Upvotes / downvotes

[mwillems]

Fairly easy way would be for downvotes to be moderated and approved. That way it means the reasoning given is somewhat justified.

All in all, it’s just a number by your name, that’s not even visible on mobile devices. Sometimes it makes no odds. However if a system is there - is shouldn’t be open to misuse.

The votes aren't really representative, that is part of the forum. Not all people with high votes are worth listening too. Some just "Photo Chase" the votes or just sound plausible to varying degrees. I stay away from the tech threads because by and large I don't learn from them, the number of times I have asked questions and no one responds, I gave up. Vanja being one of the few who actively gets involved to help educate folks politely and with patience. I've seen plenty of more technical people just behave like d*cks unnecessarily to those just trying to have a go, learn and develop.

"Fake news" was always going to happen when the forum grew. Most people who've been here for a bit know who to listen to, and also which highly technical people also just have the ability to create highly technical confirmation bias or who can be a little overconfident with their answers

This conversation sort of runs in parallel to the fact checking around social media and requires elements of self moderation. Which is to say, ignore those who just want to argue, or block them, and listen to the ones you've figured out are the sensible bunch and recognise when some of those technical bods are pushing their own little bit of bias or agenda.

Anyone that left because they got tired of arguing, should have just stopped arguing. it's a shame they've gone, but this is the internet, if you want to be here then dealing with people is part of it and if you're in the right head space it is quite easy. Some of those people were also capable of behaving like 16 y/o on Reddit.

[mclaren111]

Well Said...

[Dee]

Surely you can question why have downvotes at all?

On reddit, downvotes eventually hide your comment showing its quality. That doesn't happen here.

You can give really great insights but if someone else wants to downvote you for other reasons than technical, then your score is reduced.. so what is the benefit of the scoring system if you want to promote great technical discussion?

I would promote an upvote only system on technical posts only with the caveat being that posters may have their voting abilities limited if they are found to be upvoting posts that are not technical in nature.

[mwillems]

In principle but moderating the votes is just going to increase the bickering.

A trusted technical poster tick might be useful and applied by the site admins to those who are known to give strong and reliable technical input. But that just highlights that which some people already worked out and it will create another set of arguments.

If this site wants to be a technical site then it should run itself like one and those who don't have trusted technical poster status would have posts to the technical thread moderated, which is fine, if that is want the site to be. But by and large it isn't and where it is. The model of the site is a fully open forum that is monetised and this is the way it is run, with the word technical popping up occasionally and some technical talk inside ranging from very clever F1 folks to idiots like me who throw an opinion in and see what comes back and see if I can learn from it.

[Big Tea]

In principle but moderating the votes is just going to increase the bickering.

A trusted technical poster tick might be useful and applied by the site admins to those who are known to give strong and reliable technical input. But that just highlights that which some people already worked out and it will create another set of arguments.

If this site wants to be a technical site then it should run itself like one and those who don't have trusted technical poster status would have posts to the technical thread moderated, which is fine, if that is want the site to be. But by and large it isn't and where it is. The model of the site is a fully open forum that is monetised and this is the way it is run, with the word technical popping up occasionally and some technical talk inside ranging from very clever F1 folks to idiots like me who throw an opinion in and see what comes back and see if I can learn from it.

One option would be to add the up/down score only to that post with no carry over to permanency to the poster. This would display peoples feelings on that particular post but not be worth a fight if someone disagrees

[mwillems]

In principle but moderating the votes is just going to increase the bickering.

A trusted technical poster tick might be useful and applied by the site admins to those who are known to give strong and reliable technical input. But that just highlights that which some people already worked out and it will create another set of arguments.

If this site wants to be a technical site then it should run itself like one and those who don't have trusted technical poster status would have posts to the technical thread moderated, which is fine, if that is want the site to be. But by and large it isn't and where it is. The model of the site is a fully open forum that is monetised and this is the way it is run, with the word technical popping up occasionally and some technical talk inside ranging from very clever F1 folks to idiots like me who throw an opinion in and see what comes back and see if I can learn from it.

One option would be to add the up/down score only to that post with no carry over to permanency to the poster. This would display peoples feelings on that particular post but not be worth a fight if someone disagrees

This makes sense but the usual issues would exist, that it can be upvoted by anyone. I'm sure there are circles and cliques on here that are more inclined to upvote those they are closer to. I just don't think the vote system is worth anything personally except minority of individuals where it does indeed represent real tech knowledge.

[Espresso]

Again, I’m downvoted by the same poster who refuses to read a technical link. It’s already written, I’m not gojng to rewrite it because they’re too lazy to click a link.

Hollus’s response it a similar issue is to just take away my voting privileges, but not these people. Arguing that I’m targeting these posters in return. Wrong, I’m downvoting in return to being downvoted for lazy posters who are incorrect. What they’re doing is exactly against the forum rules.

Do your job moderators.

Whether right or wrong with your post I cannot judge. But ‘emotional downvoting’ of your posts is wrong.

But following that up ’downvoting as grievance in return’ is bad in itself too.
We cannot see if those who ‘persisted to downvote you also got their lying rights revoked.

Yes, I agree it would be better to revoke voting rights to ‘emotional voters’, but that cost quite some moderating effort.

[Hoffman900]

Again, I’m downvoted by the same poster who refuses to read a technical link. It’s already written, I’m not gojng to rewrite it because they’re too lazy to click a link.

Hollus’s response it a similar issue is to just take away my voting privileges, but not these people. Arguing that I’m targeting these posters in return. Wrong, I’m downvoting in return to being downvoted for lazy posters who are incorrect. What they’re doing is exactly against the forum rules.

Do your job moderators.

Whether right or wrong with your post I cannot judge. But ‘emotional downvoting’ of your posts is wrong.

But following that up ’downvoting as grievance in return’ is bad in itself too.
We cannot see if those who ‘persisted to downvote you also got their lying rights revoked.

Yes, I agree it would be better to revoke voting rights to ‘emotional voters’, but that cost quite some moderating effort.

The follow up downvoting by me is a response to moderator inaction. So yeah, not correct, but I felt my hand was forced.

[Greg Locock]

One forum I'm on allows downvoting, but your score drops if you downvote someone else. That seems a neat solution.

[Dee]

In principle but moderating the votes is just going to increase the bickering.

I think it could decrease the bickering because the discussion would be based soley on if the post was technical in nature.

How many upvotes it gets would let people know its quality.

What mods have to deal with now is people messaging them about people downvoting them for multiple reasons and bickering about why it has been done.

Leaving it as an upvote only sub would get rid of a lot of negativity and promote positive technical discussion and posts.

[mwillems]

In principle but moderating the votes is just going to increase the bickering.

I think it could decrease the bickering because the discussion would be based soley on if the post was technical in nature.

How many upvotes it gets would let people know its quality.

What mods have to deal with now is people messaging them about people downvoting them for multiple reasons and bickering about why it has been done.

Leaving it as an upvote only sub would get rid of a lot of negativity and promote positive technical discussion and posts.

I just think that whatever system is in place will be open to arguments and bickering and that this won't go away because the system isn't really the issue, it's more the culture of the site which is in part determined by the model of the site, which is by and large a free for all with moderators being more like referees.

Having votes applied to the post and not the person is for me the best idea to a degree because part of the issue is that the voting is quite personal to many people on here and breaking that association would be good. Underneath most arguments the issue is that things are taken personally so whatever the solution is, the answer has to be to at least not have mechanisms that promote that, which doesn't just apply to votes, but that's not for here.

I know an individual who has 400 odd votes almost exclusively from posting pictures and I see many posts from highly rated folks that aren't really saying anything more than people with 10 votes in many occasions. There are also folks who are very good in certain areas and not others. By and large I don't see value in these scores.

Removing vote scores from users and tying them just to posts would make you consider more the post than the person, so I have come round to this idea now, feels very much like a more sensible mechanism to cure some of the underlying ills of the site. It also feels like it makes it much easier from someone to walk away from an argument because in a few pages time that post is buried and there is no lingering injury to fight against, for some at least.

I think in this instance Hoffman was more upset about the principle than the vote itself, but some people do really care about that score. And in part, that is why some of the downvotes happen, it sounds like it was a personal dig as much as applying value to a post.