It's interesting, I was considering mentioning exactly that as a suggestion (not having been privy to Boardgamegeek).
I think the issue with up/down votes (on any site) is that a lot of people use the upvote for 'agree' as well as 'good quality', which doesn't really damage things and is generally accepted by the admins. Because the the downvote icon is the exact converse of the upvote, it almost suggests to users that disagreement is part of what it's for. Having rules around it do help, but people don't always read them, and in the heat of the moment, there's still that 'suggestion' of "click here to disagree" staring them in the face.
A cross (or similar) button perhaps suggests a less regularly used function and might be more akin in a user's mind to a 'report this post' style interaction. The issue I can see with this however, is that up and down votes directly affect the score as advertised, so they do make sense for the sake of consistency.
It's a really difficult issue to get to the bottom of.
Perhaps, if the admins were interested in looking at something like this, some research would be the first step, i.e. 'how does changing the icon with little explanation affect user behaviour'. But this would probably involve setting up a relatively small sample group who would see the new icon instead and analysing the results. As well as the extra work for a small team, there would be unavoidable amount of confusion, which is likely inappropriate during a period of growth like this.
It's a really difficult issue to get to the bottom of.
Maybe, but it seems like people are making it more difficult than it needs to be. Reddit popularized the upvote / downvote system, so now users expect it, and it's really hard to think outside that box.
It's interesting, I was considering mentioning exactly that as a suggestion (not having been privy to Boardgamegeek).
I think the issue with up/down votes (on any site) is that a lot of people use the upvote for 'agree' as well as 'good quality', which doesn't really damage things and is generally accepted by the admins. Because the the downvote icon is the exact converse of the upvote, it almost suggests to users that disagreement is part of what it's for. Having rules around it do help, but people don't always read them, and in the heat of the moment, there's still that 'suggestion' of "click here to disagree" staring them in the face.
A cross (or similar) button perhaps suggests a less regularly used function and might be more akin in a user's mind to a 'report this post' style interaction. The issue I can see with this however, is that up and down votes directly affect the score as advertised, so they do make sense for the sake of consistency.
It's a really difficult issue to get to the bottom of.
Perhaps, if the admins were interested in looking at something like this, some research would be the first step, i.e. 'how does changing the icon with little explanation affect user behaviour'. But this would probably involve setting up a relatively small sample group who would see the new icon instead and analysing the results. As well as the extra work for a small team, there would be unavoidable amount of confusion, which is likely inappropriate during a period of growth like this.
TL;DR - I talk too much.
Maybe, but it seems like people are making it more difficult than it needs to be. Reddit popularized the upvote / downvote system, so now users expect it, and it's really hard to think outside that box.