until the feature is re-enabled or added as a separate tally, the only option for letting people know that their post is stupid or unpopular is to reply to it directly and tell them how bad it is.  How does anyone think this will make for a better community?  Instead of a simple -1, we will now have forums filled with flame wars over everything people don't agree on.  We need downvotes to accurately poll the opinions of the community without starting petty arguments.

[...] is pretty much the primary example as to why negative voting has been removed.

If your only way to disagree with someone is to call them "stupid" or incite a flame war, then you do not belong into any form of discussion or social interaction.

 

By definition you are the last person alive who should get an option to vote without the burden of proving the validity and integrity of your critique. Sorry.

I would rather have children calling me names (and in return getting banned to hell) than having them pollute the accuracy and very reason behind the voting system, with an option that allows them to skip rationalizing, yet is taken with the same credit as those posts which actually DID provide rational feedback.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Aerensiniac

[Aerensiniac]

Yes, I could've just upvoted him, but evidently voting without providing feedback is somehow bad. 

>>Joins a game in beta

>>Cant tell why not providing feedback is bad

 

 

Lets see... how about some deviant idea like... you know. Letting the developers understand your line of thought and thus adjusting the future of the game with your concerns in mind?

Edited May 7, 2013 by Aerensiniac

[cedekane]

Saying that down votes are purely for trolls or people who can't formulate strong opinions is a generalization, assumptive, inflammatory and trolling in itself.  Some people do have opinions in spite of the fact that they don't like the unproductive confrontation and bickering that most topics devolve into.  To me, that is what makes the community unwelcoming.

 

And someone who down votes is a troll?  Since when have trolls had problems being vocal?..that wouldn't be a very good troll.

Edited May 7, 2013 by cedekane

[Aerensiniac]

Some people do have opinions in spite of the fact that they don't like the unproductive confrontation and bickering that most topics devolve into.  To me, that is what makes the community unwelcoming.

If you yourself consider your arguments so bad that confrontation would be unproductive, then why should anybody give you the right to vote on the matter at hand?

 

This is a serious question cause a confrontation can be unproductive only when the arguments presented are worthless.

Are you entitled to your opinion? Yes. By all means

Should people recognize your opinion if its based on literally nothing? Hardly, cause by this standard, we could go for rainbows, ponies and cupcakes in warframe where the only means of defeating an opponent is through a party of chess.

 

What most people do not understand is that integrity is not an option.

If you cant rationalize your opinion, then by definition nobody should be inclined to take it into account.

[Ced23Ric]

At this point in time, we have heard many sides of the arguement and are repeating ununifieable opposing opinions. DE has made a decision based on previous observations. Your feedback has been heard and is processed "over thar". I would like you guys to come to a closing statement, before we put this discussion aside. :)

[Varil]

At this point in time, we have heard many sides of the arguement and are repeating ununifieable opposing opinions. DE has made a decision based on previous observations. Your feedback has been heard and is processed "over thar". I would like you guys to come to a closing statement, before we put this discussion aside. :)

 

 

You mean that all we're doing is going back-and-forth with "this is great!" and "no it isn't!"?

 

It's like some sort of...agree/dissent thing going on here. Like...upvotes and downvotes? No, that's silly.

[cedekane]

 

Should people recognize your opinion if its based on literally nothing? Hardly, cause by this standard, we could go for rainbows, ponies and cupcakes in warframe where the only means of defeating an opponent is through a party of chess.

 

 

If this is your opinion, then you can throw voting in elections in with your rainbows, ponies, and cupcakes.  Now I'm sure how we'd love to debate that..

 

If you yourself consider your arguments so bad that confrontation would be unproductive, then why should anybody give you the right to vote on the matter at hand?

 

On the contrary, I consider my arguments to be strong and well thought out..I was referring more to statements like this...

 

 

The thread is basically saying "take me and my opinion serious, but allow me to skip reasoning and handing out rational/constructive criticism".

 

The up votes on OPs post serve as a pretty accurate measurement as to how many trolls are in the community since anyone who upvoted this reasoning:

[...] is pretty much the primary example as to why negative voting has been removed.

If your only way to disagree with someone is to call them "stupid" or incite a flame war, then you do not belong into any form of discussion or social interaction.

 

I would rather have children calling me names (and in return getting banned to hell) than having them pollute the accuracy and very reason behind the voting system, with an option that allows them to skip rationalizing, yet is taken with the same credit as those posts which actually DID provide rational feedback.

 

1)  Your first statement is completely assumptive and unnecesscary.  The OP stated fairly well what the topic was about, you didn't need to dumb it down.

 

2)  Here you state that anyone anyone who agrees with OP must be a troll...a wonderful argument...where are your supporting arguments?  Though I will give you OP should have used his words better...

 

3)  Here is an actual argument on the topic...but I'm lost, by your reasoning the only fair and accurate way to conduct a voting system is if the down vote button is missing?  Oh right, because in statement 2, anyone who disagrees must be a troll, I'm with ya.

 

Aerensiniac, since you have called me out I feel comfortable in saying this.  For all the substance you have provided here, I wish i could have saved you the time by giving you directions to the downvote button...

 

To DE, my closing argument.

 

Can a negative rating really be so offensive and unwelcoming?  A downvote is merely a button stating, "I disagree".  Do you instruct your moderators to remove all posts that disagree with OP?  That would be ridiculous and defeat the purpose of the forum.  Is a downvote really more offensive than the actual posts said in this forum?  I think not.  More welcoming?  Surely a joke.

 

The downvote button is a tool that is used by many.  Some may be trolls.  Some may be children.  And some like me, would prefer the downvote button due to time constraints, or that they just don't care to tangle in off topic, unproductive arguments that more often than not, call into someones character and can offend one or multiple parties...We, along with the vocal few, do have thoughts, and voices, and enjoy the ability to exercise dissent by writing it when time allows, and clicking a button when it doesn't.

 

Lastly I leave you with a solution.  If you ever used the upvote/downvote system to gauge how popular certain topics are with the community, then I propose you reintroduce a new upvote/downvote system, where the results are for the Dev teams eyes only.  If you never used it as a tool, then I could care less what happens...I wish i could have just downvoted...

Edited May 8, 2013 by cedekane

[LazyTemplar]

At this point in time, we have heard many sides of the arguement and are repeating ununifieable opposing opinions. DE has made a decision based on previous observations. Your feedback has been heard and is processed "over thar". I would like you guys to come to a closing statement, before we put this discussion aside. :)

 

Here is mine.  I speak for no one else but myself.  

 

Voting is only useful for two purposes.  Either it is there to allow people to express themselves, or it is there to provide a gauge as to how popular an idea is with the community.  

 

If it is there as a mere expressive communication, then it should be clear by the amount of uproar that many forum users enjoyed having the ability to express themselves with downvotes.  

 

If voting is there to provide a gauge of community support, then upvotes by themselves provide a very skewed result.  Posts that are overwhelmingly unpopular may still have positive vote counts.  Without a measure of both support and dissent, there is nothing to take away from the vote count at all.  

 

Up votes and down votes should either be listed side by side, or they should be removed altogether.  Now, I would prefer that they stay in a youtube-like format, because I do think they provide useful feedback.  But between only upvotes or no votes at all, I prefer no votes.  It is better for all posts to be judged in and of themselves than to be accompanied by a distorted and inaccurate vote count.  

 

Now, let's address the argument that downvotes are this horrid system that is only utilized by trolls or the unreasonable.  There is no hard evidence for this position.  No one has the capability to look into the minds of voters and somehow finesse their motivations out of a single number.  The people who have written in support of downvotes, however, have stated several reasons that they use them:  bad ideas, rude posters, off-topic items, or general opposition to a proposition.  Not everyone has the time to write out a complete response as to why they disagree with a specific post.  That does not mean their dissent is any less relevant than someone's agreement.  

 

Finally, let's address the argument that downvoting stifles community ideas.  Let's remember what downvotes amount to on this forum.  At the end of the day, they at most show as a small red number in the bottom right of a post.  They don't hide posts.  They don't result in restricting users from making more posts.  It's just a small red number that indicates that someone out there didn't agree with a post for whatever reason.  And while some overly sensitive souls might tremble at the thought of a little negative feedback, I'm sorry.  That's just tough.  They're going to have to learn to deal with criticism from regular posts anyway.  Further, this is an internet discussion forum for a mature game.  We should not accept an fundamentally flawed polling system in a pointless attempt to child-proof the internet.  

[Aerensiniac]

The final conclusion is that no matter what arguments pro down voters line up, they are still arguing for a system which skips arguments and discussion, which is pretty counterproductive and as it has been stated in the other thread: Creates a toxic environment.

 

Anyone who was blessed with the ability of reading can see for him/herself that the removal of down votes has achieved its purpose. People are actually formulating tangible arguments to disagree with posts and are proven/disproven on them.

There is finally communication and reasoning.

 

Nothing much to be said here. The forum has taken a drastic turn for the better.

This thread is mostly a mass of QQ and strawman from people who find it a burden to write and think. All i can say to these people: Dont do it. Its better for everyone involved.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Aerensiniac

[Ced23Ric]

Thank you, gentletenno.

 

Since DE is monitoring the situation and arguements from both sides have been heard and noted, I will no go forth and close this thread. Judging from this and the other thread, there is nothing new being added to the discussion anymore, and combined with the metrics from the actual system in place in the forums, DE now has a pretty good concept of what is going on.

 

I'd like to thank everyone who contributed passionately and civilly. I understand debates can get heated. Thank you for time. :)

 

*salute*