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[Feedback] The Dreaded Downvote

Hyrum Graff·6/7/2014, 4:08:56 AM·22 votes·563 views

TL;DR A single downvote shouldn't decide the fate of a thread; number of people who have voted on it should play a factor in its ranking in addition to the up/downvote counter.

###Scenario 3:

I make a forum post. It is upvoted by 100 people, and downvoted by 101 people. Balance: 0

I think it's pretty clear here: although the community's opinion on this post is mixed, it's a topic that a LOT people feel strongly enough about to vote on. Conclusion: this post deserves front-page visibility.

###Scenario 2:

I make a forum post. It is upvoted by 3 people, and downvoted by 4. Balance: 0

This scenario is a little more ambiguous - it could be a post like scenario #1, or it could just be a post that got some outlier upvotes. However, it's probably gotten enough visibility by this point that if it were a hot topic or an important issue, it would have gotten more votes. Conclusion: does not deserve high visibility.

###Scenario 3:

I make a forum post. One person downvotes it immediately. Balance: 0.

In this scenario, I could be a troll, who one person saw, downvoted, and moved along. On the other hand, I could also have made a good post, that someone didn't like. It's just too early to tell. Conclusion: Deserves visibility, but not as much as the post with 201 votes.

The point is, these are clearly three different scenarios that deserve three different display behaviors. But right now, scenario 3 kind of dooms a post to #2's deserved fate.

I have no clue what the boundaries between the scenarios should be (more likely, it should be a continuum). Residents of the CB, what do you think? How many neutral votes does a post need before it should be deemed not pressing? How many more before it becomes an important but hotly contested issue? Is my analysis even on-point at all?

Cheers,
Hyrum Graff

Edit: since this thread has become popular, I'm just going to drop in an @Tamat @Affordance @Bear Hat Alice (any other people on the CB team I should be tagging?). Also @Baconhawk, 'cause, you know.

So, @Rioters: What are your current thoughts on the issue? If you haven't decided what you want to do about it yet, where is it currently on your priorities list? Is there anything we, as a community, can do to help you deal with the issue better (feedback, analysis, etc)?

28 Comments

12tales6/7/2014, 5:14:53 AM5 votes

Agreed.

I think that the weight of vote count when determining visibility would have to be determined in reference to the number of users who frequent the community and the ratio of views:votes. If there are 2000 users, and they all vote on ~half of the threads they read, then a thread with only 20 votes shouldn't necessarily be given exceptional weight. On the other hand, if there are 100 users who judiciously vote on only the finest or most reprehensible of content, that same thread with 20 votes should probably be given as much visibility as possible. So, since I don't have access to the actual numbers, I can't really suggest any specific benchmark.

Pendragon6/9/2014, 8:45:34 PM4 votes

Over time we want to make sorting a lot more intelligent than it is right now. We're working on building a large enough data set to start figuring out what types of factors really make content more relevant to a person.

We're definitely considering that downvoting might not be the best option.

ModCaptainMårvelous6/7/2014, 6:14:39 PM3 votes

I agree 110%, especially because of that one guy who hangs out and always downvotes people stuff in Fan Creations. Not sure who he is but posts will go from +3 to 0 in the span of under 3 minutes. Possible, but waaaaaaaaay too erroneous to be logical.

PhoenixSlayer136/7/2014, 9:57:56 PM2 votes

That's really the major flaw of this system, and a big one that makes GDers hate the Community Beta. Upvotes and downvotes should be about more than "I agree" or "I disagree", they should be "this is well written and thoughtful" vs "OP is a troll".

Granted, this is a lot harder than it sounds, but I do quite like the ratio idea 12tales has suggested. Something at least to combat random downvoters.

KSHarrison6/14/2014, 1:10:55 AM2 votes

Honestly what's the point of a downvote? It does two things:

It negatively skews the perception of everyone else entering the thread.
It can be used as a form of peer-modding by downvoting a topic until it's closed.

So what if downvotes were invisible to everyone but mods? The limit could still exist to auto close it, but no one can see the number of downvotes.

Continuing the point, we might want to discuss what upvotes do. I can think of two things:

It positively skews the perception of everyone else entering the thread (my intuition tells me that it has less of an effect per vote than downvoting).
It notifies other forumers of trending topics.

So...why do we need to be able to see upvotes as well? Shouldn't we be deciding which topics we read based on whether it interests us? At the very most, a flame icon could be used to indicate trending topics, but the number of upvotes isn't necessary.

Sir ArmaMalum6/7/2014, 5:45:36 PM2 votes

I'm with 12tales, although OP is a decent step as well. Ratio of views to votes imho can better display a post's validity. Essentially if 5 people vote on a thread with only 20 views that's 1 vote for every 4 people, and deserves more attention to see if the trend of active voting continues. But a post that got 5 votes after 500 views may have the same score currently but hasn't been accepted well enough to warrant an opinion.

Essentially it makes active threads more visible without reverting back to bumping, and gives less weight to 'meh' posts that don't accomplish much. Not to mention, if this mechanic is advertised well, will also mean that ignoring hate/rage posts instead of swarming them with downvotes would be the best approach to stop them. Which, imho, would be a huge leap in re-conditioning the playerbase's approach to forum behavior. All in ideal cases of course.

There are drawbacks to it as well, like ratio adjustments that may be needed and if the community is simply inactive one day the system may get diluted to a point of confusion. First things first we would need more people :P

Quantum Weeb6/7/2014, 6:54:15 PM2 votes

Agreed, this annoyed me so much. I spent an hour writing a long post about Quinn and one random person downvoted it. I couldn't find it on the front page anymore, 2 minutes after it was posted.

the Anarchit3cht6/7/2014, 8:45:23 PM1 votes

Personally, I think they need to change the default setting to be changed from the "Hot" method. They should have a certain number of threads who have a good ratio of up/down votes on them appear at the top, but then majority of them should be filtered by the time of their posting. That way, the topics that are actually "hot" are still seen, and topics that are given down votes because someone disagrees with them or dislikes them personally actually see the light of day.

Flintfall6/7/2014, 4:37:36 AM1 votes

I was thinking the same thing.