ArsTechnica

Staff / From the minds of Ars

Observations on what’s getting downvoted, with some dissected specimens

A look at the greatest misses of late, and some theorizing.

Happy Sunday everyone. This is a two-part post in which I explore a few of the most downvoted posts from the past week, as well as offer some observations about what kinds of things we're seeing downvoted generally. We remain committed to understanding how the system is working, so that we can make changes to improve it. By and large, we believe that the signal-to-noise ratio has increased, but we also note that some quality posts have not received recognition.

Below are the most downvoted posts from the last week. We won't make a habit of looking at these, and I'm not going to mention the authors' names, or link to them in context. The idea isn't to shame anyone, start a pile on, or anything of the sort. Rather, I thought it would be a good idea to share some insight into why a few comments received the votes they did.

The comments

First up, in "Engine in development could cut Mars travel time to three months," the following comment landed an almost unbelievable -162 votes.

"This is fantastic news! Who cares about worldwide hunger when we can spend trillions playing with rocks on Mars?!"

There are many reasons this post was downvoted, chief among them that the author has engaged in extreme hyperbole in a rather off-topic manner. As another reader points out later in that same discussion, NASA's budget is nowhere near trillions of dollars, nor is NASA's budget anywhere near enough to address worldwide hunger. Long story short, this is a troll post, and the readers weren't interested. As I'll expand upon in part II below, this post is of the "but I don't even have a TV" archetype.

The next post only rated -115 votes, which is still far beyond the -20 votes needed to collapse a post. But in this instance, the moderators also got involved. The story was "Too little, too late: Blockbuster gives up on trying to beat Netflix." The post in question looks to place the blame for Blockbuster's failure, but does the poster blame Blockbuster's lack of innovation, its customer service, or the difficult transition from being a brick-and-mortar to an Internet service provider? No, this poster decides to engage in some off-topic political trolling:

"Another victim of the Obama economy. If they can survive through inauguration day there are brighter skies ahead."

Unfortunately, another poster decided to take the bait, and once again the moderators got involved. This troll counter-fired,

"Judging by your comment, you must be the spawn of Mitt Romney. It takes intelligence to troll. Ignoramuses on the other hand..."

This post, coming later in the thread, achieved -45 votes. Both posters earned a temporary vacation from posting.

Our review of the new XCOM game certainly brought forth readers eager to downvote substance-free griping, and a few readers eager to provide that griping. The most downvoted post in the thread rated a -50, presumably because it, too, was substance free, with a dash of personal attack.

"Another Ars apologist review. This game is stream-lined, dumbed down, and XCOM in name only."

Apparently most readers were happy just to vote it down and move on to more interesting comments.

The same situation appears to be true of an all-too-common troll at Ars Technica: the one wherein all users of a certain OS or smart phone are branded as idiots/poor people/dorks/etc. This particular specimen appears in the thread under the story, "Survey says: iPhone 5 owners not bothered by iOS 6 Maps—are you?" In fact, there was a bit of a contest to see which trolling posts might take top honors as most downvoted in the thread. Weighing in at -67 was this pointless gem:

"When people buy a phone because they have more money than sense, you can wonder why a broken feature doesn't bother them."

Not far behind at -65 was another similarly brilliant post:

"Wait, many Apple users don't about anything except making sure they have the latest version so their friends will be impressed? Put that up there with water being wet."

These are, of course, classic, substance-free trolling posts. Personal attacks are not permitted at Ars, and when personal attacks morph into wholesale attacks on huge groups of people, they are even less tolerable. Intelligent discussion does not arise from them, because there's nothing of intelligence in them in the first place. And nota bene to the readers who think there is intelligence in them: find another site to read. Better yet, find a time machine and go back to the mid-90s when it was at least fashionable to troll usenet with this kind of stuff.

Emerging Trends

As we keep an eye on the most downvoted posts on the site, a few trends are clearly emerging. Certain kinds of posts are absolutely going to get downvoted. Here's a typology of bad posting behaviors, with an explanation/theory behind each of their arguments. It's a work in progress.

  • Son of the "I don't even own a TV" guy: This is the poster who thinks other people will find it interesting that he cares nothing about their discussion or their interests, and in fact judges himself as somehow morally superior as a result. The morphology of this on Ars Technica includes people popping into threads about Windows 8 to proclaim how they will never use Windows, people popping into threads about iOS 6 to proclaim that they never have and never will buy an Apple product, and people popping into Android related threads and claiming that they will never purchase "crappy plastic phones." In these cases, the posters have failed to understand that no one really cares what their personal disposition is on something, if they have nothing to add to the discussion.
  • The "I only know how to speak in hyperbole" guy: This poster is not always trying to troll, but it often looks like it. This is the individual who cannot introduce nuance into their point of view, but instead must use superlatives and extreme language in what I can only assume is an attempt to get attention. They typically love phrases like "worst ever," "new low," "complete fail," "absolute best," "going downhill," and the like. The broad, sloppy brush is the favorite tool of this poster. Closely related to this poster is this fella:
  • The "anybody who X is/does Y" guy: It never ceases to amaze me how many posters are willing to take one small facet of someone's life or identity (say, their choice in OS), and extrapolate from that all manner of ethical and moral criticisms, or perhaps more commonly, someone's intelligence.
  • The "Ars Technica is the worst site ever but I'll be back again tomorrow" guy: There's a handful of readers who simply dive into our comments to chastise us about how horrible we are, but of course they come back day after day. A variation on this is the "I can't stand your Apple coverage" guy, who nonetheless reads all of the Apple coverage and comments on it. Ditto for science, ditto for gaming, and other areas of the site. We've definitely noticed that these sorts of posts are getting downvoted as well.
  • The "unpopular but sincere opinion" guy: This is the guy we are trying to figure out how to protect. In the absence of trolling, we would prefer to see differences of opinion respected, and I will say that for the most part, we have not seen heavy downvoting of people merely because of their opinions. In the few instances we've observed so far, unpopular opinions have been downvoted when they were accompanied by other off-putting factors, such as those listed above. But it is not uncommon to see a respectable but differing opinion sitting somewhere with -10 votes. On the one hand, that's not enough votes to put something in jeopardy of being collapsed, but on the other hand some readers are finding it demoralizing.

In all, we are pleasantly surprised by how well the system is working. It's not without its flaws, and we did note that this was an experiment from the outset. For the most part, we presently feel that collapsing a post is a suitable treatment for content that the community on the whole finds negative. Remember, to get to -20 votes, you have to have a net -20. Posts with 10 positive votes would thus require 30 negative votes, and so on. We are presently considering a few more tweaks to the collapse system, but we're not yet ready to discuss them. One thing is amazingly clear, however: readers are using the voting system in a very intense way. I believe we are close to seeing 20,000 votes a day, and that number has continued to grow each day we are publishing. Best of all, more votes are being cast up than down, which means the community is trying to lift what it likes best.

Expand full story

297 Reader Comments

  1. Dawnrazor wrote:
    Then the results would be a reflection of what the mods thought, not what the users thought. If, to use your example, Libertarian comments are horribly unpopular/unwelcome here then shouldn't the votes reflect that?

    Either leave the results alone, or get rid of the system.


    Uh, no. That's the point. Protecting unpopular, but well-spoken and articulate opinions is one of the goals. It doesn't matter if every other person on this site hates libertarians, if a person is contributing their ideas in a manner commensurate with good discussion, they deserve to be given the opportunity to engage in the discussion without being downvoted.

    Hence the discussion of the tyranny of majority, and factionalism. The goal of the system, I believe, is to highlight people making genuine contributions and to hide people causing disruption. A person expressing themselves, even if everyone disagrees with them, should be given a chance to speak.

    That's the whole point of having a mod save, or a community-leader save. It's not about "oh, I agree with them", it's about "is this person trying to troll, or not"? If they're not trolling, if they simply do not have a popular view, then shouting them down with votes is much, much worse for the community than having a mod save a post.

    Clearly, you don't want mods simply saving positions they agree with, but that's not the point. The question is: is what this person said offensive enough to be hidden?

    Here, I'll make an example: let's say instead of up/down, it was favorite/report. You could favorite the post or report it as spam/trolling/whatever. After 20 reports of trolling, it would be hidden, and flagged for moderator intervention. If a moderator looks and it's not trolling or spam, they restore it. Would you consider that an "endorsement", or simply a restoration of a comment that was flagged wrongly?

    The up/down vote should not be used as a system to silence dissent. It is a tool, in my mind, designed to engage with the tenor of the post, and not necessarily the opinion expressed therein. In other words, it shouldn't be used to judge whether or not you agree with the person, but rather whether you agree with the way they conduct themselves in the discussion.
    6723 posts | registered
  2. Ostracus wrote:
    Dawnrazor wrote:
    aggressiva wrote:
    I hope the "I don't even own a TV guy" applies to Internet Explorer here as well. I don't believe there is such a thing as an IE thread on the whole internet that doesn't have a group of people saying they don't use IE, etc. with nothing relevant to add to the topic of the particular thread, it's almost like an internet version of the Unicorn. You hear about it a lot, but never see it. Ars has the right attitude on the subject, but how many haters is Ars willing to piss off because they can't mindlessly spam any more?

    For the sincere but unpopular opinion guy, maybe Ars moderators could, when they casually read a thread, mark a post as 'protected' if they suspect it's unpopular but don't find it trollish, so it can't be collapsed by the angry mob..


    I don't see that as a good idea, what's the point of having a voting system if a Mod can overrule it. All it does is make a protected class of comments which will get interpreted as endorsed by the staff. It also is pretty open to abuse since it would allow the protection of a commenter and/or a particular viewpoint.


    Protection of a commentator? I'm sure everyone has noticed by now one can vote on staff posts. Can they be made to collapse and more importantly would that be a message the powers that be would live with?



    Yes, if they can uncollapse a comment or offset the voting in any way then they can give protection to a poster or a viewpoint. Which defeats the point of having a voting system.
    481 posts | registered
  3. I hate the paraphraser - Me Too and then paraphrase the original post. Then they collect positive votes which waste my reading time and not get anything new.

    Go ahead and vote me down, but the drunks will get me back to zero!
    166 posts | registered
  4. Ostracus wrote:
    Quote:
    Best of all, more votes are being cast up than down, which means the community is trying to lift what it likes best.


    This works best when accompanied by lots of beer. :)


    It's easier to just ignore an Arsian you never want to see again, than to put one little downvote on them and hope they get the hint someday. Downvoting is more useful against the driveby accounts, such as hocking DISCOUNT PURSE, GENUINE GODIVA *dftp׃//ebuay.ru/ from a new poster.

    (*DFTP - Duck face transport protocol; ׃// - Duck face)

    Last edited by pen_sq on Sun Oct 14, 2012 10:18 am

    719 posts | registered
  5. Ken Fisher wrote:
    copernicum wrote:
    So I presume that you would agree that the upvoting is working properly. If so, that is a resounding argument that:
    1. While you might struggle to do so, your readers have no trouble agreeing on what headlines constitute clickbait.
    2. Your readers want to see an end to clickbait headlines.
    Or are those arguments completely irrelevant because of your focus on pageviews, bounce-rates etc.?


    This doesn't even make sense. When have I ever said that readers want link-bait headlines? We know that they don't. But that doesn't mean I don't disagree at times with what people consider to be link-bait headlines. In fact, it happens every day.

    You seem to have no trouble artfully dissecting the reason that comments receive a pitiful -45, yet you refuse to even consider that there is any REAL substance or reason to a comment that receives an overwhelming +79?

    Being that you refuse allow headline downvoting, I think it is fair to invert the score of positive comments criticizing the headline to a negative score for the headline itself. This translates into a whopping -79. I think it is only right that you are prepared to heap the same level of scorn and critique on that headline as you do on some of the lesser downvoted comments in this article. Or at least acknowledge that those votes were as meaningful and justified as the downvotes you enthusiastically support here.

    Ken Fisher wrote:
    I didn't consider that headline to be link-bait. I generally find headline grousing to be silly. I guess it's just something you have to accept, or just bail on Ars. I can't predict what people are going to decide is link-bait or not, particularly when we are talking about a factual headline.


    If you can do so well at explaining the silliness of a comment that receives a -45, it is extremely disingenuous to throw your hands up in despair when it comes to a comment that receives +79 (or another one that received +50), or just attempt to whitewash all those votes as being 'silly'.

    Let's be honest: If -45 means anything about the collective opinion of your readers, +79 means even more.

    Last edited by copernicum on Sun Oct 14, 2012 10:23 am

    225 posts | registered
  6. Personally, I prefer the model that TechDirt uses. They have a simple set of options, "insightful", "funny", and "report". There is no visible tally of what each comment has, but when a threshold is met, it will be marked accordingly with an icon or collapsed. There's no down vote, only a report button for trollish behavior. I think it's fair because it doesn't allow anyone to dog pile comments they don't like simply because they are unpopular. It does however, force readers to measure the merit of each comment independently without outside influence like group-think.
    565 posts | registered
  7. Caedus wrote:
    But it would be difficult for Ars (or anyone) to do things worse than Gawker's comment system. That abomination was evidently designed by a coked-up hobo they pulled off the street and paid with whiskey.


    I was forced away from Gawker with all the bad changes they made. LH posted a few of my articles which are still popular over a year later. Sadly, as Gawker added more and more Javascript with 3rd, 4th, and 5th party trackers, I felt that it wasn't worth giving up what little privacy was left just to read their articles. Forget about commenting. I haven't seen any comments in months over there due to all the embedded, embedded, embedded, javascript required. Please don't do the same over here.

    This change at Ars is an interesting experiment. I haven't seen any of the calls to "go back to the way it was" like over at Gawker. That's a major success.

    I would like to commend Ars. No javascript is required to read or comment here.
    For that, I love you guys. The smart, and thoughtful articles are great too.
    273 posts | registered
  8. Dawnrazor wrote:
    Yes, if they can uncollapse a comment or offset the voting in any way then they can give protection to a poster or a viewpoint. Which defeats the point of having a voting system.


    A system which protects the opinions of the minority against the silencing power of the majority is considered a good thing, generally. It's sort of one of the principles under which America and most modern democracies are founded. The tyranny of the majority is something that people must be protected from in modern society.

    If, for example, your opinion was sincere, but unpopular, would you rather have a chance to speak your mind, or be silenced? I'd rather protect against the silencing of minority opinions than worry about mods gaming the system.

    For example, I heavily disagree with you. But you are expressing your opinion candidly, and are not being rude in the process. We disagree, but are not trolling each other. I wouldn't downvote your comment-- I have no desire to silence you. We disagree, but I value the discussion.

    If everyone here downvoted your comment, what would be gained? Nothing.
    6723 posts | registered
  9. Torrijos wrote:
    The amount of vote necessary to collapse a comment should be function of the views of a comment page on which a comment is located.

    On very large comment threads people tend to look at a couple of the first pages of comments then jump to the last one to comment too.
    I imagine it's pretty rare that people read all the comments pages, so by dynamically reducing (after a while to give it time) the number of down votes needed to collapse a post in the central part of the thread, you could automatically reduce a lot of page to only show the best interventions.

    I'd upvote this except the arrows have, yet again, gone missing.

    And piggyback my idea for threaded comments. Because the first couple of posts garner an excessive number of responses due to exactly this mechanism.
    2935 posts | registered
  10. doppio wrote:
    Interesting analysis. I liked Ars better when it didn't have popularity contests.


    Precisely my thought. I prefer judging the merit of posts myself, not through "poll the audience". Ideally without any red/blue/small/large subconscious biases when I read them.

    Anyway, as long as comments are not hidden (only collapsed) and not reordered, all can be worked around. I simply try to disregard the numbers and uncollapse the posts as I go. It would be helpful if there were user preferences options to turn auto-collapsing off and suppress vote count displays.


    ColinABQ wrote:
    So, perhaps you need to reconsider what value you should really expect from this system and what resources you're willing to apply to it in the long term. A more robust and accessible "report this post/spam hammer/OMG, ZOMBIES!" system might suffice, and allow you to stop worrying quite so much about protecting the "sincere but unpopular" guy.


    Nailed on the head. I use the voting system like this: DOWN = This is a troll, UP = This was unfairly marked as troll. If trolling is really the main concern, the arrow icons should be changed to indicate Troll/No troll, instead of Good/Bad/Positive/Negative/Agree/Disagree/Whatever...

    I would also prefer a more gradual ignore post system that would only block my repeated offenders. So far I have not used it because I do not trust myself with a one-strike policy (how would I ever come to review past decisions if I never see their posts again?). Something like a 3-post threshold in a sliding few-month window would be more useful.
    479 posts | registered
  11. copernicum wrote:
    Let's be honest. If -45 means anything about the collective opinion of your readers, +79 means even more.

    Let's be *truly* honest. None of the upvotes and downvotes actually mean anything because (1) voting on the internet is not actually reliable -- everybody knows that, right? (2) the largest mob in any group of readers will always be the lowest common denominators -- it's not like the people with intelligence and/or good judgement are going to outnumber other people, rather they will be outnumbered every time -- everybody knows that too, right? (3) even when people do have intelligence and good judgement, they don't really take seriously clicks they make on the interenet so most of them probably will not care about exercising their good judgement -- and as evidence I cite for you drunk guy who tries to moderate towards zero. Some smart people just like to game the system.

    With all of the above factors, agonising over getting the voting system "right" is a quixotic fool's quest. Just let it hang the way it hangs. It's not perfect and it ain't ever gonna be. Genuine on-topic dissenting opinions will be occasionally collapsed: as long as they are not deleted I don't see the huge injustice. Heck, my last post in this thread is substantive and on-topic but immediately got four downvotes. Don't care. I fully expect people to vote with their emotions and if you don't, your expectations of this system are clearly not realistic.
    104 posts | registered
  12. kot_matroskin wrote:
    +1 for the -x/+y


    I'd like all three in the format x-y= z. This would require little space, and is a familiar intuitive format that could be easily scanned.

    Most would scan the ' z' numbers, but could also quickly absorb the components when needed.
    367 posts | registered
  13. Dawnrazor wrote:


    Yes, if they can uncollapse a comment or offset the voting in any way then they can give protection to a poster or a viewpoint. Which defeats the point of having a voting system.


    I disagree with this. I mean, if you believe that the point of a voting system is to absolutely follow the will of the majority, than you are correct...but I don't really see that as the only point of a voting system.

    It seems perfectly reasonable to me that the voting system works to identify and quickly shut down potentially nonconstructive posts, subject to later review by a mod who can reinstate it. Not that this is a great analogy, but it's sort of like how giving a court the power to overturn unconstitutional laws passed by a majority doesn't defeat the point of having a democratic political system.

    I think that the voting system should work like this - 20 downvotes (or whatever) - collapse a post and also notify a mod to review the post. This takes some of the pressure off the mods but also gets troll posts collapsed quickly.

    Of course, for this to work, most people need to treat the voting as relating to the productiveness of a post, and not their agreement.
    1008 posts | registered
  14. I will admit that since the system started I've not really posted.(that I recall) I'd been one of the lurker/readers for a few years and finally got around to registering, and then posting a bit this year and was growing more comfortable posting. Once this system kicked in, I took a step back from posting, it is a bit intimidating to be sure. So I'm back to more of a lurker mode, read and nod or shake my head at times as I read articles but baring this post, I don't think I'll be posting often.
    280 posts | registered
  15. greevar wrote:
    Personally, I prefer the model that TechDirt uses. They have a simple set of options, "insightful", "funny", and "report". There is no visible tally of what each comment has, but when a threshold is met, it will be marked accordingly with an icon or collapsed. There's no down vote, only a report button for trollish behavior. I think it's fair because it doesn't allow anyone to dog pile comments they don't like simply because they are unpopular. It does however, force readers to measure the merit of each comment independently without outside influence like group-think.

    Exactly. Ken explicitly mentioned upvoting was also meant to lower the amounts of "this++" comments. It's only logical then, that downvoting is used for "I don't agree." The current voting system is too ambiguous.

    So we need three links, "I agree", "I don't agree" and "Report low quality". And maybe an "Insightful" one.
    1363 posts | registered
  16. coldandtired wrote:
    Now that the user favourite/hidden feature is there I would prefer to have the score hidden completely to discourage dogpiling or simply voting with the crowd.


    I may just be reiterating since I've only read the first comment, but that's exactly what I've been thinking. It's how another site did their voting, allow it but hide the numbers.

    You still have all the benefits of up/downvoting at their vote thresholds, but by not letting the crowd see the current status we'll make a more objective decision.
    75 posts | registered
  17. In the announcement post I said I isn't care for voting but it didn't bother me. Now it bothers me. Not from a feature perspective, if it's working for Ars and readers, great, but I'm finding the comment display distracting to read unlike before. It's an issue of whitepace. In the normal left-to-right reading pattern the space the voting display occupies used to be blank creating an easy whitespace separater between comments. This small display change really makes he comments section more jumbled.

    I know technically it wouldn't take much to implement so I'd like to request an option to "hide community voting" that if activated wold simply not render the voting buttons or vote count block. I've been a reader long enough to know how to skim and focus on my own, and have never had a problem finding interesting comments or just enjoying the whole rambling discourse.

    I love Ars commenting: no heinous reply threads whe everyone replies to the first comment to stay on the first page, loading the comments in the first place is optional, and generally a more interesting participant than a lot of tech sites. So I was happy where things were, a simple option to continue that mystique, please.
    105 posts | registered
  18. doppio wrote:
    Interesting analysis. I liked Ars better when it didn't have popularity contests.

    Much too often a victim of down-voting would be the last category from the article, especially in highly controversial threads. I've seen purely factual statements made on topic get down-voted with no explanation whatsoever.

    "The truth is heavy, therefore few care to carry it".

    A comment can be factual and still contribute nothing of value to a thread.

    If you think of up votes as meaning "worth the time it takes to read it" (rather than "I agree") and down votes as "a waste of a post" (instead of "I disagree") then perhaps the votes you see start to make more sense.

    This is the distinction between being a right, and being relevant.
    2701 posts | registered
  19. drfisheye wrote:
    So we need three links, "I agree", "I don't agree" and "Report low quality". And maybe an "Insightful" one.

    Upvote, downvote, and killvote. Only killvotes actually contribute to the collapsing threshold.
    104 posts | registered
  20. coldandtired wrote:
    To the list in the article I would add my current least-favourite type of user - the 'preemptively-call-everyone-trolls' guy.

    The 'I'm posting this before all the x trolls get here...'

    To this I would also like to add : the person that announces "First!!" in first reply to a story.

    Of course somebody must always be the the first poster, but it's not a massive achievement to be celebrated. It's just lucky timing.
    418 posts | registered
  21. yesnomaybe wrote:
    There's a few ways that could be done, but I favour making downvoting just a little bit harder. How about a two step process; an alert box saying "are you sure? You shouldn't downvote purely because you disagree. OK/cancel." or a dropdown menu where you select why it has been downvoted (troll, no TV, etc, other) - it would be interesting to see if all downvoters selected the same reason.
    I agree, but for a different reason: there needs to be explanation of what voting is for. I created this account an hour or so ago, and I've read "Posting Guidelines" and "Help with post formatting", but neither explained voting, and I don't see what else I should click on to find out.

    The model where up/down votes are used to register "I agree/disagree", to prevent the latter clogging the forum, is entirely reasonable. It's not the model used here, but that's not obvious to a newcomer (and I'd been lurking for years). I really had no idea that downvoting could lead to a post being collapsed. I don't recall even seeing a collapsed post. There was probably an article where the new system was introduced, but I missed it.
    16 posts | registered
  22. The insight that the "unpopular but sincere opinion" guy gives is that downvoting has 2 meanings.

    * Bad comment - doesn't belong here

    and

    * I disagree with this

    Downvoting and discouraging contrarian points of view is a disservice to the discussion. Contrarians can enhance arguments and provide a cure to echo chamber effects. Contrarians are the antidote to group think.

    Further, contrarians can't participate in reputation systems. A low or negative reputation is considered 'trollish' not 'contrarianish'.

    If voting were Agree/Disagree (instead of Up/Down) and default comment threads showed both columns side-by-side then perhaps the contrarian points of view wouldn't be so discouraged. But that won't solve the reputation problem.

    Flagging spam is also a better community solution to downvoting spam. Perhaps flagging contrarians could help the discussion too. In that case, the contrarian flag becomes a badge of honor instead of shame.
    2 posts | registered
  23. pitmonster wrote:
    coldandtired wrote:
    To the list in the article I would add my current least-favourite type of user - the 'preemptively-call-everyone-trolls' guy.

    The 'I'm posting this before all the x trolls get here...'

    To this I would also like to add : the person that announces "First!!" in first reply to a story.

    Of course somebody must always be the the first poster, but it's not a massive achievement to be celebrated. It's just lucky timing.


    What about the veteran poster who does this 3 pages into a story and a few hours after it has been posted (and is literally right above your post)?

    Yes, I'm looking at you dlux.

    Last edited by Sephoroth on Sun Oct 14, 2012 10:49 am

    454 posts | registered
  24. After making my post, I then saw the one directly above.
    How ironic (and very amusing!)

    dlux, you are a genius of comic timing!!
    418 posts | registered
  25. Things that stand out to me:

    1. Only 4% of all readers have accounts. The numbers would seem to say that Kens attention might better be spent on the 96%...and yet here he is among us.

    2. Ken is one opinionated guy. I've read somewhere that you don't make it as an editor in today's media world if you aren't.

    3. Whether they express them or not, people still hold the same opinion of your post. All the system does is make obvious what they are. I think that sunlight is good for the community. Users who really want their post to be seen will adjust accordingly.
    518 posts | registered
  26. swholliday wrote:
    On the other hand, if voting can play a role in mitigating the atrocity that was the reader comments on the "Ars staffers exposed: our home office setups" article, I'm willing to try it. I thoroughly enjoyed that article, and what happened in the comments was just plain sad.

    The response to that article was definitely a data point in our dedication to fixing this problem. It's a credit to our readers that people were willing to keep wading through the crap to post their own setups and share with us, it's just a shame the wading was hip deep. I definitely appreciate everyone who kept it positive and contributed photos and stories.
    21355 posts | registered
  27. Ostracus wrote:
    I'm sure everyone has noticed by now one can vote on staff posts. Can they be made to collapse and more importantly would that be a message the powers that be would live with?

    Wait, what? Sure you can. I just logged into my test account (no special admin powers, no subscriber features, basic account) to verify even. Was able to vote on one of Ken's posts no problem. We haven't shut down voting on staff posts.
    21355 posts | registered
  28. DeChicago wrote:
    2. Ken is one opinionated guy. I've read somewhere that you don't make it as an editor in today's media world if you aren't.

    In any day's media, editors are basically exercisers of opinion. The best are the ones who accept contrary opinions and when choosing to answer, do so with grace and a modicum of self-deprecation.
    104 posts | registered
  29. People are people. This isn't debate club. Can't expect everyone to behave. Ignore trolls --> they stop trolling-- unless they're genuinely abrasive personalities, and what can you do about that?

    Also, the 'unpopular but sincere opinion' guy discussion points to another type: the 'I'll accuse you of trolling because I disagree with your point of view' guy.
    77 posts | registered
  30. Aurich wrote:
    I just logged into my test account...Was able to vote on one of Ken's posts no problem.




    TOS bans duplicate accounts, sir. Please, turn yourself in. :)
    518 posts | registered
  31. I will be the one who tells the harsh truth but with all the points system you made a pissing contest.

    Instead, you could have made a system, which supports communication between posters. A simple "Notify me when a reply is posted" is simply not enough.

    But, no, you had to follow in the steps of Engadget and make a pissing contest. :/
    790 posts | registered
  32. Dawnrazor wrote:
    Then the results would be a reflection of what the mods thought, not what the users thought. If, to use your example, Libertarian comments are horribly unpopular/unwelcome here then shouldn't the votes reflect that?


    I know many people equate "unpopular but valid opinions" with "trolling," but if you notice, Ken says he's trying NOT to get those guys downvoted.

    It'd be an uphill battle, though, as the equating of the two (trolls and unpopular opinion) happens everywhere.
    11927 posts | registered
  33. Aurich wrote:
    The response to that article was definitely a data point in our dedication to fixing this problem. It's a credit to our readers that people were willing to keep wading through the crap to post their own setups and share with us, it's just a shame the wading was hip deep. I definitely appreciate everyone who kept it positive and contributed photos and stories.


    Well it's a testament to the job that you guys do, as well. Staying open-minded about alternatives, and inviting participation and feedback is something that sets Ars apart.

    I recall a series of posts on the story regarding gay marriage in comic books. There was a heated discussion regarding it, one in which you were involved. Despite a vast, vast difference of opinion, there was an active discussion regarding gay marriage that may not have resulted if the dissenting viewpoints were hidden. There was no such system at the time, and a lengthy discussion of rights, constitutional law, and morality ensued, without anyone being silenced.

    That's the danger of this system. I think my viewpoints in that thread were more popular here. But the dissenting views were, by and large, equally worthy of being seen and discussed. That's why I like the idea of mods being able to "save" a post. Because the authors and staff genuinely seem interested in fostering discussion, and don't attempt to silence dissent, but rather to engage with people. The idea of unpopular opinions being hidden is troubling to me for that exact reason. I truly believe, however, that Ars staff is responsible enough to be able to identify troll from dissent, and recue accordingly. I believe the same is true of many of the more active participants.

    It's refreshing. I'm certain no website actively wishes to avoid user interaction, but Ars, to me, has always seemed a cut above the norm when dealing with this. I truly love the fact that the Ars staff is opinionated and human, but that they don't shut down the people who disagree with them. Thankfully, as Ken pointed out, there have not been a plethora of inappropriate flagging issues, but my feedback is simply that it is a concern of mine.

    Plus, you know...Ars has a history of grabbing members of the community for mod and writing positions. It's a policy that I think is amazingly awesome. An "Arbiter" tag would, I think be a good reward for the best of the best commenters. and for the record, no, I'm not one of these people. I'm opinionated and snarky. I do my best to be civil, but I'm not of the caliber I'd demand for an arbiter. But...there are people who I notice who are worthy of that, and I'd love to seem them rewarded for their contributions to the community.
    6723 posts | registered
  34. rex86 wrote:
    I will be the one who tells the harsh truth but with all the points system you made a pissing contest.

    Instead, you could have made a system, which supports communication between posters. A simple "Notify me when a reply is posted" is simply not enough.

    But, no, you had to follow in the steps of Engadget and make a pissing contest. :/

    Are you claiming that Ars forums *weren't* a pissing contest, previously? Hmm....

    Personally, I am kind of thankful for a few downvotes because at least I know not everyone in the world has put me on ignore yet. Downvotes are readers.
    104 posts | registered
  35. Ken Fisher wrote:
    These are, of course, classic, substance-free trolling posts. Personal attacks are not permitted at Ars, and when personal attacks morph into wholesale attacks on huge groups of people, they are even less tolerable. Intelligent discussion does not arise from them, because there's nothing of intelligence in them in the first place. And nota bene to the readers who think there is intelligence in them: find another site to read. Better yet, find a time machine and go back to the mid-90s when it was at least fashionable to troll usenet with this kind of stuff.


    I'll probably get downvoted or banned for this, but seriously: you just railed against ad hominem in the first half of the paragraph, and then engaged in it in the second half. You even told them to get off your lawn.

    Don't you think, perhaps, that the editorial and writing style at ARS probably has something to do with how people respond to the articles? If you attack people in the article, don't you think it's pretty predictable that they will try to defend themselves in the comments?

    I guess the point I'm trying to get across is this: I expect a site like apple insider to have digs at android in their articles, or vice versa at phandroid, (to use the smartphone wars as an example, there are many other groups that this is true of here) but i would expect a site like this to have more objectivity from their authors, even if that author is assigned to cover one camp or the other.
    1265 posts | registered
  36. The biggest thing I worry about with this system is that it runs the risk of turning Ars into Reddit. I'm not trying to hate on Reddit; but it is what it is and the voting system in the comments tends to encourage (for lack of a better word) a circlejerk around the comments that are higher up on the page. On Ars, it doesn't really solve the "first post" problem; but the alternative of sorting posts by ranking is even worse because it just ends up upvoting the highest ranked comments.

    What I have noticed is that the first post of every article almost always gets upvoted far more than any other post. Very often it's just the most obvious reply. I just worry that a voting system in any form is likely to encourage "karma whoring" (even without a long-term karma tracking system) and damage the level of discourse in the comments.

    The most obvious solution to me is to just remove the display of the voting totals. It's nice to see how well received your comments are, but I think it encourages the type of behavior in comments that you're trying to get rid of. I'd like to think that voting here would be more well-thought out than other sites, but never trust people in large numbers.
    1676 posts | registered
  37. reaperhulk wrote:
    -162? We can do better guys! I want to see this post hit -200! Pretend it's filled with thinly veiled political ranting. Also, I kicked your dog and my grammar is atrocious.


    Also, you root for the "other" OS, you have an imaginary degree that entitles you to consider your opinion as superior, you were an innocent victim of downvoting at least once, and your post contains assorted insults to the writer / site / other commenters. Sheesh, with that little effort, you'll never reach -200. Show some spirit, mate. (I still downvoted you to show willing ;) )

    Last edited by TheKlayman on Sun Oct 14, 2012 11:38 am

    6 posts | registered
  38. You guys should take notice of http://tweakers.net/
    It's the biggest and busiest Dutch tech blog out there. They use a similar downvoting system like Ars with collapsable topics etc. but what I like about their system: When a topic gets upvoted a lot, it turns green. This makes it extremely handy to do a quick scan of the comments. You could also consider adding a filter that ranks on comment rating of course.
    3 posts | registered

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