Seeing who thumbed someone down may not be so wise

[novaspire.9801]

@"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.

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

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.

[Randulf.7614]

@novaspire.9801 said:

@"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.

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

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.

Completely agree. Thumbs up/down add nothing healthy to a discussion. Well written feedback is what should be encouraged, not using social media applications to assign a popularity contest to discussions.

[Jak.6049]

I don't really care about what trolls would do with it, but the icons themselves filling the space below every post is just annoying, unnecessary visual clutter. In my opinion, they should be removed for that reason alone.

[particlepinata.9865]

Wow i see i have a page full of avatars on my op :#

[Sicarine.3985]

"Completely agree. Thumbs up/down add nothing healthy to a discussion. Well written feedback is what should be encouraged, not using social media applications to assign a popularity contest to discussions."

Not necessarily. Thumbs down to up ratio can be a quick indicator of general reception to a specific comment. For instance, we (the community) received a reply concerning dark mode for the forums. That dev reply is currently very "thumbs-downed" as a quick indicator that the "we're not gonna work on it" reply we got is not well received. Further posts to that reply can establish the plethora of "accessibility is really important" discussion.

[Amaimon.7823]

I think it should be optional, but not forced either way. I personally wont downvote something unless I honestly disagree, and then I want them to know I did.

[RoastedBloop.9817]

Doesn't bother me personally. However, I can see why it would with others. If a user is aiming to be a respected member on the forum, only to get a whole bunch of thumbs down. It can give the wrong type of impression, to those that don't frequent the forums that often that this person is "disagreeable".Just my two cents.

[Astralporing.1957]

Are the upvote/downvote avatar lists disabled already? I can't seem to see them anymore.(if so, good job)

[AegisRunestone.8672]

@Astralporing.1957 said:Are the upvote/downvote avatar lists disabled already? I can't seem to see them anymore.(if so, good job)

Yup. Gaile posted in the Forum Feedback thread, and they had removed them now. :)

[Panda.1967]

This same discussion came up on the WoW forums before, albeit campaigning to ADD the ability to view who up/down voted a post... Personally I support showing who can up/down vote. It adds personal accountability to people who use the feature and gives a more accurate representation of how the community feels. However, so long as this new forum doesn't have the same feature that WoW has where if a post receives more than X downvotes it is auto-hidden, then the system is not likely to be very detrimental to have them hidden. Still, it's quite honestly more beneficial to show them.

On WoW's forums there's a long standing issue where groups of people will downvote bomb any post that is counter productive to their personal agenda, many of which are posts providing legitimate helpful information or advice. The fact that they can downvote anonymously is used as a form of trolling, when the anonymity is removed however such trolling tactics actually vanish all together. It's a simple fact, people are less likely to give a dissenting opinion that they don't actually believe is deserved when their name is attached to it than if they can do so anonymously. People will be more honest and give opinions that they believe in when their name is attached to it.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

I'd be perfectly fine with a system of "Helpful" and "Thumbs Up" only -- people use downvoting too often to express disagreement rather than to identify comments that don't contribute to the conversation. If it becomes hard to see the most useful/helpful comments, then maybe ANet could reconsider downvoting -- until then, I think it's a distraction to posters and respondents (and lurkers) alike.

[Nonsensicles.5486]

Thumbs down options for online forums/comment sections/social media are always a bad idea. And both thumbs up and helpful is redundant and confusing. Just a simple, single option to note your approval is all that's needed and useful. Bad posts are a matter for reporting options and moderation, never mob judgement. That just gets ugly. It creates negative feedback loops, whereas limiting to a straightforward way to publicly demonstrate approval doesn't brew quite the same level of intensity of positive feedback, it does at least generate more than any other option.

[Liliannath.3602]

Having an option to let people know a particular comment was helpful is good. Being able to up or somebody posts can just lead to people being petty. Should remove the voting and keep 'helpful.'

[Lunarlife.5128]

It's a good idea :)

[Celtic Lady.3729]

People will thumb down people just to troll them or as retribution for getting a thumbs down from that person. It's a terrible feedback system, frankly. It won't really tell good forum users anything about the quality of a thread or a given discussion.

[keyokku.5412]

We're already seeing somewhat indiscriminate and vague thumbs up and thumbs down on posts, like I don't even know why a post was given thumbs down. The actual content had nothing offensive or irrelevant or whatnot. So I feel the thumbs down at least is kind of not only unnecessary but as many others have said, it may be a nuisance. With all rating systems, there are always debates about what exactly it means, what does a five star mean on a review. Each site and reviewer actually has different criteria and it just doesn't help the viewer or reader. We also have helpful. I think Facebook's newer changes with their reactions being emoticons actually was a step in the right direction - while you can troll someone with angry faces, it doesn't actually say it's good or bad, it literally gives a personal subjective emotional reaction and that's it. Like someone ranting about something in their lives can get angry faces in sympathy. That kind of system is somewhat more accurate. That said, I think we need changes here on this forum. A simple thumbs up would be enough. If you want to get more accurate with helpful or not, or thumbs down, then we'd probably have to consider thinking like Facebook did.

[Cronos.6532]

I think there just need to be more reactions like Facepunch, e.g. Agree/Disagree/Useful/Optimistic/Dumb/Friendly/Late

[Absconditus.6804]

I honestly dislike the entire premise of a Thumbs Down feature. It creates (easy) negativity that is completely unnecessary within the Community. Thumbs Up and Helpful, those are both good features that allows you to quickly show that you support and/or find something helpful. By not clicking them, you are either neutral, you don't care enough to click a button, or you dislike something. I don't see what good can honestly come from a Thumbs Down feature. Enable them for ArenaNet posts only or something if you want that kind of feedback.

[Cronos.6532]

@Absconditus.6804 said:I honestly dislike the entire premise of a Thumbs Down feature. It creates negativity that is completely unnecessary within the Community. Thumbs Up and Helpful, those are both good features that allows you to quickly show that you support and/or find something helpful. By not clicking them, you are either neutral, or you dislike something.

It's a good way to tell people that their post isn't great without having to type out constructive criticism on every single repetitive post that's here. Especially the ones about PvP complaining. It's super handy on Reddit; these forums just have an ugly version of it.

[Ashantara.8731]

I hope no one will take this the wrong way, but the whole voting and ranking system reminds me a lot of this: ;)

[Lord Krilik.3692]

Where do you see who gave you thumbs up or down? When I read the posts hee all I can see is the number of thumbs up or down each post received.

[Zehnchu.4985]

@Lord Krilik.3692 said:Where do you see who gave you thumbs up or down? When I read the posts hee all I can see is the number of thumbs up or down each post received.

They turned off that option now because the icons flooded the page

[Turbotef.9203]

@Panda.1967 said:This same discussion came up on the WoW forums before, albeit campaigning to ADD the ability to view who up/down voted a post... Personally I support showing who can up/down vote. It adds personal accountability to people who use the feature and gives a more accurate representation of how the community feels. However, so long as this new forum doesn't have the same feature that WoW has where if a post receives more than X downvotes it is auto-hidden, then the system is not likely to be very detrimental to have them hidden. Still, it's quite honestly more beneficial to show them.

On WoW's forums there's a long standing issue where groups of people will downvote bomb any post that is counter productive to their personal agenda, many of which are posts providing legitimate helpful information or advice. The fact that they can downvote anonymously is used as a form of trolling, when the anonymity is removed however such trolling tactics actually vanish all together. It's a simple fact, people are less likely to give a dissenting opinion that they don't actually believe is deserved when their name is attached to it than if they can do so anonymously. People will be more honest and give opinions that they believe in when their name is attached to it.

Recently, they changed it to thumbs up only and got rid of the silly down-voting that was being massively abused. Their forums are a lot better now.

I personally prefer to have no visible voting at all on any forum.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I've always had mixed feelings on this myself. It may seem cruel, but a thumbs down option serves as a mild form of community policing. Harshness and hostility do serve a purpose in society.

[Kravick.4906]

Frankly, down voting shouldn't even be a thing, period. Up voting is fine. It lets Anet know whats popular, but from my experience, all down voting has ever achieved is creating horrible echo chambers where only the established group ideas are ever heard. These systems tend to drive people off rather than promote or foster constructive criticism or good ideas.

@Haishao.6851 said:Or a way to realize that your opinions may be contrary to everyone else.

That is exactly the problem. What you're saying is that only the most popular opinions matter, and everyone elses don't. This generally does not foster a good community if all you ever hear is the same thing over and over again.