That was a part I hope never will follow over from Reddit. Reddiquette was similar to this site's Etiquette on downvoting, yet people didn't follow the suggestion and buried you to oblivion when your opinion diverged from the hivemind's. I'm at the opposite all for diverging opinions, as I think they make for interesting discussions.
The etiquette seems like a good balance : upvotes to show agreement, ignoring to show disagreement, downvote to remove unnecessary/undesirable content.
I dunno. It's hard not to think of upvote / downvote as agree / disagree. The way Boardgamegeek does it is have two icons: a thumbs-up and a red X. The thumbs-up is for agreement / a quality post. The red X is for reporting. In other words, it doesn't imply that you disagree or think that it's just a bad post, it implies that the post offended you and you want it hidden. That's actually what happens, too...just like on reddit, if your post gets too many red Xs it is collapsed, and people who want to read it have to un-collapse it first. I find that people are quick to use the thumbs-up, but use the red X very sparingly. I think the red X would be used entirely differently if it was a thumbs-down.
It doesn't have anything to do with "turning toxic". It's only natural to think of a downvote as the opposite of an upvote. So, if upvote = "I like this", then downvote = "I don't like this"...whatever the reason is. It takes a lot of work to change something like that, and even then you'll get newbies doing it wrong. It's a lot easier to just change the interface.
The real key, I think, is to have reports seen by a human. It's easy to abuse downvotes, because there's no accountability for it. When you report something, you know that a mod or admin is going to look at it, so it's not very likely you're going to report a comment just because you didn't like an opinion.
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.
That was a part I hope never will follow over from Reddit. Reddiquette was similar to this site's Etiquette on downvoting, yet people didn't follow the suggestion and buried you to oblivion when your opinion diverged from the hivemind's. I'm at the opposite all for diverging opinions, as I think they make for interesting discussions.
The etiquette seems like a good balance : upvotes to show agreement, ignoring to show disagreement, downvote to remove unnecessary/undesirable content.
I dunno. It's hard not to think of upvote / downvote as agree / disagree. The way Boardgamegeek does it is have two icons: a thumbs-up and a red X. The thumbs-up is for agreement / a quality post. The red X is for reporting. In other words, it doesn't imply that you disagree or think that it's just a bad post, it implies that the post offended you and you want it hidden. That's actually what happens, too...just like on reddit, if your post gets too many red Xs it is collapsed, and people who want to read it have to un-collapse it first. I find that people are quick to use the thumbs-up, but use the red X very sparingly. I think the red X would be used entirely differently if it was a thumbs-down.
Thing is, that precisely how it should be used, according to both the reddiquette and Snapzu's etiquette... Hmm...
Exactly, but once a community turns toxic its difficult to use anything correctly.
This is true. I do hope that does not happen here,that's for sure.
It doesn't have anything to do with "turning toxic". It's only natural to think of a downvote as the opposite of an upvote. So, if upvote = "I like this", then downvote = "I don't like this"...whatever the reason is. It takes a lot of work to change something like that, and even then you'll get newbies doing it wrong. It's a lot easier to just change the interface.
The real key, I think, is to have reports seen by a human. It's easy to abuse downvotes, because there's no accountability for it. When you report something, you know that a mod or admin is going to look at it, so it's not very likely you're going to report a comment just because you didn't like an opinion.
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.