Boards and downvotes without reading

Kowe The Ewok·10/19/2014, 9:51:20 AM·4 votes·459 views

The amount of people downvoting without actuslly reading the topic is a joke. I recently started to add polls to topics to see wether people actually downvote because they truely dislike the idea, or just simply because of the username who posted it. The result is fascinating, but not suprising: While the topic got downvoted to 0, a vast majority of people who actually read the topic agreed and voted for the idea in the poll (Example: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/irVZwEU8-reduce-the-cooldown-of-boomerang-blade-as-it-levels-up )

CONCLUSION: Remove the ability the topic in the topic-preview (board-vision). Force people to actully go into a topic to vote, it won't change much - but please also move the upvote/downvote buttom to the bottom of a post. Possibly even add a timer befor you can vote to increase the amount of people who actually read the startpost.

6 Comments

Wehrmacht Bunny10/19/2014, 4:01:15 PM2 votes

This is the same for reddit. I actually stopped using reddit because Children and Trolls would just poke around that forum and downvote everytime you ask a question or even start a topic. Then because of these children, I'm forced to wait 8+ minutes before I can post again. I actually asked a question on Hero's of the Storm, "How to get into this game?", a day or two later, it had 12 down votes for no reason.

Downvoting with Karma is the most retarded thing any forum can have, because the internet community isn't even close to mature to have something like that.

GranspearZX10/19/2014, 5:18:04 PM1 votes

Thing is, the mouseover preview, as far as I know, doesn't actually show the polls. So if your post is structured in a way that you don't state your purpose in the first paragraph or two... well... actually clicking on the topic won't help nearly as much as you'd think. You can't really force people to read a whole post.

Have you ever seen those agreement forms (EULAs, various online contract type things) where it won't allow you to move on until you scroll all the way to the bottom? How often do you actually read those all the way through?

Hyrum Graff10/19/2014, 5:38:00 PM1 votes

I see it, but came to a different conclusion: people who vote "yes" in the thread don't usually upvote it.

>1 down-poll >4 up-poll >1 down-poll is downvote >net: 0

Now it's at 1 because I wanted to balance it out, but the point stands.

Daen10/19/2014, 7:00:54 PM1 votes

Your sample is statistically insignificant in a lot of ways.

started to add polls to topics to see wether people actually downvote because they truely dislike the idea, or just simply because of the username who posted it.

This has a ton of factors associated with it, not just the username of whomever posted the content. It's far more likely that the contributing factor is that voting on polls has less overwhelmingly strong impact in sorting and community perception, not that people are just ignoring certain users.

vast majority of people who actually read the topic agreed and voted for the idea in the poll

Your sample size is like seven people. Regardless, if they are voting on the poll they are entering the thread. More people entered the thread to vote on the poll than voted on the original content...

Remove the ability to see the topic in the topic preview (I think that's what you mean?)

No. Being able to see the preview is really convenient and very helpful in determining whether a thread is worth my time.

Force people to actually go into a topic to vote

This has gone back and forth a lot, but the overall resolution leaned towards allowing players to vote without entering a thread. It's usually pretty easy to see the gist of a thread by looking at the title and the first few lines of the preview, and it would basically just add another arbitrary step.

Add a timer before you can vote

I'm not a fan of this, but a lot of people are. I think this is something Riot would like to do and is working on.