I don't know if this is case, but if you're right it's a things that should be looked into, in my opinion.
If people can see who down-voted them, it might discourage people to act on their opinion because their fear retribution.
@Ashamir.9574 said:
I don't know if this is case, but if you're right it's a things that should be looked into, in my opinion.
If people can see who down-voted them, it might discourage people to act on their opinion because their fear retribution.
You can see them under your posts, scrolling over the avatars.
Unless getting multiple posts thumbs-downed actually means some sort of negative effect on your account or something I don't really see a problem. Worst they can do is... what, stalk you and thumbs down all your posts? The horror.
Then again, it showing doesn't seem useful either, so I don't see any harm in removing it either.
My first thought was exactly that - I'm not sure if I like that everyone can see how I reacted to posts.
Then I realised it's likely most people will feel that way and that on it's own may serve to regulate the system - instead of anonymously downvoting anyone you disagree with (or upvoting or whatever) you're making a statement to the whole community that you agree/disagree with this post. If you're not willing to stand by it you don't do it.
Even though it technically does not do anything actually harmful, I can see if some people may be kinda bothered if they look at their account stats and see 300 thumbs down lol.
IDK maybe remove the thumbs down stat tracker on our account page? Just a suggestion, either way I am sure some forum things will be adjusted in the near future.
@Tetchy.3756 said:
Retribution... From rando's on an internet forum...
Thanks for showing me that indeed, yes, I can see who voted me down.
Yes, it's a thing. There's a reason you can't see this kind of things on reddit for example. Some people are vindictive enough to follow you through conversations to continously mark your opinion as "bad". Since you can see on another person's profile how many votes they have in each category, somebody who really wants to can destroy another's credibility this way.
But as Davion (sorry, I have no idea if I can link account here) said, at least you can report them for it. Damage might already be done by that point, but it's a valid option.
A server community on World of Warcraft (an RP server) had a large guild who basically trolled the whole server forum, by linking specific threads, and posts in their personal Skype/Discord server, bombing dislikes on posts they disagreed with, and massively upvoted their own posts.
While up and downvotes doesn't necessarily mean anything, it surely gave the wrong impression to other players who didn't know about their antics and only looked at the downvotes. Players had difficulties recruiting new players to their guilds because the response they got was "your post was masisvely downvoted so I thought something was off with your guild."
Just because this other guild had a disagreement with the other guild, and proceed to bomb dislikes on every post they made, from any member.
I know downvotes bother a lot of people. You'll see people complaining about downvotes in other forums. However, the other forums had anonymous downvoting. /shrug, who knows. Maybe being able to see who voted will keep people from trolling by downvoting frivolously.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet might give it to you.
@Tetchy.3756 said:
Retribution... From rando's on an internet forum...
Thanks for showing me that indeed, yes, I can see who voted me down.
Yes, it's a thing. There's a reason you can't see this kind of things on reddit for example. Some people are vindictive enough to follow you through conversations to continously mark your opinion as "bad". Since you can see on another person's profile how many votes they have in each category, somebody who really wants to can destroy another's credibility this way.
But as Davion (sorry, I have no idea if I can link account here) said, at least you can report them for it. Damage might already be done by that point, but it's a valid option.
But on Reddit it actually does something. Because Reddit has an aggregate sorting system wherein higher rated posts get displayed first and it takes into account both upvotes and downvotes, at least if you sort by popular / hot and not "new" (and that's default for many subreddits). Here everything is just sorted by most recent, with the exception of the "best of" category at the top, and even that only counts positive feedback and not downvotes it seems.
I can't really see many people actually going into other peoples' profiles and viewing their vote counts just to decide whether they're credible or not.
Either show us who downvoted us or don't show downvotes at all. Anonymity can lead people to do nasty things like harassing a particular user they don't like and downvoting all their posts regardless of its content.
I don't know. If the thumbs down troll knows that he can be tracked down then maybe he take a moment to think before he hit the button. This was it's like a negative comment about your comment with account id and all.
Need a functional brain for asura researchers. I mean it! The last 10 story steps I made in the game were started, included or concluded with the "an asura really really kittened it up" plot twist :P
I totally agree with this and even more so, I think they should be disabled entirely. It's just an open door for people to misuse the forums. Forums are meant to share expressed ideas, not a vote arena. I made a thread on this as well.
@Electro.4173 said:
But on Reddit it actually does something. Because Reddit has an aggregate sorting system wherein higher rated posts get displayed first and it takes into account both upvotes and downvotes, at least if you sort by popular / hot and not "new" (and that's default for many subreddits). Here everything is just sorted by most recent, with the exception of the "best of" category at the top, and even that only counts positive feedback and not downvotes it seems.
I can't really see many people actually going into other peoples' profiles and viewing their vote counts just to decide whether they're credible or not.
Thanks for the information. I haven't really gotten into the finer mechanics of this forum yet.
If it only shows posts/topics by most recent then of course the down-voting will have almost no impact.
Or perhaps this reddit nonsense should've stayed on reddit. Not really sure why people want a way to "down vote" someone other than they are incapable of mounting a cohesive argument against a post and cope to just silence the poster instead.
Greck Howlbane - Firebrand
Sorrow's Furnace For Life
I don't feel the thumbs down should be deactivated, necessarily. Will some people troll? Of course. Some people are just kitten.
However, I think (if it's possible) to simply display only the count of ups and downs for us, while still retaining on the backend (for tracking) who did which action, would be a solid idea. It gives us a feel for how many agree or disagree with us, especially when it comes to actual suggestion discussions. But, this might not be possible. I don't know what setting options exist for the forum code.
If that's not possible, I'd like to see the icons be like a third of their current size. Hopefully that's at least possible.
Don't believe anything you've heard. None of it is remotely close to my actual insanity.
I think keeping thumbs up and thumbs down is fine... I do believe that seeing who did what is a bad idea.. not to mention also, that it clutters up the post quite a bit. I can see this being a massive annoyance on developer posts where you will probably get a few hundred combined thumbs up and down.
@Zavve.8205 said:
Even though it technically does not do anything actually harmful, I can see if some people may be kinda bothered if they look at their account stats and see 300 thumbs down lol.
IDK maybe remove the thumbs down stat tracker on our account page? Just a suggestion, either way I am sure some forum things will be adjusted in the near future.
Wouldn't that be an indication to start making better posts?
Or a way to realize that your opinions may be contrary to everyone else.
@Wolfey.3407 said:
I think keeping thumbs up and thumbs down is fine... I do believe that seeing who did what is a bad idea.. not to mention also, that it clutters up the post quite a bit. I can see this being a massive annoyance on developer posts where you will probably get a few hundred combined thumbs up and down.
Yeeaah.. Just waiting for one of those "game is too hard/easy" threads or the "anti-meter/meta" thread that boils over into a thumb-slinging bloodbath.
There will be icons everywhere.
Many alts! Handle it!
"A condescending answer might as well not be an answer at all."
-Eloc Freidon.5692
@Ashamir.9574 said:
I don't know if this is case, but if you're right it's a things that should be looked into, in my opinion.
If people can see who down-voted them, it might discourage people to act on their opinion because their fear retribution.
You can see them under your posts, scrolling over the avatars.
Yep. Also gives you the date and time it happened. lol.
@Wolfey.3407 said:
I think keeping thumbs up and thumbs down is fine... I do believe that seeing who did what is a bad idea.. not to mention also, that it clutters up the post quite a bit. I can see this being a massive annoyance on developer posts where you will probably get a few hundred combined thumbs up and down.
Yeeaah.. Just waiting for one of those "game is too hard/easy" threads or the "anti-meter/meta" thread that boils over into a thumb-slinging bloodbath.
There will be icons everywhere.
Oh gods...that mental image is terrifying.
Still, I have to wonder how many icons an individual post can support. I mean, if you potentially get 100s of ups, does it eventually condense in some way? Make the images smaller? Or does it just keep stacking them, turning the page into a giant scrolling wall of icons? Anyone wanna test this insanity with me?
Don't believe anything you've heard. None of it is remotely close to my actual insanity.
I actually like the idea of being able to see how many people agreed or disagreed with my posts in a quick count. I often post ideas I think people might like, but if I'm wrong I want to know. Of course the actual posts will be more effective for finding out why that is, and what may need changing to make an idea workable, but the up/down vote count makes a good summary.
Of course it might help that I have a pretty thick skin and more than my fair of experience with internet forums. People down voting my posts isn't going to bother me that much.
@Wolfey.3407 said:
I think keeping thumbs up and thumbs down is fine... I do believe that seeing who did what is a bad idea.. not to mention also, that it clutters up the post quite a bit. I can see this being a massive annoyance on developer posts where you will probably get a few hundred combined thumbs up and down.
Yeeaah.. Just waiting for one of those "game is too hard/easy" threads or the "anti-meter/meta" thread that boils over into a thumb-slinging bloodbath.
There will be icons everywhere.
Oh gods...that mental image is terrifying.
Still, I have to wonder how many icons an individual post can support. I mean, if you potentially get 100s of ups, does it eventually condense in some way? Make the images smaller? Or does it just keep stacking them, turning the page into a giant scrolling wall of icons? Anyone wanna test this insanity with me?
@Wolfey.3407 said:
I think keeping thumbs up and thumbs down is fine... I do believe that seeing who did what is a bad idea.. not to mention also, that it clutters up the post quite a bit. I can see this being a massive annoyance on developer posts where you will probably get a few hundred combined thumbs up and down.
Yeeaah.. Just waiting for one of those "game is too hard/easy" threads or the "anti-meter/meta" thread that boils over into a thumb-slinging bloodbath.
There will be icons everywhere.
Oh gods...that mental image is terrifying.
Still, I have to wonder how many icons an individual post can support. I mean, if you potentially get 100s of ups, does it eventually condense in some way? Make the images smaller? Or does it just keep stacking them, turning the page into a giant scrolling wall of icons? Anyone wanna test this insanity with me?
If this is the case, I want to collaborate with a bunch of people to strategically like a post in such a way that their profile icons create a photographic mosaic.
First, I want to say that I agree with feedback that the avatars are a wee bit too large. I've put in a lower-priority request for us to revisit them. I'm not sure if it's possible to redo that aspect, but I want us to take a look.
Second, let's give this "visibility" a little time, and see how it goes. There are positives: No stealth "thumbs down" sprees. There may be negatives: a clutter of icons and possible social implications. I'd like to revisit this in a week or so and see where we stand, from both a forum member and administrator perspective.
@Wolfey.3407 said:
I think keeping thumbs up and thumbs down is fine... I do believe that seeing who did what is a bad idea.. not to mention also, that it clutters up the post quite a bit. I can see this being a massive annoyance on developer posts where you will probably get a few hundred combined thumbs up and down.
Yeeaah.. Just waiting for one of those "game is too hard/easy" threads or the "anti-meter/meta" thread that boils over into a thumb-slinging bloodbath.
There will be icons everywhere.
Oh gods...that mental image is terrifying.
Still, I have to wonder how many icons an individual post can support. I mean, if you potentially get 100s of ups, does it eventually condense in some way? Make the images smaller? Or does it just keep stacking them, turning the page into a giant scrolling wall of icons? Anyone wanna test this insanity with me?
OP got a second row of icons now LuL.
Yeah, but we're still under 30 (when I checked). We need a much larger pool. What happens at 100, 200, 500? Basically we need each unique person on the forum for the next month to up, down, or helpful, one specific post.
Don't believe anything you've heard. None of it is remotely close to my actual insanity.
Yea i don't see the need for them to show the names
other than that loving the new style mostly the working search FINALLY tho to bad all the post are gone with new update
i don't mind anyone who gives me the thumbs down , both possitives n negatives are healthy for discussion in any topic it's when peeps start name calling ya know the real trolling that it becomes an issue. just sayin lol
While I'm still sticking to my previous post (after all it's only been, what, half an hour?) about removing names and icons from the forward facing part of the site, I have to admit I'm getting a chuckle out of all the up and down votes. The up and helpful votes make me feel little fuzzy too, which also makes me giggle cause it really shouldn't. And yet at the same time, seeing the same person up vote most of my posts tickles the little 'stalker!' flag in the back of my mind too. I'm having way too much fun with this.
Don't believe anything you've heard. None of it is remotely close to my actual insanity.
@TheRandomGuy.7246 said:
Thumbs up/down/helpful should be seen only as a number. There is no point showing the name.
But you just demonstrated how it can be easily abused by thumbdowning every single post in this thread.
Yup. But if they wanna have thumbs up and down they should consider removing the names.
This is how it works on Paradox forum. dc83eba4c1.png
I guess you can say anet wanted it yet at the same time do not want it to be abused so testing it to see that without anonymously will it provide a better feedback accuracy. Furthermore, Paradox's community is different from here.
Founder & Retired Leader of Equinox Solstice [TIME], a Singapore-Based International PvX Guild
Henge of Denravi https://discord.gg/P5dj7fd
Having the Avatars of Thumb Up/ Thumb Down might not be best idea as well.
Makes the Forum look a bit Confusing and doesn't look like it has much of a purpose.
It would be, in my opinion, better to just leave that stats of Up/Down like it is now, but without the Avatar images.
Being unfamiliar with these new forums, I inadvertently down-voted a post, then up-voted it, then tried to remove either/both by doing the opposite. Sigh. Sorry, whoever's post that was.
I wish there was a way to remove your action(s), in cases of changed minds, or accidents.
@Gaile Gray.6029 said:
First, I want to say that I agree with feedback that the avatars are a wee bit too large. I've put in a lower-priority request for us to revisit them. I'm not sure if it's possible to redo that aspect, but I want us to take a look.
Second, let's give this "visibility" a little time, and see how it goes. There are positives: No stealth "thumbs down" sprees. There may be negatives: a clutter of icons and possible social implications. I'd like to revisit this in a week or so and see where we stand, from both a forum member and administrator perspective.
Honestly I'd like to ask a question. What is the point of thumbs down anyway? If youll humor me for a minute, everything that thumbing down does can be done by simple not thumbing up. Say you don't like someones post, if its not thumbed up people dont agree with it. Or if its the case it'd be thumbed down because of something controversial, it would be breaking your terms of service rule and should simply be reported.
Thumbing down here is just a method to discourage members from making dissenting opinions about anything, and even if their opinion was shall we say lacking sense or reason, it is still their opinion and should be able to have as much place as anyone elses. Thumbing down posts like these would just get them pushed aside, which isnt healthy for conversation or improvement, in my honest opinion.
Comments
I ain't scurred.
I don't know if this is case, but if you're right it's a things that should be looked into, in my opinion.
If people can see who down-voted them, it might discourage people to act on their opinion because their fear retribution.
Maybe, but then you report them for harassment and get them banned.
Retribution... From rando's on an internet forum...
You can see them under your posts, scrolling over the avatars.
Unless getting multiple posts thumbs-downed actually means some sort of negative effect on your account or something I don't really see a problem. Worst they can do is... what, stalk you and thumbs down all your posts? The horror.
Then again, it showing doesn't seem useful either, so I don't see any harm in removing it either.
My first thought was exactly that - I'm not sure if I like that everyone can see how I reacted to posts.
Then I realised it's likely most people will feel that way and that on it's own may serve to regulate the system - instead of anonymously downvoting anyone you disagree with (or upvoting or whatever) you're making a statement to the whole community that you agree/disagree with this post. If you're not willing to stand by it you don't do it.
Danielle Aurorel, Desolation EU. Mini Collector
"Life's a journey, not a destination."
Even though it technically does not do anything actually harmful, I can see if some people may be kinda bothered if they look at their account stats and see 300 thumbs down lol.
IDK maybe remove the thumbs down stat tracker on our account page? Just a suggestion, either way I am sure some forum things will be adjusted in the near future.
Thanks for showing me that indeed, yes, I can see who voted me down.
Yes, it's a thing. There's a reason you can't see this kind of things on reddit for example. Some people are vindictive enough to follow you through conversations to continously mark your opinion as "bad". Since you can see on another person's profile how many votes they have in each category, somebody who really wants to can destroy another's credibility this way.
But as Davion (sorry, I have no idea if I can link account here) said, at least you can report them for it. Damage might already be done by that point, but it's a valid option.
A simple fix for this is to remove the hover text from the icons. Then it just shows you who has voted on the post.
A server community on World of Warcraft (an RP server) had a large guild who basically trolled the whole server forum, by linking specific threads, and posts in their personal Skype/Discord server, bombing dislikes on posts they disagreed with, and massively upvoted their own posts.
While up and downvotes doesn't necessarily mean anything, it surely gave the wrong impression to other players who didn't know about their antics and only looked at the downvotes. Players had difficulties recruiting new players to their guilds because the response they got was "your post was masisvely downvoted so I thought something was off with your guild."
Just because this other guild had a disagreement with the other guild, and proceed to bomb dislikes on every post they made, from any member.
I know downvotes bother a lot of people. You'll see people complaining about downvotes in other forums. However, the other forums had anonymous downvoting. /shrug, who knows. Maybe being able to see who voted will keep people from trolling by downvoting frivolously.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet might give it to you.
Forum Guides: Images. Text
But on Reddit it actually does something. Because Reddit has an aggregate sorting system wherein higher rated posts get displayed first and it takes into account both upvotes and downvotes, at least if you sort by popular / hot and not "new" (and that's default for many subreddits). Here everything is just sorted by most recent, with the exception of the "best of" category at the top, and even that only counts positive feedback and not downvotes it seems.
I can't really see many people actually going into other peoples' profiles and viewing their vote counts just to decide whether they're credible or not.
Either show us who downvoted us or don't show downvotes at all. Anonymity can lead people to do nasty things like harassing a particular user they don't like and downvoting all their posts regardless of its content.
I don't know. If the thumbs down troll knows that he can be tracked down then maybe he take a moment to think before he hit the button. This was it's like a negative comment about your comment with account id and all.
Need a functional brain for asura researchers. I mean it! The last 10 story steps I made in the game were started, included or concluded with the "an asura really really kittened it up" plot twist :P
I totally agree with this and even more so, I think they should be disabled entirely. It's just an open door for people to misuse the forums. Forums are meant to share expressed ideas, not a vote arena. I made a thread on this as well.
Thanks for the information. I haven't really gotten into the finer mechanics of this forum yet.
If it only shows posts/topics by most recent then of course the down-voting will have almost no impact.
Or perhaps this reddit nonsense should've stayed on reddit. Not really sure why people want a way to "down vote" someone other than they are incapable of mounting a cohesive argument against a post and cope to just silence the poster instead.
Greck Howlbane - Firebrand
Sorrow's Furnace For Life
I don't feel the thumbs down should be deactivated, necessarily. Will some people troll? Of course. Some people are just kitten.
However, I think (if it's possible) to simply display only the count of ups and downs for us, while still retaining on the backend (for tracking) who did which action, would be a solid idea. It gives us a feel for how many agree or disagree with us, especially when it comes to actual suggestion discussions. But, this might not be possible. I don't know what setting options exist for the forum code.
If that's not possible, I'd like to see the icons be like a third of their current size. Hopefully that's at least possible.
Don't believe anything you've heard. None of it is remotely close to my actual insanity.
It also can be argued that anonymously for thumbdown will give troll the security to thumbdown people.
Founder & Retired Leader of Equinox Solstice [TIME], a Singapore-Based International PvX Guild
Henge of Denravi
https://discord.gg/P5dj7fd
Game forum posts should always be in chronological order. The thumbs up/down really should be removed.
Lost in the Maguuma (TC)
For the geographically challenged, yes, Tarnished Coast is located IN the Maguuma Jungle.
They are. This isn't Reddit, there's no aggregate sorting system here. Newest posts are on top, nothing to do with the thumbs up or down.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't reddit technically let you see this as well?
I think keeping thumbs up and thumbs down is fine... I do believe that seeing who did what is a bad idea.. not to mention also, that it clutters up the post quite a bit. I can see this being a massive annoyance on developer posts where you will probably get a few hundred combined thumbs up and down.
reddit doesnt let you see who downvoted you, you only know how much downvotes there is
Wouldn't that be an indication to start making better posts?
Or a way to realize that your opinions may be contrary to everyone else.
Yeeaah.. Just waiting for one of those "game is too hard/easy" threads or the "anti-meter/meta" thread that boils over into a thumb-slinging bloodbath.
There will be icons everywhere.
Many alts! Handle it!
"A condescending answer might as well not be an answer at all."
-Eloc Freidon.5692
Yep. Also gives you the date and time it happened. lol.
Thumbs up/down/helpful should be seen only as a number. There is no point showing the name.
Oh gods...that mental image is terrifying.
Still, I have to wonder how many icons an individual post can support. I mean, if you potentially get 100s of ups, does it eventually condense in some way? Make the images smaller? Or does it just keep stacking them, turning the page into a giant scrolling wall of icons? Anyone wanna test this insanity with me?
Don't believe anything you've heard. None of it is remotely close to my actual insanity.
Interesting point of view coming from someone that downvoted every post in this discussion. LOL
I actually like the idea of being able to see how many people agreed or disagreed with my posts in a quick count. I often post ideas I think people might like, but if I'm wrong I want to know. Of course the actual posts will be more effective for finding out why that is, and what may need changing to make an idea workable, but the up/down vote count makes a good summary.
Of course it might help that I have a pretty thick skin and more than my fair of experience with internet forums. People down voting my posts isn't going to bother me that much.
Danielle Aurorel, Desolation EU. Mini Collector
"Life's a journey, not a destination."
OP got a second row of icons now LuL.
look mum! i appeared on the first post! i think it might cause a problem on big threads unless there is a cap where they become consolidated
You thumbs down my post but basically said the same thing i did..
that's a head scratcher lol...
But you just demonstrated how it can be easily abused by thumbdowning every single post in this thread.
Founder & Retired Leader of Equinox Solstice [TIME], a Singapore-Based International PvX Guild
Henge of Denravi
https://discord.gg/P5dj7fd
If this is the case, I want to collaborate with a bunch of people to strategically like a post in such a way that their profile icons create a photographic mosaic.
NSPride~
First, I want to say that I agree with feedback that the avatars are a wee bit too large. I've put in a lower-priority request for us to revisit them. I'm not sure if it's possible to redo that aspect, but I want us to take a look.
Second, let's give this "visibility" a little time, and see how it goes. There are positives: No stealth "thumbs down" sprees. There may be negatives: a clutter of icons and possible social implications. I'd like to revisit this in a week or so and see where we stand, from both a forum member and administrator perspective.
Thanks for the input. You are more than welcome to also share your thoughts in the official feedback thread: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/269
Gaile Gray
Communications Manager: ArenaNet
Fansite & Guild Relations; In-Game Events; Community Showcase Live
Yeah, but we're still under 30 (when I checked). We need a much larger pool. What happens at 100, 200, 500? Basically we need each unique person on the forum for the next month to up, down, or helpful, one specific post.
Don't believe anything you've heard. None of it is remotely close to my actual insanity.
Yea i don't see the need for them to show the names
other than that loving the new style mostly the working search FINALLY tho to bad all the post are gone with new update
Yup. But if they wanna have thumbs up and down they should consider removing the names.
This is how it works on Paradox forum. dc83eba4c1.png
i... can't believe anet added a down vote button after specifically not having one
While I'm still sticking to my previous post (after all it's only been, what, half an hour?) about removing names and icons from the forward facing part of the site, I have to admit I'm getting a chuckle out of all the up and down votes. The up and helpful votes make me feel little fuzzy too, which also makes me giggle cause it really shouldn't. And yet at the same time, seeing the same person up vote most of my posts tickles the little 'stalker!' flag in the back of my mind too. I'm having way too much fun with this.
Don't believe anything you've heard. None of it is remotely close to my actual insanity.
I guess you can say anet wanted it yet at the same time do not want it to be abused so testing it to see that without anonymously will it provide a better feedback accuracy. Furthermore, Paradox's community is different from here.
Founder & Retired Leader of Equinox Solstice [TIME], a Singapore-Based International PvX Guild
Henge of Denravi
https://discord.gg/P5dj7fd
Because that has worked so well in the past...
Having the Avatars of Thumb Up/ Thumb Down might not be best idea as well.
Makes the Forum look a bit Confusing and doesn't look like it has much of a purpose.
It would be, in my opinion, better to just leave that stats of Up/Down like it is now, but without the Avatar images.
Being unfamiliar with these new forums, I inadvertently down-voted a post, then up-voted it, then tried to remove either/both by doing the opposite. Sigh. Sorry, whoever's post that was.
I wish there was a way to remove your action(s), in cases of changed minds, or accidents.
I agree. It is fine to show who liked a post, but thumbs down should remain anonymous, or that may lead to unproductive toxicity.
Also, you may want to consider reducing the size of the icons in the list to a smaller size relative to the user's screen.
☆ SUGGEST-A-TRON
Honestly I'd like to ask a question. What is the point of thumbs down anyway? If youll humor me for a minute, everything that thumbing down does can be done by simple not thumbing up. Say you don't like someones post, if its not thumbed up people dont agree with it. Or if its the case it'd be thumbed down because of something controversial, it would be breaking your terms of service rule and should simply be reported.
Thumbing down here is just a method to discourage members from making dissenting opinions about anything, and even if their opinion was shall we say lacking sense or reason, it is still their opinion and should be able to have as much place as anyone elses. Thumbing down posts like these would just get them pushed aside, which isnt healthy for conversation or improvement, in my honest opinion.