Site overhaul follow-up

We discussed having an introductory forum before, because we did used to have one but the general consensus was it just didn't work, and some people found it kind of insulting or patronising as well.

With the rating system, personally I think it is working quite well. I kind of tune out the ratings for posts which are one or two up or down, that certainly were lots of people feel prompted to vote posts up or down they have been well reflective of the ethos of the site overall. So people being rude/abusive or expressing opinions contrary to the aims of the site (like one discussion where there was a rude pacifist, or occasionally new people have posted sexist/nationalist comments) have been voted heavily down, and decent, thoughtful and well written posts which support the ethos of the site have been heavily voted up.

We were also hoping that the votes would have a moderating effect on people's behaviour, in terms of encouraging people to tone down abuse. And flaming/abuse does seem to have reduced even further since bringing it in so I think it is a sign that it is working the way we hoped.

Considering there have been previous posts culminating in "fuck you" that receive a dozen up-votes and one or two down-votes, I think this "self-moderating" you speak of Steven is not one avoiding "abuse" but that the voting is more of a popularity contest (whether that popularity be of concepts, ideas, or their authors). This at least seems to be the case in the threads I have followed close enough to note the votes.

My feelings concerning a particular thread were expressed already here.

Do the votes actually silence some? I am unsure.
Whether or not it does I do not see any benefit besides allowing passive "communication".

Perhaps you could point to a particular thread where it has worked as you had hoped?

the UP DOWN is still a slimy faux-participatory pile of shite

it needs abstain! and block wait that's report right?

I know I don't post much now anyway but the voting up thing is not very effective to my mind. It's unaccountable and pointless because it is unexplained. I was posting in one thread and someone made a snide comment about my post and it had been liked by quite a few people so I thought fuck it and didn't bother posting. I don't know if it was my style, my actual opinion or what that led people to vote up and down and it won't have improved my posting in any way, although it might have improved libcom mildly by stopping a post that probably wouldn't have achieved much

I like the up/down votes. I don't think its made me participate less.

People like Hieronymus write up blogpost sized comments of knowledge and I don't have nothing to add. An upvote is satisfactory rather than 7 people posting simply "thanks" or "good post".

As far as downvotes go, I either chalk them up to someone not liking me, someone disagreeing with what I have to say but not wanting to engage or I said something stupid. Not a big deal.

Yeah, I'd agree with this. The up function is good for the reasons stated above. It can act as a "hear hear", without all the clutter that takes takes up a message board.

I'm not too keen on the down vote though, as Jeff said, I'd like to have an explanation as to why my post was down-voted, and in this sense - to use doam's expression - it is "passive communication".

What happens in a direct democracy? Would we count the "no" votes as well? I don't see the point.

But some people can't just brush it aside, and will take it personally. We're not all thick-skinned. I don't think it will help lurkers who are trying to get more information, if someone is getting down-voted just because of a personal dislike of someone.

As much as I see your point, I'd agree with Steven on this one. I think it can come across as quite patronising, or maybe elitist.

i say we implement full jazz hands button as well. maybe also some bullshit like temperature check.

I might start Occupy Libcommunity

A couple times I just asked a question and got down votes! That doesn't make any sense. One time Red said "I am going to post more on this below." Several days later I posted, "Still waiting for the other shoe to drop, Red." It got a bunch of down votes! That doesn't make any sense at all!!!

I agree with Doam...

...I like it, though, it is an entertaining feature.

I don't tend to use the up/down function, not out of any special point of principle, but because I feel it's just a bit ambiguous and if you disagree with someone, I think you should say why. Having said that, I'm not exactly a prolific poster, I'm probably being a touch hypocritical , given that I rarely make a comment either way.

I've mentioned before, but I found the more like this function, which has disappeared, useful, being relatively new to libcom, because some conversations which were covered extensively in the past and consequently no-one would particularly want to go through again, contained useful links and references, which are more difficult to find now.

I think the argument for the down button would be that it gives feedback, particularly for new users, about roughly what the consensus is on when someone has overstepped the mark. e.g. if someone has been rude/abusive or used sexist or racist or what-have-you language, a new user might not know whether or not that kind of language is seen as acceptable or not - a large down-vote could reassure them that it's not just them that found the post offensive.

Never use the up/down button and rarely even notice it at all - it's a total waste of time. Also think the oneliner posts saying another post was good, which still appear, a waste as well. If people must do this say what in particular you like about a post.

Still miss the automatic links to previous discussions which seem to be endlessly repeated by various newbees looking for short cut answers. I notice one of the admins had to list these again on one extensive discussion which was useful.

There were some threads where people were expressing some really nasty sexist stuff, and it was reassuring to see it get down votes and people arguing against it get up votes, otherwise I would have imagined that lots of other posters agreed with them.

I do think it's better if people use the down vote sparingly.

I can't recall the exact thread, but I remember this happening (a couple of newbies said some stupid sexist stuff IIRC) and thought it was a good example of it working in practice

I regularly downvote pointless shit that I can't be arsed arguing against. It's also useful when someone's trolling or wilfully misunderstanding for rhetorical effect, where a response (any response) would just be giving them what they want.

what button said, i think if people do this its harder for threads to get hijacked

i like upping really old threads.