Boards›Boards Feedback

[Serious] The case against downvotes

mi ramfan·7/16/2014, 10:37:51 PM·18 votes·1,116 views

I know a lot of people are going to come in and smack this idea down right away, but after some thought I don't think downvotes are productive or necessary to run a community like this one.

The idea behind downvotes on General Discussion (which lacks a report button) is to allow the Community to filter out and remove content that they find offensive. Unfortunately, this tool has been abused for a long time on GD to silence opinions that players don't agree with, even though nothing in the post breaks the forum rules. This usage of the downvote causes even more problems here on CB/Boards, because it actually makes it harder to find posts that may be of high quality but took a few downvotes for addressing a controversial topic, requesting an anime homage skin (people in GD are crazy about that), etc.

This is besides the point that downvotes don't really accomplish anything. If a post is getting upvoted by everyone, downvoting it won't change that. If a post is hotly debated and getting a mix of votes (in other words, EXACTLY the kind of content we want to see on any forum), then the downvote function can only serve to reduce the visibility of the post. If a post is being downvoted for being porn or low quality, then the "report" button or just not responding works fine.

Stuff like upvotes actually does help in making the best posts visible (and is necessary to make a Reddit-style forum work). But really, downvotes are never used for the purpose they were intended for, and simply not upvoting and posting your disagreement in the thread is a much healthier way of accomplishing the downvote's most common use.

23 Comments

ModCaptainMårvelous7/16/2014, 11:14:52 PM3 votes

Downvotes are a problem on both this forum and GD. I'd say they're about equal in how bad they are. While mass downvotes prevents something from being seen, mass downvotes on GD can lead to a thread outright closing even if the content isn't that bad.

Someone once suggested to me to simply remove downvotes and I'd be good with that as long as the report button functions well. As it is, downvotes are a heavily abused tool on both forums, regardless of what people on GD say about it being worse here.

Sunfield7/16/2014, 10:51:24 PM3 votes

Thats an interesting statement. But I havent really seen a single post on Boards that was productive, but got downvoted.

The post you've been speaking about might have been in a wrong forum. If its not the cause, post a link to this post so I and other forum users can see it for ourselves and maybe even upvote to even the downvotes out if its a quality post.

Earl Eulrich7/17/2014, 2:47:29 PM2 votes

downvoted

...just kidding

I completely agree, downvoting doesn´t accomplish anything in a discussion-forum - it just shuts down unpopular voices, but also controversial discussions along the line...which in the end might be the most productive sort of discussion. Mods should be sufficient to handle anything that is unappropriate...just make sure the report button works well enough.

Matthias91197/17/2014, 2:11:36 AM1 votes

Stuff like upvotes actually does help in making the best posts visible (and is necessary to make a Reddit-style forum work). But really, downvotes are never used for the purpose they were intended for, and simply not upvoting and posting your disagreement in the thread is a much healthier way of accomplishing the downvote's most common use.

For super-high-traffic forums like GD, maybe. In somewhat calmer areas like Player Behavior or the New Player Forum the ability to close down non-useful threads with downvotes is actually good. If Riot provides much quicker/better moderation it would be less necessary. I don't know if they want to get into constantly having to close down threads where it's just devolved into pointless arguing because someone is unhappy about getting a ban.

BòüńD7/17/2014, 6:21:19 AM1 votes

Definitely agree with this statement. Google made this change on YouTube a long time ago when they removed the five star feature. People don't rate things based on the quality of it, they do so because of their biased nature. Biases are a large problem especially in regards to controversial topics. Controversial topics are something I want to see, not hidden behind popular opinion.

Vumsy7/17/2014, 7:31:07 AM1 votes

Yeah, I posted a thread earlier today regarding the current state of Quinn, it's a wall of text, but considering I've written alot of articles before as a hobby it should be a good read for the ones who bother.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/live-gameplay/RooykNZf-for-riot-and-everyone-who-cares-the-state-of-quinn

Long story short, a thread I made several months ago and has completely lost it's relevance is easier to find than the thread I made today. :/

Lenox0077/17/2014, 3:20:34 PM1 votes

If being repeatedly downvoted would result in some kind of punishment for that poster, that would be better.

be kind all chat7/17/2014, 10:41:20 PM1 votes

Down (oops, I mean up) voted. Kappa Seriously though, "Agreed!" ~Ezreal.

Austin Covello7/19/2014, 4:54:52 AM1 votes

If you've ever been on the NA Player Behavior forum, you know that gang-downvoting to silence dissent is a thing. In fact, one of the genetic defectives over there tried to claim that I was abusing the system for not going along with it. Yes, get rid of downvoting, and that might help improve the discourse within the League community. We might even get some original thoughts that, while flawed, could be refined to work out the imperfections and overcome the objections to them.

LastProtagonist7/17/2014, 1:19:46 AM1 votes

I think you make a fair point that's worthy of more discussion, sir.

Camphene7/17/2014, 2:10:46 AM1 votes

Reddit's easy to game if you have more than 10 accounts. Even /r/leagueoflegends with more than half a million subscribers sees the same posts all day.