Downvotes, or as they called them "burying a post." Basically, in v4, they redid a large portion of the site, with many many bugs present, a UI that the majority of the users hated, and made it a better platform for advertising instead of making improvements to help the community. It was a problem that came about in part from them working towards making it something profitable (ala advertising) versus something the community built.
Here is a link on reddit that discusses it a bit more in depth than what I'm able to, since it's all second hand on my part.
I know that getting down voted every so often is not cool but that's what happens when you give people the power of anonymity. I'd be willing to bet that if votes were public (for example people can see how everyone voted, some sites do this), people would down vote less for stupid reasons, but now everyone can see your voting history (I would hate this).
Positives:
1. Spam/troll protection (a few down votes and its over)
2. Anonymous
3. I don't see a lot of abuse (right now)
4. Down vote reason selection is there if people are willing to use it
Negatives:
1. People will feel butthurt when down voted, esp for no reason
The problem with anonymity is obvious... the problem with posting names with votes is far fewer votes and possibly no down votes even when warranted because no one wants to be the 'bad guy.'
Agreed but again it's just expanding on my negative point. New users may get turned off if they see a down vote right away
I think it's important to distinguish between "I got a downvote! What a crappy user base!" and "that post has a lot of downvotes. It must not be very good."
1. Down vote is too important to scrap. It's positives far outweight the negatives.
2. I like the mod logs idea mentioned a few times. If something get's removed there better be a damn good reason for it.
3. 50% front page, 25% feed, 25% misc.
I don't think anyone is suggesting scrapping the downvote (unless I missed it) - just trying to take steps to make sure it's used appropriately.
That's basically what digg did in version 4. And 3 days later they were history.
Did away with the down vote or tried to take other steps with it?
Downvotes, or as they called them "burying a post." Basically, in v4, they redid a large portion of the site, with many many bugs present, a UI that the majority of the users hated, and made it a better platform for advertising instead of making improvements to help the community. It was a problem that came about in part from them working towards making it something profitable (ala advertising) versus something the community built.
Here is a link on reddit that discusses it a bit more in depth than what I'm able to, since it's all second hand on my part.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but could you elaborate on what positives and negatives you're thinking of?
I know that getting down voted every so often is not cool but that's what happens when you give people the power of anonymity. I'd be willing to bet that if votes were public (for example people can see how everyone voted, some sites do this), people would down vote less for stupid reasons, but now everyone can see your voting history (I would hate this).
Positives:
1. Spam/troll protection (a few down votes and its over)
2. Anonymous
3. I don't see a lot of abuse (right now)
4. Down vote reason selection is there if people are willing to use it
Negatives:
1. People will feel butthurt when down voted, esp for no reason
Feel free to add to this list.
The problem with anonymity is obvious... the problem with posting names with votes is far fewer votes and possibly no down votes even when warranted because no one wants to be the 'bad guy.'
Also under negatives:
2. The change in karma affects visibility.
3. If downvotes provoke moderator/admin intervention as is being discussed, it creates more work for them.
4. It can color people's perceptions of the content of the post even if they don't realize it.
2. I think you mean reputation not karma?
3. Agreed
4. Agreed but again it's just expanding on my negative point. New users may get turned off if they see a down vote right away
Whoops! Heh. Yes, that's what I meant.
I think it's important to distinguish between "I got a downvote! What a crappy user base!" and "that post has a lot of downvotes. It must not be very good."