@Riot youshould Remove the downvote feature. Causes more harm than good

La Bello·Aug 27, 2017·4 votes·358 views

I feel like downvoting feature promotes hivethink and actually hampers proper discussion. Why supply constructive criticism when you can just downvote and move on? If someone has a controversial opinion (like "Yasuo needs buffs") then he should able to present his perspective and defend it rather than just be sent into obscurity by biased players who skimmed the title alone.

In my opinion its probably the worst feature on Reddit or any forum to be exact because most people simply cant be bothered to use the system with integrity or responsibly or sometimes they simply dont even understand correct situations TO downvote or upvote! Time after Time I will see a comment or post with large amounts of downvotes sometimes even in the double digits but not a single reply telling that person WHY what he was saying was faulted.

_Was the post poorly written? Was it spam or unoriginal content? Had a similar question been answered before? Was something factually incorrect? Was the post completely unrelated to the topic at hand? _ who cares just downvote and move on lul!

Downvoting and upvoting are just about the laziest way of culling wheat from chaff and I honestly have non idea why its still around. It promotes groupthink instead challenging perspectives and promotes conforming opinions for easy upvotes.

**I think a largely better solution is to outright remove downvoting and just leave upvoting. **The forums would be 100X better if that were to happen.

7 Comments

Mecha MaIphiteAug 27, 20172 votes

Why supply constructive criticism when you can just downvote and move on?

There are some threads that don't deserve constructive criticism. There are also some people who aren't open to discussion and just want to use the boards as their personal venting space.

La BelloAug 27, 20172 votes

I understand that notion and I completely get what you mean. I see tons of threads in the gameplay Forum about "Just remove X champion from the game already they're broken!" but I dont think the downvote system necessarily prevents people from doing or discourages them that much from doing it in the future.

It should really be the job of the Forum Moderators to cull post like that not ours.

CochoAug 27, 20171 votes

Why supply constructive criticism when you can just downvote and move on?

Why supply supportive/positive criticism when I can just upvote and move on?

Only logical answer is that people can only vote after commenting. lol

Whether people agree or disagree with a post, their vote has some value to it. They don't have to comment.

La BelloAug 27, 20172 votes

thats a good idea.

Only allow upvoting and downvoting to people who comment might work. But then you would have a bunch of bloat comments saying "+1 i agree" or something.

EternalSmileyAug 27, 20171 votes

But not everyone who has an opinion talks about it constructively. Some who post their opinion have an absolute thought process on that particular topic and if no one can agree with them, they are wrong. Same can go for the one who is reading the thread. To better the downvote system we should also better ourselves. Having the system fix it for us (by updating downvote system) doesn't solve the underlying issue, just covers it up. But that's just my opinion, what else do you think about this issue? Do you think there is hope for gamers to become more open minded and civil and willing to disscuss rather than just downvote based on a personal belief some may have that it's their way or the highway? Or could there be an answer to it all via an update to the voting system that CAN promote disscussions and not wars (the hive mind mentality that you mentioned in your post). I am currious.

La BelloAug 27, 20172 votes

I think people at their core aren't responsible especially on the internet where anonymity is at its strongest. There should definately be systems in place to keep people from abusing it.

tl;dr I dont have that much faith in the users of the forum. while more of the more active posters might adhere to proper forum etiquette you have to remember that there is a massive number of "lurkers" or people who often dont frequent /are active in the forums but where redirected to them by another website. So long as that player has an account they can influence a post's visibility with little to no effort(you dont even need to enter the thread ).

A good example would be when Riot made the official update on the "indefinite unbanning of Tyler1" and was bombarded with literal thousands of downvotes and accounts repeating "Free Tyler1" to the point the thread had to be closed down. If there IS a way to cull low quality post then we should work together to search for one instead of just continuing to sustain the current one out of seniority