Default votes don't make sense

Daen·Jul 28, 2014·2 votes·616 views

Hi,

I know this is a relatively small thing, but is there any particular reason I can do this to my own posts?

http://imgur.com/07pDGdn

One would assume that the simple act of posting something means you agree with your own opinion. :P

10 Comments

Ironclad DragonJul 28, 20142 votes

I wish you couldn't vote on your own post.

PhoenixUnrealJul 28, 20142 votes

It does seem rather arbitrary, but that gets more into why this is still beta. It's an issue with scripting where you would have to write an exception for the original poster: excluding them from voting on their own post.

On your second post: it honestly doesn't make a difference. We as readers understand how the system works and that 1 is in fact neutral rather than 0. That being said, they're probably working on writing those exceptions for OP's.

DaenJul 28, 20141 votes

but that gets more into why this is still beta.

For sure. I'm just curious about the reasoning rather than whether a fix is on the way.

We as readers understand how the system works and that 1 is in fact neutral rather than 0.

Very true. Have you ever found yourself looking at a post and subconsciously subtracting 1 from the total vote count? I certainly have, and while it's basically insignificant it's still annoying to always be looking at numbers as n-1.

EMOFRATPARTYJul 28, 20141 votes

Agreeing with Phoenix here. 1 being a positive number gives it a positive connotation. 0 being neutral wouldn't have the same weight to it, whereas negative numbers have a more impactful meaning.

I almost never read beyond the mouse-over preview of negative posts, partly for that reason, unless it's something that needs to be addressed or was falsely downvoted.

Hyrum GraffJul 29, 20141 votes

Two things:

The indicator exists to give us insight into the community's opinion on that post. As the OP is part of the community, I believe that they should be included in the vote total.
I also like that you can downvote your own post. Say OP makes a post, then realizes they were wrong and wants to lessen visibility of their post - they have the option to downvote it. I do this occasionally to my comments when I'm replying to a troll and don't want to give their comments visibility.

DaenJul 29, 20141 votes

Say OP makes a post, then realizes they were wrong and wants to lessen visibility of their post - they have the option to downvote it.

If the OP realizes they disagree with their post, couldn't they just delete it instead of trying to lessen visibility by disliking yourself?

I do this occasionally to my comments when I'm replying to a troll and don't want to give their comments visibility.

This speaks to a greater systematic flaw than a self-downvote plus. If you have to dislike your own comment just to deal with a troll, there's an issue.

Hyrum GraffJul 29, 20141 votes

just delete it

But, the post might have good and/or ongoing discussion in it. Just because you don't necessarily want to keep getting new traffic, doesn't mean that you want to terminate the thread.

trolls

Fair enough.

DaenJul 29, 20141 votes

don't necessarily want to keep getting new traffic

That's very much an edge case, though. I can't ever see that happening to be honest, because if you don't want new traffic you can just...leave. One downvote isn't enough to change the traffic of a thread, generally speaking.