What is a vote?

Sir ArmaMalum·Jul 17, 2014·15 votes·2,577 views

######I'm really tempted to make this into a full-blown SALT, but for sake of speed I'll save it for later.

Hi, I'm Sir ArmaMalum and one may call me a major supporter of CB. Well....I am. But that doesn't mean I don't also have problems with it as a whole. While I still prefer it over vBulletin there is one major thing I don't like about the CB's voting system, the question of why you're voting.

I'm just going to answer this question for you. Voting is a decision of "Do you want this post to see more eyes?" As that's the direct result of your vote. It's NOT an "I agree/disagree" decision. Through my recent experiences I have found some of you may not be old enough (unless of course you lied on my survey :P) to truly understand the difference between those options so I'll give an example:

A post titled "Diana is OP and here's why" versus "DIANA IS OP DELETE HER NOW". Both say the same essential thing, but I'll upvote the former and downvote the latter because the first gives an explanation and the second is just whining and accomplishes nothing. Personally I disagree with both, I don't believe Diana is OP but I'll upvote anyway because the first took thought and effort to explain their opinion.

There aren't many ways to incorporate this logic into the actual voting system. In other words there are not many easy ways to have the system itself 'teach' this train of thought and go against the "I agree/disagree" logic. Feel free to post here with an idea of how to. (Taking out the voting system is not an option, if it's used right by us, the community, it can be a powerful and useful tool)

Addition 1:

But Sir, what if their explanation is long and detailed but simply wrong?
Quite simple that one, don't vote yet. Explain to them why it is wrong and your opinion. The nice thing about the CB is you can hold a 1 on 1 conversation quite easily no matter where the post is without influencing the post's visibility. Who knows? Your conversation may make him/her eventually agree with you and you can upvote the post to highlight that comment conversation. I've had civil arguments with a summoner named Mackledoge coming around to 20 some decently long replies that covered a lot of ground. And even though the OP wasn't the best I believe it should get upvotes for the good discussion it created.

Addition 2:

So only long drawn out posts are going to get your upvotes? Wtf man?
No, just the ones where I can actually see thought went into its creation. You can make a good point in a few sentences, but more often than not a better and more expanded explanation helps out. There are plenty of exceptions, it's just a normally common trait.

29 Comments

Uncle IstvanJul 17, 20143 votes

Similar to reddit, Riot can put a little box on the downvote button when you hover over it that explains it's not a "disagree button" in addition to making it known in the rules sticky and board etiquette section. Perhaps even a header reminding people of what up/down voting is supposed to be for at the top of threads or in the comments sections.

Unfortunately there will always be children who downvote because they disagree with what people say. If we're going to keep the ability to downvote then other than posting the reminder everywhere that it's not a disagree button there's not really anything that can be done. If people want to mess with other posters by downvoting relevant discussion then they're going to do that. That's really the consequence of the reddit-style forum.

But on reddit it's not really an issue, even on the giant that is /r/leagueoflegends. Sure you'll always see if you scroll down through the comments people sitting at 0 or -1 even though they've posted something relevant or they're showing agreement with whatever the OP said because some kid disagrees. But you never see something truly relevant get left in the dust. The best posts find their way to the top of the thread for the most part.

If the community here can behave similarly to the community on the league sub-reddit then this system would be fine. But that's really the question, isn't it? What happens when GD finally comes over here? Something tells me they're not going to be as well behaved as the folks on /r/leagueoflegends.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 17, 20142 votes

I agree with you and share that fear, but based on the smaller community in the CB currently I also have hope. There are some awesome people here (as well as in GD) and I hope we can work together to sway the masses.

Honestly I think the biggest obstacle against the voting system currently is lack of participation/users. There are simply not enough votes to really start creating diversity. The median value of a post's vote score is probably around 3-4 right now if I had a guess.

cshakesJul 18, 20141 votes

Riot appears to have recently fixed the Non-NA Vote Problem (non-NA people not being able to up/downvote), so I expect there'll be an increase in people pressing the buttons.

WorgslargJul 17, 20142 votes

I downvote when I find that the post/topic is inflammaroty/spam, or the thread is simply complaining.

That said, I find that if i disagree with a topic, i usually leave it as is, instead of upvote, no matter how well presented it was.

The idiosyncrasies of the mind.

shazb0tJul 17, 20142 votes

Came here expecting a Castlevania reference. I'm disappointed.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 17, 20143 votes

I probably could've done a jeopardy bit as well: "What is a vote for 300IP, Trebek"

I'll be honest I only know a little Castlevania trivia, what did unintentionally almost reference?

shazb0tJul 17, 20144 votes

Just this miserable little pile of secrets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMTizJemHO8

Sir ArmaMalumJul 17, 20141 votes

Ahhhhhhhh, okay. lol

OhBoyItsaMegamanJul 17, 20143 votes

The opening dialogue for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night concludes with the line "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!" The game was known for having hammy, bizarre voice acting, particularly this line.

Hyrum GraffJul 17, 20142 votes

Hey, I just want to drop in and say that it might be worth linking to the discussions here and here.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 17, 20141 votes

No problem, they're related topics :)

mi ramfanJul 17, 20142 votes

Yes, we all understand that upvotes and downvotes are MEANT to be used as a "this content is/is not worth reading" button.

Downvotes invariably end up being used to silence opinions, even though everybody knows what they're meant to be used for.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 17, 20143 votes

Funny thing is I actually took an age survey recently on both GD and CB and a surprising number of forum goers claimed they were 11-15 years old. Results

At that age I don't trust some to actually know how to disagree with something but still agree it's a good point.

PendragonJul 17, 20148 votes

I don't find age to be a good proxy for maturity. I'm 27 and am still kind of a dumbass.

Angry MonsterJul 17, 20142 votes

You may be a self proclaimed dumbass, but you are aware of it. The fact you know you are lacking will allow you to question your own behavior. Well all do stupid shit, how we own up to it is what matters.

Most kids 11-15 are not aware enough to question their own behavior. Their is a reason why we as a society do not expect much from this age group and legally protect them.

You really should check out Sir ArmaMalum "AGE" salt. He even spent 2 to 3 weeks polling the forums for age ranges.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 18, 20142 votes

I'm definitely generalizing I completely admit, but in my experiences with...well.... just people in general I'm 21 and I have friends who still don't know how to differentiate their own opinions from their argument points. Makes for very frustrating conversations. There are definitely people that young who can, and I would probably tell them to go for their school's debate team, but all in all solely in my experiences I have not met one.

EMOFRATPARTYJul 19, 20142 votes

Please turn this into a SALT.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 19, 20143 votes

I more than likely will not to worry :) In fact, there are a lot of topics that I've had either sitting around or are somewhat contextually sensitive like this one that I'll probably toss up sometime in the future. You heard it first EMO, Bonus [SALT]'s. :)

EMOFRATPARTYJul 19, 20142 votes

I'M SPECIAL!

MrBuffingtonJul 17, 20141 votes

I'm guilty of doing both (voting for visibility and voting for agreement/enjoyment), and I seldom downvote. I guess if I agree/'liked' with something, I'd rather other people see it as well.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 17, 20141 votes

Rectangle and square, it's common to agree with posts you want more people to see, but not all posts you agree with should be upvoted. The main thing to watch out for is not to upvote/downvote just because you agree/disagree. My personal rule of thumb is if I can say "You make a good point" then I upvote it.

MrBuffingtonJul 17, 20141 votes

I'm also more prone to upvote comments than posts. Also more prone to upvote if a comment is well thought out. I'm also guilty of upvoting everything people post on my threads, just because I appreciate their feedback :P

Sir ArmaMalumJul 17, 20141 votes

You are just a really guilty person ain't ya? lol

Honestly, I can't really judge anyone based on their reasoning for voting, as much as I'm trying to with the OP. I'm just aggressively asserting my own point of view in the hopes of getting people to both participate in the voting more as well as using the system as it's meant to be (or at least how I perceive it is) used.

MrBuffingtonJul 17, 20141 votes

Well, to each their own, I guess. I think more retroactively about my voting habits, rather than proactively, but I'll probably start thinking more about why I'm upvoting things (especially now that it's a freaking competition....sigh)

Sir ArmaMalumJul 17, 20141 votes

It's not a competition, leaderboards or no. The Beta team just had a bunch of metrics they thought were cool and wanted to share. I think it was a bad move to call them "leaderboards" but there's not many other names so....meh.

Then again I'll admit I'm a very biased party so take from that what you will. :P

MrBuffingtonJul 17, 20141 votes

I guess I just wish upvotes were like "likes" on facebook; they don't really mean anything. That actually probably influences how I upvote a great deal

Hyrum GraffJul 17, 20141 votes

I guess I just wish upvotes were like "likes" on facebook; they don't really mean anything. That actually probably influences how I upvote a great deal

I disagree with you here, because I think visibility based on upvotes is a great way for widely relevant content to surface, leading to more important riot posts. I just think the downvote button is unnecessary and creates confusion about how votes should be used.

I have a question: what if there were seperate "upvote" and "like" buttons?

MrBuffingtonJul 17, 20141 votes

I'm not sure about that, I've seen threads with the default 1 upvote and 1-2 comments get Red responses, and others with 60-70 upvotes and 50+ comments get no Red comments. I also don't know how reliable upvotes are for getting good content to surface. I typically only look at "hot" posts or "recent", since "best" are mostly really dated posts. Visibility grants more visibility, it just snowballs on itself and unless most CB users are extremely dedicated (which I don't know that many are), the highly upvoted posts just stagnate at the top of the list and good, recent posts never really get a chance to surface since those older posts have so much more of a head start.

I would be a fan of separate buttons.

Kitch26Jul 17, 20141 votes

I think it would be tough to implement that in any fashion because that's essentially what it was before CB/BB, since it didn't affect post visibility back then. Outside of this reddit style, I have found that it is still a matter of "I Agree/Disagree".

I think the only way of really changing that is to have it posted in a highly visible and highly trafficked (see: "noticeable") location. Here is an example of reddit having PSAs for comment content

http://i.imgur.com/X8G3rQi.jpg

Where to put this and how to make it stand out, I'm not sure as I'm still getting used to this updated boards scheme