Learn from Battl.net forums re: Thumbs Down

Thumbs Down feature is going to be abused like in reddit to basically downvote any opinion you disagree with, not because it is a post of poor quality.

Blizzard realized and removed this feature because they notice perfectly crafted feedback posts on class balance would be buried under downvotes by concerted forum users who had some self-interest in burying the post (especially if said post explained why their main class was overperforming).

It's simply not a useful feature.

You can gauge the usefulness/constructiveness of a post instead by keeping the thumbs up feature and removing the thumbs down.

Don't turn these forums into an echo chamber supported by popularity contests or who's got the largest lobby.

It actually does something on Reddit due to the aggregate sorting feature being the default on many subreddits. You can actually affect whether a post gets seen or not by downvotes / upvotes because it changes the sorting order, unless you specifically sort by "new" instead.

Don't know if that was the case on the Blizzard forums or not, but its not the case here. New posts are at the top regardless of how many downvotes they get. You can't "bury" a post in downvotes and keep it from being seen.

you may not be able to bury something but you can sure as kitten discredit things in the eyes of ignorants who might otherwise not form a prejudiced opinion based on votes lol

The reality contradict your opinion OP, Reddit is countless times more useful and constructive than the official forum and the old forum was a cease pool of pointless complaining, Where actual constructive feedback gets buried under mountains of useless garbage.

Huh, which Blizzard forums? I frequently visit the Heroes of the Storm forums and thumbs down was still a thing last time I checked and most people that get downvoted a lot are receiving those downvotes for a reason. I don't know why people are acting like it's a horseman of the apocalypse. It's not like a legion of trolls will suddenly rise and downvote everything and everyone into the abyss.

While a post cannot be buried I'm sure there are other negative outcomes to being constantly down voted here which can and will have a similar chilling effect.

Basically the whole thumbs down thing doesn't really help. As the OP stated, if someone doesn't agree with you they and their friends will downvote you to oblivion. Then someone will see your post, see all the downvotes and follow suit not knowing better. I like FF XIV's system better. It only has a 'like'. It doesn't promote negativity but of course people will still argue. Where as say on Blizzard's forums if someone gets downvoted/disliked then after a while their post gets greyed out unless someone wants to actually read it. Most people tend not to though if they see a post that has been disliked by a big chunk of the community.

@Jinroh.4251 said:Basically the whole thumbs down thing doesn't really help. As the OP stated, if someone doesn't agree with you they and their friends will downvote you to oblivion. Then someone will see your post, see all the downvotes and follow suit not knowing better. I like FF XIV's system better. It only has a 'like'. It doesn't promote negativity but of course people will still argue. Where as say on Blizzard's forums if someone gets downvoted/disliked then after a while their post gets greyed out unless someone wants to actually read it. Most people tend not to though if they see a post that has been disliked by a big chunk of the community.

You can only see the "scores" and add your own thumbs up / down if you actually go into the thread itself, its not like you get that information listed on the topic list alone. Maybe its just me, but I can't really see people going into a thread, intentionally ignoring the text but scrolling down to the thumbs up / down (which are UNDER the post text) to see whether its "worth" reading. Especially since if you click on a thread, I assume you're interested in what you expect to find in the thread itself.

Trolls, sure. But I mean, the average user who clicks on a topic that one would think interests them, I can't see them being dissuaded from reading the text by a number that comes after the text.

@Electro.4173 said:

@Jinroh.4251 said:Basically the whole thumbs down thing doesn't really help. As the OP stated, if someone doesn't agree with you they and their friends will downvote you to oblivion. Then someone will see your post, see all the downvotes and follow suit not knowing better. I like FF XIV's system better. It only has a 'like'. It doesn't promote negativity but of course people will still argue. Where as say on Blizzard's forums if someone gets downvoted/disliked then after a while their post gets greyed out unless someone wants to actually read it. Most people tend not to though if they see a post that has been disliked by a big chunk of the community.

They do, and developers/community reps will as well. I assure you.

If you go to Yelp! app and look up a restaurant, but don't have the context of a restaurant having 12 votes total and 5 of those giving a 1 star rating because they were a disgruntled table who bothered to vote (over many who were happy and didn't) or a group vote by competitors, you'd dismiss that 2-2.5 star rating restaurant as bad regardless of the skewing done to the feedback system.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Electro.4173 said:

@Jinroh.4251 said:Basically the whole thumbs down thing doesn't really help. As the OP stated, if someone doesn't agree with you they and their friends will downvote you to oblivion. Then someone will see your post, see all the downvotes and follow suit not knowing better. I like FF XIV's system better. It only has a 'like'. It doesn't promote negativity but of course people will still argue. Where as say on Blizzard's forums if someone gets downvoted/disliked then after a while their post gets greyed out unless someone wants to actually read it. Most people tend not to though if they see a post that has been disliked by a big chunk of the community.

But the point is you can't do that here because, as Electro said you don't see the 'score' until after you've read the post. Unless you deliberately scroll past the post to look at the score first. And honestly if someone is that desperate to let other people tell them what to think about a post the absence of a score isn't going to stop them, it would just make it slightly slower because they'd have to read the replies instead.

It is true that people will 'down vote' any post they disagree with. But I'm pretty sure that is how this system is intended to be used. Since it's not actually hiding posts I don't see a problem with it.

I just got Thumbs Down for a comment in which I was giving suggestion for new WvW mechanics. I understand that some people may disagree but seing all that Thumbs Down just makes you wanna stop posting anything on forum.

@Daniel.5428 said:I just got Thumbs Down for a comment in which I was giving suggestion for new WvW mechanics. I understand that some people may disagree but seing all that Thumbs Down just makes you wanna stop posting anything on forum.

Yep. After a completely ridiculous exchange yesterday on this topic between myself and a few others, I'm pretty much done until the feature is removed.

It's kinda fun. Give me more thumbs down. Feed me friends. More salt!

tfw your ego is so fragile that knowing someone disliked a forum post you made ruins your day :3

idk man, but this is a forum. people are going to disagree with you. feel everyone should be able to handle meeting someone who doesn't think the same as them without bursting into tears and throwing a tantrum. not everyone will like everything you say, get over it

but in all seriousness. it's pretty useful. it's good to know what posts the community does and doesn't like, especially in the PvP forum. I see a lot of QQ posts that would have been spammed w L2P replies just getting showered with downvotes. good riddance

Thumbs down for the OP because I disagree with you. I like the button and I'm sure it won't be abused.

people are generally selfish, feeding that part doesn't bold well.i agree, at least remove the thumbs down vote, anyone who doesn't agree will not use the upvote anyway.

@Zenith.7301 said:Thumbs Down feature is going to be abused like in reddit to basically downvote any opinion you disagree with, not because it is a post of poor quality.

Blizzard realized and removed this feature because they notice perfectly crafted feedback posts on class balance would be buried under downvotes by concerted forum users who had some self-interest in burying the post (especially if said post explained why their main class was overperforming).

It's simply not a useful feature.

You can gauge the usefulness/constructiveness of a post instead by keeping the thumbs up feature and removing the thumbs down.

Don't turn these forums into an echo chamber supported by popularity contests or who's got the largest lobby.

I disagree with you OP, so I gave you a Thumbs Down. Seeing as this isn't Reddit and posts aren't hidden based on the amount of Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down they receive, and considering that there are no official guidelines on proper Thumbs etiquette, I believe it's up to the community to decide how they are used. You talk of an echo chamber, but traditionally that is exactly what the forums is. If you remove the option to Thumbs Down a post and leave only the option to Thumps Up a post then the only choice we have is to agree. That just creates an environment of false positivity.

Traditionally if people didn't like what you had to say they'd either say something or not say something, and move on. With the Thumbs Down we now have a third option, which allows users to quickly show their support or lack thereof for a post. If the Thumbs Down option were to be a removed, I believe that the Thumbs Up option would also have to be removed as to prevent skewed perspectives of posts.

As others have mentioned, if your egos are so fragile and your mindsets so insecure that a Thumbs Down on one of your posts discourages you from posting, you should probably work on that before trying to change others. Think about what you're posting, and why you might be getting Thumbs Downed. If you're posting a controversial opinion and people give you Thumbs Down, kitten 'em. You voiced your opinion and you knew it was controversial, so it shouldn't be a surprise to you. If you're posting just random garbage that's hardly legible and you receive Thumbs Down, you should probably work on your writing. If you're acting like a complete donkey in your posts and receive Thumbs Down, you should have known it was coming, and probably shouldn't act like a donkey. Inversely, if you write a well thought out post that you poured you soul into to express your opinion and others give you Thumbs Ups, kitten 'em too. You don't need their validation.

The Thumbs system as others mentioned just acts as an informal poll. If you don't like it, ignore it.

I am not sure that disallowing people to express disagreement with a post is a good idea.

Whats next, all posts must agree with every suggestion or idea or be deleted?

OP seems to be really obsessed about the thumbs up/thumbs down feature.

Lmao other blizzad games forums still have their thumbs down option, singling out one doesn't make your point validHaving a pure opinion post down-voted = having a troll post upvotedSo if you are planing to remove thumbs down then you remove thumbs up as well

Ppl putting a thumbs down does not censor your post in anyway, if you got upset seeing a lot of thumbs down for your the post then the problem is you

@Zenith.7301 said:Don't turn these forums into an echo chamber supported by popularity contests or who's got the largest lobby.

Well, seeing how the posts don't get auto-hidden, what does it matter whether two posts are -10 to +15 or 0 to +25? :open_mouth:

Weird. I'm looking at the blizzard forums right now in another tab and they all have the thumbs down, which is called "Dislike" in them.

I checked every game in both EU and US regions. And even the BNet forums themselves still have them.

When one gets disliked too much, it is not hidden, but it gets grayed out.

What do you mean they got removed?

Currently there isn't a mechanism that buries a comment or thread here. Sure the "Best of" filter uses the Up/Down ratio but that's entirely optional.

@Ashen.2907 said:I am not sure that disallowing people to express disagreement with a post is a good idea.

Whats next, all posts must agree with every suggestion or idea or be deleted?

Nobody is suggesting disallowing people to express disagreement. That's an absurd hyperbole.

What you'll notice in all of these threads is the same behavior. The original poster gets more thumbs up than thumbs downs, because more people than not (rightly) think thumbs down is a bad idea. But, most people who agree with the OP stop there and don't continue reading through the thread. It's disproportionately people who disagree who stay engaged in the thread, so the thumb up/thumb down ratio flipflops for subsequent posts in the thread.

This right here shows how Thumbs down is a bad idea. It's not actually an accurate gauge of whether an idea is good or bad. It's more of a gauge of how strong the groupthink is on a particular topic, and the more thumbs down people see, the more biased they become against the message, and vice versa. It actually just ends up brainwashing people. That this is how human psychology works has been demonstrated time after time in real world social experiments.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Daniel.5428 said:I just got Thumbs Down for a comment in which I was giving suggestion for new WvW mechanics. I understand that some people may disagree but seing all that Thumbs Down just makes you wanna stop posting anything on forum.

https://gyazo.com/2a7fd206edac35b773cd4c798d2df59e

Christ... What did you do to upset people? :anguished: