Thumbs up / Thumbs down already being abused

Started Oct 6, 2012 | Discussions thread
Detail Man
Detail Man Forum Pro • Posts: 16,688
We just need a "Worth Reading" flag - Does not work when different people think differently ...

sigala1 wrote:

Jeff Charles wrote:

In a long thread, it would be useful to know which posts contain useful information or insights. A flag that let's people recommend those posts would be useful. I see no value in the Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down system, especially the Thumbs Down, because we don't know the reason for the rating.

Lot's of thumbs down usually means the post is worth reading because it contains something contrarian.

For example, write on the Micro Four Thirds forum that you don't like a particular Olympus lens, and you will get lots of thumbs down because you are dissing the brand. The more detailed and specific your complaints, the more thumbs down you will get.

I think that you make a valid point. Rather than serve as an indicator of any particular supposed "value of reading" of a thread (which of course, is in no way any sort of universal judgment, and remains an entirely individual perception, anyway), down-votes appear (on the M43 Forum) to be used as a near effortless "negative missive" - to indicate some personal disagreement with any statements or assertions made in the thread's original post, or as some kind of attempted denigration of the posting user themself (made by people silly enough to ascribe meaning to such).

Now, I do recall you disagreeing with certain statements that I have made in some of my posts. Where it was once (and I think still is) important for repliers to coherently communicate (in words) the nature and bases of their disagreement, the "button-pushing" option reduces the level of discourse to anonymous binary grunting, itself devoid of valuable content or coherent substance.

The ultimate (and rather ironic) absurdity surrounding (in particular) the "binary" down-voting is that it very, very likely serves far more as an attractor (as opposed to a detractor) to potential readers.

Whereas in the past a reader had to specifically notice the rate of increase in number of posts on a thread to obtain some indication that some controversy of some sort was evolving, now the highly visible tallying of "down-votes" provides a far more reliable indicator of where controversies exist ...

If people were somehow all, and always, in complete agreement with each other, language and conversations themselves would be far less interesting, or even necessary. The very form and purpose of a "forum" implies the exchange of differing ideas - particularly the case where it comes to discussions surrounding technical subjects and technical machinery (hardware, software, etc.).

While some of seemingly limited cognitive capacity push buttons wildly, fantasizing about "social networking exclusionary rituals", the fact that they are, by doing so, in fact, calling far, far greater attention to that which they might hope to "bury" is but a cosmic joke on the cognitively infirmed, adding fuel to the very fires which this "social networking" function was intended to mitigate...

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