Down Voters and Up Voters
First of all if you are going to down vote someone make sure to let them know why you are down voting them, because as many of you have said this is a debate site so if you don't agree tell them but don't hide behind the down vote option.
Those of you who are up voting people like crazy, you do realize that the argument you up voted was just "Meh"
Lets stop abusing those options and just get to debating!
Oh and Thewayitis, he is not a friend of mine but I have seen him get about 10 downraves just for saying anything like My favorite color is... Talk about abuse!
|
I agree and if the site can eliminate the fake accounts a lot of this would go away. I'm not a friend of Thewayitis either but what is being done to him isn't right. I'm sick and tired of getting down vote alerts because someone with about 10 fake accounts is so obsessed that they are going back through every post Thewayitis made and down voting him. -2
points
2
points
It's true that the voting system gets abused all the time by immature people or people too cowardly to argue with you upfront. But enough people use it in its intended way that it's worth keeping. Randomly pick a number of popular debates, and check the top voted posts on each side. Then check the ones voted way down the negatives. Chances are, the high voted posts are some of the more thoughtful posts on the debate, and the low voted posts are immature crap. The voting system gives you a (very rough) ranking of posts from best to worst, which is great if you want to get the gist of each side's arguments, or you just don't want to slog through a bunch of stupid posts in the hopes of finding one that is worth reading. You know Thetruth is back right! I don't have a problem with making it known that I have a problem with him especially since now he put my name on his new post. I do apologize if my answer to his post was a bit nasty but he had it coming. I am being downraved and I don't care because he needs to know that it's not okay to post the stuff he does. There are several that get their jollies down-voting. I really don't care, it takes points away from them. But it does get aggravating when you state something and seconds later someone is down-voting either because they don't like you or they don't think you are not contributing to a debate. They fail to take into considerations that people do state their opinions without debating about it. I've gotten used to it. I've been down-voted the last two days over stupid crap than I have in my entire life. Once someone gets a hard-on for you(forgive my bluntness) they just won't let up. I now just sit back and enjoy the fact that it doesn't affect me but causes them to lose points. There have been times where I just downvoted a post and walked away - this is how I say "your post sucks so much that it's not worth replying to". Of course, if the poster demands to know who downvoted them I would always front up to it. I haven't seen a reasonable post by Thewayitis that got spam downvoted, although I wouldn't be surprised to hear about this. This guy's annoyed enough people with his inflammatory remarks that I bet a lot of people just downvote his posts without a second thought. It's not the sort of thing I would do or advocate, but I do understand why he gets targeted so often. Ok, I would like to address a number of things that have come up in this debate. Here is my list (sorry I am a bullet point/list guy) 1. There are puppet accounts and we are doing our best to review and rid ourselves of them 2. There are individuals who make it their personal mission to down vote certain individuals. But, they only have one account and are following the rules. 3. There is much debate about if voting should stay or go. I like the voting mechanism because it helps people understand more popular (or less popular) arguments when used appropriately. 4. I don't have the inclination to remove voting as of now, but I take everyone's feedback seriously, and will make the changed I determine are in the best interest of the community. A great example is taking the message system and making if fully private. This was a member suggestion (credit to Hellno2012). This does not help the site as I realized that there were many people who came here just to look at all the messages. Some of the traffic has suffered since then, but not the debate, argument or vote counts. 5. I finally want to chime in on up voting and down voting without leaving a comment. I up vote much more than I down vote, but there are many times I do either without leaving a comment. I am not bothered when someone does it to me (ok, maybe just a little), but I see the down vote or up vote as a statement all its own. If you up vote something you are agreeing without needing to leave a comment, basically saying you agree with everything that was stated. If you leave a down vote, you are just saying you totally disagree with the argument. Now, I can understand why people would like to know why they are being down voted, but I don't think it makes sense to require a comment. Oh, and I am really thinking hard about eliminating the 50 character minimum...but I am not sure if it should be zero either. Thanks, Andy |
