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I didn't get an answer. Here's hoping as I feel I was quite civil in my questioning:

@robertthebard.8150 said:

@"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:Just going to poke in and reiterate the fact that the infraction points are indeed temporary. Over the few years I've been active on the forums, I've certainly gotten more total infraction points than are necessary for action (I think my total is around 5 or 6, and I believe action is taken at 3), but since it was all spaced out, I've seen no punishment.

I don't dispute that I earned every one of them (I know I can get rather hot-blooded and stubborn), but ANet's forum moderation policy is definitely set up to be forgiving of the occasional bad day.

On the same logic of infraction points and their lack of impact, I still cannot understand how the thumbs down feature, which is also divorced from any meaninful impact on the post or the account, was deemed as negative and needed to be removed. The continued existance of the thumbs up feature at all is a testament to the lack of consistency and purpose of the decisions made with regards to the forums.

What's the intent? In DDO's forums, they had to disable it because, there, if you got enough down votes, you couldn't post on the forums. All it took was to go to what passed as the meta build forum there, and question the wisdom of their design choices, when they're posting builds that required max past lives, and considerable investment in stat tomes, for new players. I know about this first hand, as I got hit with that one. Up votes here add badges, as I can attest to since I've picked up a couple since I started posting, were down votes going to take away from that rep? If so, it's a very easily abused system, that could "punish" someone for having the audacity to disagree with someone else. If it served no function at all, then it doesn't matter if it exists at all, other than for someone being able to say "hey look, you suck so bad you got x down votes, maybe you should just stop posting", which is detrimental to a healthy forum too. "but reddit..." doesn't cut it, any more than pointing to Steam reviews as a reliable measure of how good a game is. Take a look at what happened to the original version of Skyrim as an example, since the community was unhappy with new mod system, and voted down a game that isn't even eligible for it.

Downvotes had no impact. None. It didn't take away posting privlages, it didn't remove rep, it didn't affect badges.

If your argument is that if it had no impact then it didn't need to exist, then can you explain Gaile's post here:

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:Hey Neural: I'm really accustomed to being downvoted. I've had a history of downvoted "don't like the message" or even "shoot the messenger" comments on more than one forum. :D So removing the feature wasn't because of the downvoting of an official thread or threads, and it wasn't prompted by a overage of company sensitivity. The decision was based on community experience, observation, and member input.

Actually, the discussion of downvote removal initially started because reports from our European team members indicated the feature was quite disruptive on the non-EN forums. From there, widespread, sometimes private, feedback resulted in its removal across all languages. Feature consistency is desirable in a multi-language forum, therefore it would be all in or all out for any feature.

And the purpose of a downvote would be to better facilitate the former rather than the latter of the following example:

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:Let's step back and look Big Picture. It's one thing to say, "I disagree with your idea," It's quite another to say "I disagree with your idea, I think you're stupid to offer it, and hey, is that rumor I heard about you having stinky feet true?" :dizzy:

There's a world of difference between "no purpose" and "no impact". A worthless feature can, indeed, have a ton of impact if it's abused, and this system, as I have already illustrated, can easily be abused. It's not going to do anything but give someone a "wild card" to try to shut someone else up with the line "you have x down votes, you should just shut up".

You can't shut someone up with that line.

...and it's never stopped anyone from trying, has it?

So?

So what does it bring to the forum? What intrinsic value does it have? If it's just another "my kitten is bigger" thing, which it seemingly would be, there's no reason for it. I'm not a fan of upvoting either, by the way, but it's a lot less likely to lead to people over on 4chan high fiving each other for "pwning that noob on the forums".

Well firstly, if someone has to resort to bringing up the number of thumbs up or thumbs down, they likely are not very good at discussion or are just a [kitten] anyway.

Secondly, you're asking me to answer the question I asked that started this line of discussion. I asked you what actual effect or impact the thumbs down feature has and presented Gaile's comment that an effect was there. Then I presented another of her posts expressing two positions, one favorable and one less favorable, a binary set of options where the favorable position is wholly duplicated by the thumbs down feature. The logic I'm leading you through is the thumbs down feature, whatever non-tangible impact it might have, might have been considered for removal based on premises that contradict their own rules. Think of the thumbs down feature as a post and people are reporting that post to the moderators to be removed. On what premise do they argue to have someone's "I disagree" post removed?

I have asked twice, once in the post you just quoted, what value it has. I disagree that it's a needed function on the forum. See, I disagreed with you, and didn't require a "Thumb Down" to do it. If it added something to the forums, it might be worth having, but it clearly doesn't have any value, or you could have stated an objective value that it has. As to getting a post removed, if you find it offensive, you report it. If the powers that be agree, it's going to be gone. If you're concern is that someone is disagreeing with you, but you can't get a ton of friends to all come on and down vote 'em for it, well that's a shame, isn't it? Maybe you should try proving them wrong, or that you're opinion has merit, if it's not a case of right and wrong, and neither of those require a down vote button to achieve.

So you feel that I must answer your questions while you ignore mine? I asked you, "on what premise does someone argue to remove an "I disagree" post"? I didn't ask you to justify reporting it, I asked, if someone posts "I disagree", what premise would you use to have that post removed. Again, don't tell me "well if the mods agree to remove it", give me an example or an argument or hypothetical or something that, if replied to with "I disagree" is grounds to report it.

To answer your questions again...

"If you're concern is that someone is disagreeing with you, but you can't get a ton of friends to all come on and down vote 'em for it, well that's a shame, isn't it?"

I never said nor agreed to any of those premises and even if I did, none of that has any actual effect on anyone. Not the individual being down voted, not the ones down voting nor the onlookers that aren't involved.

"Maybe you should try proving them wrong, or that you're opinion has merit, if it's not a case of right and wrong, and neither of those require a down vote button to achieve."

I have. My opinion does have merit, you're just not willing to accept someone's given argument. And I'm not arguing for a thumbs down button, I'm arguing the reason it was removed contradicts itself and the rules of the forums.

I did, in fact, answer your question, that you may not like the answer doesn't qualify as "I have to answer yours but you're not answering mine", it simply means that you've chosen to ignore the answer instead. I'm still waiting for an explanation of some kind of inherent value in a down vote button. "Because I want it, and don't see the harm" doesn't give me an answer to my question. It just restates your opinion on the matter, which I already know. That you believe it should be here is not an inherent value, nor does your belief that it needs to be here add anything to the forums in general. Of what benefit would this button be to the community? What does it add to the forums at large, as opposed to what you can take away from it?

But no, you didn't answer the question. You simple replied to my question by asking "what value does a down vote button have". To answer that question, it has as much value as an up vote button but that wasn't removed with it. So why is that? You didn't answer my question, which is:

Under what premise would you argue for removing the down vote button?

If it's that "you can gang up on someone and mass flag someone's posts with down votes", then explain how that is a negative thing. If there is no inherent value to being down voted, then explain its effects. You can't contradict your own reasoning by saying its bad to gang up on someone with non-value down votes because, as a means of trolling, it doesn't do anything.

So make an argument that isn't a contradiction.

Anybody? Gaile?

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I saw an extended answer to your question: the downvote button was being used to harass players, rather than simply to express disagreement. Gaile didn't share with us the stats; apparently it was a moderation nightmare for the non-English forums. Anecdotally, I can report that I saw posts getting downvoted for posting things like links to the wiki or other sorts of "fact only" posts (yes, I'm not counting posts that are mixed, where people post an answer along with an opinion, directly or indirectly).

If people are using the :-1: in any of those ways, it loses its value as a way of gauging community reactions. The :+1: has its own issues, of course and there's certainly no clear guideline for when to use it over Helpful. On the other hand, people don't automatically spam upvotes for individuals, the way some were spamming downs.

In other words, it turns out that :+1: isn't a direct social counterpart to :-1:, even though technically they should be opposite sides of the same coin.

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  • ArenaNet Staff

The conversation in which this was posed and in which your question was answered multiple times, was wrapped up tonight. EDIT: And answered here, as well.

If you wish to discuss this with the other member, you may use the Private Message system to do so. Please keep your comments on a respectful level, as PMs are bound by the forum rules, and posting offensively in a PM can have consequences.

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