Voting system and player pre-conceptions based on it can really screw a post/comment over

HalcyonDweller·5/16/2017, 9:09:35 PM·5 votes·771 views

Players downvote things without reading them, or they try to get their comments ahead of others by voting down others' questions in threads like Meddler's Gameplay Thoughts.

In the past I have experienced this and it was frustrating. lately Ive seen some really good questions by other people in the gameplay thoughts thread which have been downvoted once and don't get the attention they deserve because they don't show up near the top of the "best" list anymore.

Does anybody else think this is a problem?

36 Comments

HalcyonDweller5/16/2017, 9:09:54 PM2 votes

Some possible solutions are:

Allow a poster to disable voting (or even just downvoting) on the comments in their thread.
Hide votes for a period of time (MordeCaiser's idea posted just the other day)
Require comments for downvotes

Krigjer5/17/2017, 9:30:38 AM2 votes

I hate downvoting/upvoting systems in forums. It discourages discussion.

jaymc11305/16/2017, 9:17:17 PM1 votes

Actually, many in the community have considered this a problem in the past and I'm sure many still do.

We have tried some various expirements in GD like disabling voting for threads but leaving it enabled for comments. Did it for several months actually and I rather liked the change and how much more discussion was promoted and how much less infighting and surliness there was. I wouldn't mind that again so I suppose it's an option.

But I DO like to upvote posters for posts I find particularly awesome for any number of various reasons (usually I find something hilarious, like a meme). So there is a draw back.

Another suggestion a few years back was to only enable voting on a thread AFTER the thread page had been visited by the user. This does a number of things: posters can't just read a title, disagree blindly and downvote, using smurfs to vote bot threads would be more time consuming and difficulty which would decrease vote bot abuse, and players who visit a thread page are generally then also more likely to get involved in and promote a healthy and worthwhile discussion.

Just some older ideas that have floated around a while.

Aeszarck5/17/2017, 8:17:08 PM1 votes

I'd like to propose a solution. This site I visit frequently, The Hive Workshop, uses a view that is like Chronological View and has no upvotes or downvotes. It does have this thing called Reputation though. Resources and posts and replies in most Boards are eligible for Reputation. People can give reputation with or without a comment (EDIT: and by that, I mean that the comment is attached to the reputation. For example, I could +rep someone and say "Wow, really fun party map!" and the person would see that comment in their rep history), and users can view their reputation history in their profiles. This reputation history is also public, so users and mods can make sure that people aren't reputation trading or anything. It's also just nice to see what popular things other people have done; for example, if a user received a lot of rep for one resource, you might go check out that resource too. Everyone has a reputation score that's public and is shown through gems. Posts do not automatically give a reputation to the user; other uses must +rep it. I think it's a great way to make sure that all people are heard and it is a good way to promote friendliness and discussion, since only nice comments are used with +rep and if people disagree they have to comment. There's no downvoting to shut out unpopular opinions.