upvotes/downvoted are terrible for conversation on the internet I wish sites didn’t have them(rant)

[TheAvatar]

Honestly, I'm glad resetera doesn't have this. I've been on reddit recently and I just hate the upvote/downvote nature of things, they allow for no differing from the Consensus opinion of a thread or a post. It could be about anything, a music artist, tv show, movie, ect... if you just differ a little bit people will downvote the hell out of you and your opinion is irrelevant. It's an extreme hive mentalityAlong with that There is no point in posting an opinion late to a subject, your comment is just gone Into a empty hole because people will only see the top rated comments and that's it.

Sometimes it can be good, like downvoting a racist or sexist person, but sometimes it has the opposite where people will say "you know, this guy isn't that bad, he only said one racist thing and he apologized, people need to get over it" and that gets upvoted like crazy while the rational people get downvoted and never seen.

but to me though, it shouldn't be that hard to just you know, ban the racist instead of having a downvote feature, But idk, maybe this is just me but I just don't enjoy that feature anymore.

rant over

 

[Max|Payne]

I would upvote but this site doesn't allow it.

 

[P-Bo]

Where did you get downvoted?

 

[CloseTalker]

I like it for posts on Reddit, but I'm less fond of it for comments. It can be useful (surfacing best answers to a question to the top, for example), but can feed into shitty behavior. TBH though, I'm years and years into reddit and still don't really understand how their commenting system works, so I generally just stay out altogether and stick to browsing.

 

[Avitus]

I like it in certain respects because people with shitty takes/behavior (but that still stay within the rules) just get downvoted and the good stuff stays up towards the top. It works for certain formats.

Arguably better than reading the same poster over and over again trying to dominate a thread. The only solution at that point is the ignore feature.

 

[TheAvatar]

Where did you get downvoted?

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Damn that obvious huh lol

 

[Video Games Are Dumb]

Votes just make everything way more difficult to read. But honestly, they're too increase user engagement even if it makes people lose their fucking minds over fake points. I'm happy this forum doesn't use them.

 

[Deleted member 12379]

it keeps people engaged with the website. it's not for initiating sensible discussion. the fact that it spurs hive mentality is by design. reddit loves reddit-group-think and awards and gold and all of that bs because it gives them money.

 

[Venuslulu]

I mean, this feature elevated some pretty bad takes; also creates groupthink.

 

[Gashprex]

Should be upvotes IMO - just no down votes

 

[dark494]

I watched an interesting video on this a while back. It's worth a watch

 

[StrangerDanger]

I love when you go on reality tv subreddits and it is just people making fun of people's physical appearances on the show....and if you go and call them out the entire sub will downvote you to hell. Should just leave it where only upvotes are counted, at least then your posts will not become hidden due to downvotes

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

If Resetera did it, I'd only allow for upvotes. It's a nice quick way to give a "virtual nod" or agree with something. It's helpful for something like advice or recommendation threads to see where a lot of people lean. In addition, it would clean up a lot of clutter from people that just quote post to simply say "LOL" or "THIS" or "."

 

[P-Bo]

Damn that obvious huh lol

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Largely why I stay out of places like Reddit haha.

 

[Slayven]

Only thing worse on a forum would be 320x480 anime banners that 90% are Sephiroth fighting Goku

 

[Kyuuji]

Popularity > Truth

 

[Mivey]

Only thing worse on a forum would be 320x480 anime banners that 90% are Sephiroth fighting Goku

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Bring back signatures and gif avatars, you cowards.


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[Slayven]

Bring back signatures and gif avatars, you cowards.

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Can't bring back what was never here

 

[Volimar]

When the Joe Rogan endorsement started making waves and people were talking about the racism and transphobia, people replied asking for examples. Folksgave examples and were immediately downvoted to oblivion. People just want their biases confirmed instead of being challenged on them.

 

[Mivey]

Can't bring back what was never here

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I meant in a general sense, with Era being a technological successor to old internet boards of the past. So "bringing it back" as in "making it a thing once again"


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[riotous]

That type of system has it's place; it's not great for discussions or conversations.

It's best suited for stuff like asking a tech question; some people response with answers.. best answer gets upvoted, people have the same problem later and find that solution upvote it again, etc. Basically: Stackoverflow.

It becomes pretty crap when it's just people posting opinions on something.

 

[Wraith]

If you've ever frequented a sub where there's a URL whitelist for allowed submissions, yet that whitelist includes absolute garbage sources that don't deserve anyone's time and aren't actually contributing to a "balanced" or "diverse" discussion in any way, you begin to see the value in being able to downvote such garbage sources into oblivion.

 

[Deleted member 6263]

Only thing worse on a forum would be 320x480 anime banners that 90% are Sephiroth fighting Goku

Click to shrink...

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~~Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain.~~

 

[SolVanderlyn]

I totally agree. It feels great to get upvotes, but people will downvote literally anything for any stupid reason. I have seen comments as innocuous as "I like the color blue" get downvoted to the negatives. More often than not I just wonder; why?

 

[Why would you do that?]

I think it depends on the web site. One of my favorite sites to visit is Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com), and they generally take pride on their intelligent discussion, new insight, and thoughtful comments. The upvote system helps maintain that, and it pushes down low effort or wrong comments.

But it is a unique situation. Because Hacker News is limited to programming and technology news, there are simply fewer opportunities for bigoted comments to surface. That doesn't mean you never see one, though. The downvote system and/or the mods usually catch them, but a more covert one might slip through. (It's rare, but I happened to see one yesterday, actually.)

 

[Ashlette]

ResetEra is Reddit without Reddit's problems.