Voting System

[Lurpoa]

Some of you might have seen that this Forum has a voting System.

 

The Mods, Barmar & Inquiry, have not always been in agreement with my choices for upvotes.

I was even threatened with a denial of access to the Voting System.

In the beginning I considered that a little bit too "BigBrother"-like.

 

But I did more thinking about it . It is worth a good discussion. All by all it has something to do with what is called "Sacred Moderation" on some of the threats of this Forum.

 

May I ask your opinion please ? Do we need guidelines for upvoting ?

 

And if so.

What do you think is the purpose of the Voting System ?

Do you have suggestions for those guidelines ?

 

Be The ♥ with ALL of you.

 

PS: please give lot of upvotes for this one, and sorry, you can not downvote it :).

[Vampyr]

What we need is to get our downvotes back.

[eagles123]

I think there should be a limit per day, sometimes Lurpoa you have upvoted every single post in a topic which I think is a bit pointless! There's only been a handful of posts i've ever seen that I would vote down but I guess it would be nice to have the option.

[diana_eva]

While we're at it we cd also have a discussion about how many times it';s reasonable to celebrate our daily 17th birthday.

[JLOGIC]

Can you please stop upvoting me? Since I have started posting again you have upvoted me like 40 times just leave me alone, thanks.

[32519]

Some of you might have seen that this Forum has a voting System.

 

The Mods, Barmar & Inquiry, have not always been in agreement with my choices for upvotes.

I was even threatened with a denial of access to the Voting System.

In the beginning I considered that a little bit too "BigBrother"-like.

 

But I did more thinking about it . It is worth a good discussion. All by all it has something to do with what is called "Sacred Moderation" on some of the threats of this Forum.

 

May I ask your opinion please ? Do we need guidelines for upvoting ?

 

And if so.

What do you think is the purpose of the Voting System ?

Do you have suggestions for those guidelines ?

 

Be The ♥ with ALL of you.

 

PS: please give lot of upvotes for this one, and sorry, you can not downvote it :).

Lurpoa, you have a valid question here. Read this post. These forums are dominated by this clique who gang bash all who they disagree with, or who they perceive as a threat to their pet beliefs or pet topics or pet conventions (choose whatever pet you want to add here). They are like forever upvoting each others posts which is one of the ways that keeps them together. Which makes one wonder if there is any reason for the system in the first place.

[hrothgar]

These forums are dominated by this clique who gang bash all who they disagree with, or who they perceive as a threat to their pet beliefs or pet topics or pet conventions (choose whatever pet you want to add here). They are like forever upvoting each others posts which is one of the ways that keeps them together. Which makes one wonder if there is any reason for the system in the first place.

 

Very few members of the forum actually bother to use the voting system.

Personally, I'd prefer to either see a mcuh more sophisticated system like the one used on Daily Kos or see nothing at all.

 

With this said and done, I don't think that the voting system has anything to do with the way you're treated on the forums.

 

You came here and started acting like an #$^*(@!!!

Sure enough, people started treating you an @$^)(!%^!!!

[GreenMan]

You came here and started acting like an #$^*(@!!!

Sure enough, people started treating you an @$^)(!%^!!!

 

Seems unfair. If someone is acting like an #$^*(@!!! they should be treated like an #$^*(@!!!, not an @$^)(!%^!!!. That kind of overreaction doesn't do anyone any good.

[barmar]

I think there should be a limit per day, sometimes Lurpoa you have upvoted every single post in a topic which I think is a bit pointless! There's only been a handful of posts i've ever seen that I would vote down but I guess it would be nice to have the option.

There is a limit of 20 per day.

[sharon j]

Where are the rules for voting? I've never been allowed to vote.

[Antrax]

There's some combination of time since registration and number of posts.

 

This might be my capitalist roots showing, but I think these systems work best without any guidance.

[barmar]

Where are the rules for voting? I've never been allowed to vote.

At 50 posts you become a Full Member, then you can vote.

[Zelandakh]

Can you please stop upvoting me? Since I have started posting again you have upvoted me like 40 times just leave me alone, thanks.

Only 40? I think I have at least 100.

 

The idea of a voting method on a forum is to enable people who just want to browse threads quickly to find the most important responses quickly. In that respect, it probably makes sense to upvote every post from (inter alia) Justin, Mike and Andy in every thread. For me, I tend to upvote posts that answer the OP question and I completely agree with unless the answer is trivial for the forum. So if someone asks a B/I question in the Expert forum, a perfect answer will usually not get an upvote from me; but the same post in N/B probably will. I am sure everyone has their own individual criteria and I do not think the forums are weaker for that.

[Vampyr]

I think there should be a limit per day, sometimes Lurpoa you have upvoted every single post in a topic which I think is a bit pointless!

 

Also it seems strange to upvote an OP which simply asks a question.

 

These forums are dominated by this clique who gang bash all who they disagree with, or who they perceive as a threat to their pet beliefs or pet topics or pet conventions (choose whatever pet you want to add here). They are like forever upvoting each others posts which is one of the ways that keeps them together. Which makes one wonder if there is any reason for the system in the first place.

 

I have not noticed a clique, and anyway if there is one and they want to upvote each other, why worry about it? The discussion is the point of the forums, not the number of votes.

 

 

The idea of a voting method on a forum is to enable people who just want to browse threads quickly to find the most important responses quickly. In that respect, it probably makes sense to upvote every post from (inter alia) Justin, Mike and Andy in every thread.

 

Very true, although I think that new members quickly come to understand that posts by these people and a couple of others are far more valuable than the contributions of the rest of us.

[32519]

The idea of a voting method on a forum is to enable people who just want to browse threads quickly to find the most important responses quickly.

This is not necessarily true. There is plenty of absolute crap that gets upvoted, especially if it is one member of this clique upvoting a post of another member of the clique.

 

In that respect, it probably makes sense to upvote every post from (inter alia) Justin, Mike and Andy in every thread.

Which Mike? There are some Mike's who haven't a clue. Justin and Andy I can agree with.

 

For me, I tend to upvote posts that answer the OP question and I completely agree with unless the answer is trivial for the forum. So if someone asks a B/I question in the Expert forum, a perfect answer will usually not get an upvote from me; but the same post in N/B probably will. I am sure everyone has their own individual criteria and I do not think the forums are weaker for that.

Personally I have a lot of respect for you as well because you are one of few who attack an argument you disagree with versus attacking the person you disagree with.

[Zelandakh]

This is not necessarily true. There is plenty of absolute crap that gets upvoted, especially if it is one member of this clique upvoting a post of another member of the clique.

 

Which Mike? There are some Mike's who haven't a clue. Justin and Andy I can agree with.

 

Personally I have a lot of respect for you as well because you are one of few who attack an argument you disagree with versus attacking the person you disagree with.

The three members that I mentioned are also the three with the most upvotes. If there were a clique dominating the upvoting then I would have expected one or more of them to be mixing in that list. The Mike from the list is mikeh. Rather, I would say that most of the time "crap" gets upvoted it is because someone comes into a thread and upvotes all of the posts there from members that are not on their blacklist.

 

Attacking individuals is usually pointless on the internet. The main exception is when appealing for a mod to suspecnd or ban a user who is being disruptive, although that would often be done in private. I disagree that this is a particularly common thing here though. There are a few members that like to use inflammatory language and a few others who react aggressively towards members they see as being disruptive. Certainly not excessive though and the vast majority of members are friendly. There are many worse communities around!

[helene_t]

JonOttawa once wrote in his signature that he would upvote anything that had been downvoted by others. Similarly, a certain poster now upvotes everything that is not written by someone on her blacklist.

 

I can understand that some members dislike the voting system but I don't find it acceptable behaviour to sabotage the system. If you don't think votes add anything useful to the forum, just ignore them.

 

TBH I think members who sabotage the voting system should have their voting rights revoked.

[Antrax]

Back when we had downvotes I would upvote neutral posts that had a negative score. Have I sabotaged the system?

[billw55]

Back when we had downvotes I would upvote neutral posts that had a negative score. Have I sabotaged the system?

Depends. If you genuinely like the post, then voting it up is normal. But if you are upvoting posts based on their "rating" rather than your own opinion of the content, then yes, I would count that as sabotage.

 

The system is meant to be useful when the community uses it responsibly. It is not designed to be invulnerable to sabotage. In fact that would probably be impossible.

[mike777]

I am one of those who at times upvote an OP. I often find the questions more interesting than the answers. :)

 

My way to say thank you for posting such a thoughtful, interesting question.

 

I do think this forum has great people who take their time to post an answer to at times tough questions for the rest of us.

 

I note the ACBL magazine gets many complaints that even their novice section is too hard to understand for many members let alone the I/A section.

[gwnn]

May I ask your opinion please ? Do we need guidelines for upvoting ?

Yes, you clearly do.

[Zelandakh]

I am one of those who at times upvote an OP. I often find the questions more interesting than the answers. :)

There is nothing wrong with upvoting an interesting OP. That is quite different from upvoting an OP asking a basic question about the interface or some other mundane OP that has been seen 500 times before.

[aguahombre]

Many prominent Forum participants upvote the post, not the poster. It is better than writing a ditto post which adds nothing; it is merely an expression of agreement. I find it valuable to see who upvotes a particular idea.

 

Sorry, Justin. I upvote posts which I believe have covered a topic in the same way I would have ---but better; if that is considered to be an invasion of your privacy, oh well.

[billw55]

Many prominent Forum participants upvote the post, not the poster.

Of course that is the whole point. And I think that all but a very few posters do, in fact, do it this way.

[Vampyr]

Of course that is the whole point. And I think that all but a very few posters do, in fact, do it this way.

 

Do you really? I doubt this. I upvote posts I like even when I strongly disagree with everything else the person has posted.

 

I also randomly upvote posts when I am trying to reply. I suspect that a lot of us do this.