Removal of the down-vote, yes or no?

[hypervalent_iodine]

This has been brought up before, but I would like to gather some consensus from members as to what is wanted so that I may do something about it (or not, as the case may be). 

Do you think the ability to down vote posts / statuses should be removed (and why)? 

It has been a bit more problematic with this new update, as we can no longer set independent limits on how much negative rep a person can give in a day. That being said, I think it can still serve a valuable purpose in separating the wheat from the chaff, and can give newer members an immediate sense of what we accept as a community, as well as giving an indication as to the scientific veracity of certain posts. 

[StringJunky]

Removing it might increase in-thread comments about an offender's behaviour,  which will probably clutter the thread more. I'm ambivalent about it atm.

[koti]

I think one of the implications of removing it would be a general increase of crackpottery in the threads. I voted no.

Edited February 20, 2018 by koti

[iNow]

No, keep it.

Also, how do we restore the ability of my neg reps to be weighted in accordance with my positive rep? Back in the day, swansont and I could demolish 2+ years of solid posting with a single click. [/jk]

[Strange]

I'm not convinced that it would have the negative effects SJ and koti suggest. I know I have been tempted to over- (and mis-) use it on occasion. I don't pay much attention to it myself, but it seriously annoys some people (and some take it as a badge of honour). I'm not sure it adds much value. 

[Sensei]

FB/Twitter/Google+ are screwed up because of inability to say you don't agree with crap somebody said.. and it gives incorrect impression everybody agrees with it, when there is visible dozen "likes".. and nobody "dislikes" crap somebody said..

 

Down vote is often (always?) disagreement for somebody said. Without having to write entire essay about why do we disagree, which would be flooded by dozen of posts and basically disappear, in the ocean of discussion..

 

Edited February 20, 2018 by Sensei

[koti]

4 minutes ago, Sensei said:

FB/Twitter/Google+ are screwed up because of inability to say you don't agree with crap somebody said.. and it gives incorrect impression everybody agrees with it, when there is visible dozen "likes".. and nobody "dislikes" crap somebody said..

 

Down vote is often (always?) disagreement for somebody said. Without having to write entire essay about why we disagree, which would be flooded by dozen of posts and basically disappear, in the ocean of discussion..

 

Agree. And one of the results of what you wrote will be thriving cracpottery. I think.

[Raider5678]

I feel it should be changed, not removed.

We should be able to downvote, as always, but it shouldn't affect our reputations.

OR perhaps add a way to see how many downvotes someone has and how many upvotes someone has. So the reputation system would stay the same, but you'd be able to see how many upvotes in total they have gotten, and how many downvotes.

 

If you can't do that, I feel it should be removed.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Raider5678

[Sensei]

They made it on purpose. The more controversial subject, the more people disagree. But there is no other way to share your point of view other way than writing essay in reply.. which brings more ads displayed, the more attention, and it's black hole sucking even more people in wasteless discussion.. etc. etc. recursive loop.

 

Edited February 20, 2018 by Sensei

[Strange]

5 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

OR perhaps add a way to see how many downvotes someone has and how many upvotes someone has. So the reputation system would stay the same, but you'd be able to see how many upvotes in total they have gotten, and how many downvotes.

 

I am interested why you think this would be better ...

(If we had only upvotes, maybe it would be nice to see who had voted)

[Raider5678]

7 minutes ago, Strange said:

I am interested why you think this would be better ...

(If we had only upvotes, maybe it would be nice to see who had voted)

I just think it'd get rid of some of the value placed into downvotes/upvotes if you can see how many of each you have.

Just IMO though.

 

Another one would be a dislike rather than downvote. They don't affect reputation, but you can still disagree with someone with the click of a button.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Raider5678

[Sensei]

19 minutes ago, Strange said:

(If we had only upvotes, maybe it would be nice to see who had voted)

There are revenge downvotes (causing negative feelings), and there are "revenge" (in positive sense) upvotes..

I like more second ones.. but still... they can be (mis)used by some people as a way to manipulate other people.. ("how can you dislike me, if I am 'liking' every post you made?!")

 

Edited February 20, 2018 by Sensei

[zapatos]

I guess I'd rather keep it. In the forums like Politics and Religion it is often used just to say "I disagree", or "I think you are a dope", and it is not all that critical. But on the science threads it more often means "that is false and misleading". If you do not have down votes in the science threads, then people like me who are not often knowledgeable enough to differentiate between a reasonable disagreement and the ranting of a crank, will be at a disadvantage.

[Raider5678]

4 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I guess I'd rather keep it. In the forums like Politics and Religion it is often used just to say "I disagree", or "I think you are a dope", and it is not all that critical. But on the science threads it more often means "that is false and misleading". If you do not have down votes in the science threads, then people like me who are not often knowledgeable enough to differentiate between a reasonable disagreement and the ranting of a crank, will be at a disadvantage.

Would downvotes that don't affect reputation be better in your opinion?

[hypervalent_iodine]

7 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Would downvotes that don't affect reputation be better in your opinion?

 

When you say this, do you mean that the negative point should accrue on individual posts, but not form part of the cumulative reputation displayed on profiles? 

[Raider5678]

Just now, hypervalent_iodine said:

 

When you say this, do you mean that the negative point should accrue on individual posts, but not form part of the cumulative reputation displayed on profiles? 

Yes.

Like, say a post received 3 downvotes. People could see it, but it wouldn't affect said posters total reputation.

 

 

 

Another thing. If we do try anything out, and it suddenly goes south, we can simply change it back.

[zapatos]

3 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Yes.

Like, say a post received 3 downvotes. People could see it, but it wouldn't affect said posters total reputation.

That seems misleading to me. Why should an up vote go into your reputation total but not a down vote? Aren't both equally representative of what others think of your posts?

EDIT: Not to mention the fact that I might look at someone's profile and think they are reasonable based on their reputation of 100, not realizing that they have 400 down votes spread out amongst many threads.

Edited February 20, 2018 by zapatos

[Raider5678]

1 minute ago, zapatos said:

That seems misleading to me. Why should an up vote go into your reputation total but not a down vote? Aren't both equally representative of what others think of your posts?

Perhaps.

I don't know.

[hypervalent_iodine]

6 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Yes.

Like, say a post received 3 downvotes. People could see it, but it wouldn't affect said posters total reputation.

 

 

 

Another thing. If we do try anything out, and it suddenly goes south, we can simply change it back.

 

We have absolutely no way of being able to do that. If the points accumulate on the post, they have to accumulate in the total. I also agree with zapatos that both should contribute if we have both available. 

[iNow]

Members here, myself included, will generally reverse undeserved downvotes. Quite often, they’re given when someone uses a snotty tone. 

Or is obstinate in the face of valid counter argument 

[MigL]

I could be mistaken, but I don't think I've ever down-voted any post.
If I don't agree with a post, I would rather explain why, so I, personally, have no use for them.
I do occasionally like some posts, mostly for the humor content.

I get the impression that sometimes, down-votes are used as the argument, and to 'gang up' on people with unpopular opinions.

[hypervalent_iodine]

9 minutes ago, MigL said:

I could be mistaken, but I don't think I've ever down-voted any post.
If I don't agree with a post, I would rather explain why, so I, personally, have no use for them.
I do occasionally like some posts, mostly for the humor content.

I get the impression that sometimes, down-votes are used as the argument, and to 'gang up' on people with unpopular opinions.

 

I count a total of 8 down votes by you, which is quite small by comparison to most.  

[studiot]

That bloody flyout thing is a typical example of overengineering.

It is far too easy to get the wrong thing and it took me at least 6 months to find out I could undo that.

Simple separated static red or green blobs were easy and so much more fail safe.

And , as I said in my thread on the subject, you can't be sure what you have actually done at the end of it.

Edited February 20, 2018 by studiot

[Silvestru]

I like how the current system works, the only problem that I have noticed is that some people with negative rep, stop giving a french man's f*** and go in full hate mode. 

I really don't care that much but It's really hard to get a plus in the physics section (you have to write a whole essay and put work into it) while you can get 5 at once in the joke section let's say. Me for example I have a good reputation yet I have very little science knowledge. Some people might take my word for some posts over someone else with a negative rep that they acquired in religion section let's say even though that person has more knowledge on the subject. (I am not saying rep should be assigned by categories, maybe just eliminating this up vote option from Joke sections or religion or speculation and leave this for actual science threads.).

I am really interested in the opinion of someone with negative rep on this thread.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Silvestru

[Strange]

29 minutes ago, Silvestru said:

I really don't care that much but It's really hard to get a plus in the physics section (you have to write a whole essay and put work into it) while you can get 5 at once in the joke section let's say.

I just noticed that I got a downvote for a joke in the Physics section. Worst of all possible worlds!

it is odd when you get a notification that "someone has reacted to a post" and you go there to find it is zero. Did someone just upvote something that was previously downvoted? Or vice versa? And why? And should I care? (I don't, I'm just puzzled by it all.)