Poll: The Escapist Forums Suggestion: The Option to Award Posts

[Phlakes]

There are two big problems, especially if the score changes the order of posts- people awarding posts they agree with rather than posts that are good, and people fishing for awards/likes/whatever, just like you see on Reddit, Facebook, and Youtube.

It's a good idea in theory but it would never work in practice, since it depends on people to act rationally and maturely. No offense.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

You mean the thing that is used on sites like YouTube, imgur, and Digg/Reddit, that ultimately would degrade the quality of most content for the sake of begging and lying to get the most imaginary points for a feeling of self-satisfaction? The one that pushes unpopular comments down instead of letting all opinions be heard? The one that encourages having content that's mindless and takes a second to read or understand instead of more in depth ones?

Sounds great.

 

[Nazulu]

I can understand where you're getting at, but I really think the voting system is a flawed system no matter what because most users will just vote for the one they agree with over a post that actually is detailed and well thought out.

I believe the sites perfect the way it is. Those who do make good posts are usually replied to more often and are taken more seriously. That's it, the better posts you make the more you stand out. No, I'm wrong. It's not perfect. It's kind of like the pop music scene how I see some posters become more popular, but still more effective.

 

[Easton Dark]

Can I turn it off?

Youtubers have the option of disabling up (and down?) voting on their videos, Totalbiscuit does this in at least a few of his, if not all, I'm not really sure.

If there was an option to disable it, fine, but I don't want to see how many people were too lazy to write a response themselves or to see e-peens be sucked by the masses.

 

[You Can't Take the Sky From Me]

No thank you. One of the greatest things about The Escapist is that all opinions are given equal weight and value, assuming of course they do not violate the forum terms. I don't think that adding an awards system would add anything to that, and it could take away from it, with people trying too hard to get these awards.

 

[robotam]

Honestly, just having a little like button, probably wouldn't change things massively. As long as there isn't a down vote option or any "Order by popularity" options, it would most likely be fine.

But (and this is a big but*), there really isn't any need. There is nothing stopping one from sending a poster a private message, saying that you thought that they made a good point.

*lolsers i said "big but". fumbs up plz.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

I'm not a big fan of these kinds of systems. Is it not enough to get quoted a whole bunch?

Like this?

BTW, what is the source of your avatar?

All of my avatars depicting the black cat Mao are from Darker than Black. Go watch it now!

I heard it had a terrible ending, is that true? I'd hate to really get into a series and then get Mass Effected.

OT: While I do think it would be great for good posts to have some way of being more visable, you then perpetuate the e-peen problem and it stops being about content and about trying to gather upvotes, with dissenting opinions basically being censored. It happens on reddit and youtube and it sure as hell will happen here. It's pretty funny actually, quite often on Youtube vids i'll see the UPLOADER have comments marked as spam because s/he has said something someone doesn't like.. it's ridiculous.

 

[Joccaren]

With the moderation on these forums it could work, and it'd make my job of reading these forums easier - skip over all the unnecessary hate and bile in a lot of threads, and just read the arguments that are well reasoned and fair. No downvoting system, that's what reporting posts is for and its up to the mods to decide whether or not its acceptable.

A lot of people in this thread seem to be taking it from the point of view of people looking for upvotes and such. I'll ask you a question:
If the mod team punishes posts with low content, and that say "Extra words to avoid mod wrath", do you not think that reporting the posts that are there just to get upvotes, and not contribute to the conversation, would get warned too?
Mods don't play favourites with who is banned/warned/suspended or W/E. No amount of upvotes will save you from mod wrath - as shown by Vault101, and a thousand other notable users most people liked who have disappeared over the last couple of years.

Honestly, if you think the system will be abused it really says something for what you think about the community here, and what's being said isn't good.

 

[Lionsfan]

Aaaaand I see my prediction has come true. Seriously, guys, like buttons don't do anything negative. At least not unless they have an accompanying "dislike" button. It's just an alternative to quoting someone and writing "this," one that has the benefit of virtually eliminating a very common form of low content post without needing a rule to enforce it.

It is rather annoying to see the knee jerk reactions from a lot of posters here.

Nobody ever said anything about "hiding posts", or these rewards actually meaning anything, it's just way to see where the site falls on things.

And I don't buy the "would stop discussion", if there's anything we've learned from the endless threads about sexism/racism/circumsisionism/feminism etc, it's that people have to have their opinions heard

 

[Fappy]

I'm not a big fan of these kinds of systems. Is it not enough to get quoted a whole bunch?

Like this?

BTW, what is the source of your avatar?

All of my avatars depicting the black cat Mao are from Darker than Black. Go watch it now!

I heard it had a terrible ending, is that true? I'd hate to really get into a series and then get Mass Effected.

OT: While I do think it would be great for good posts to have some way of being more visable, you then perpetuate the e-peen problem and it stops being about content and about trying to gather upvotes, with dissenting opinions basically being censored. It happens on reddit and youtube and it sure as hell will happen here. It's pretty funny actually, quite often on Youtube vids i'll see the UPLOADER have comments marked as spam because s/he has said something someone doesn't like.. it's ridiculous.

Season 1 has an okay ending. Nothing spectacular, but nothing that devalues the series as a whole. The ending to the 2nd season though... Season 1 stands incredibly well on its own, so don't even bother with its successor.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

You mean something like Spacebattles with every post having a little bar stating XXXX likes this?

It's a good idea in theory but it would never work in practice, since it depends on people to act rationally and maturely. No offense.

There's your answer!

EDIT: It will also hinder discussion even more than the low content rule, why make a well thought out post when you can just like?

EDIT X2: It'll also make the news articles and new threads into a feeding frenzy's with people desperately trying to get the first posts so that they get more likes.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Cause it worked out so well on Youtube.

No, I joke, I actually like the idea.
They could set it up so that if a user gets a certain number of liked posts their forum punishment-o-meeter will go down.

Or they could just get rid of the stupid forum punishment-o-meeter.
I love every mod, they are exemplary human specimens

 

[Pebkio]

...because it's never used like that. People would be looking for the big numbers only. And only the first few posts would see the most action. And stuff beyond the first page would hardly get a looking. And humorous posts would get more praise than well thought-out posts. And yes, friends would like friends more often than not friends.

That isn't why it'd be bad though. That just makes it pointless. What makes it bad is that it's a NEW FEATURE. And new features always come with the initial HORRIBLE ICKY PAIN of... CODING ISSUES (oh noes!). And I don't want to suffer though that initial horrible icky pain for something that is pointless.

 

[Arakasi]

We already have similar awards for good thread-making (through badges), so I don't see why something similar couldn't be applied to posts, so long as there could be no negativity involved.

But then again, maybe there is no way to do that, because if you are in an argument with someone, and they get like 20 likes while you get none, it isn't exactly encouraging you to continue the discussion.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

We've had a general "do not want" to upvoting/liking/awarding posts several times. I am still against it.

 

[thesilentman]

Aaaaand I see my prediction has come true. Seriously, guys, like buttons don't do anything negative. At least not unless they have an accompanying "dislike" button. It's just an alternative to quoting someone and writing "this," one that has the benefit of virtually eliminating a very common form of low content post without needing a rule to enforce it.

It is rather annoying to see the knee jerk reactions from a lot of posters here.

Nobody ever said anything about "hiding posts", or these rewards actually meaning anything, it's just way to see where the site falls on things.

And I don't buy the "would stop discussion", if there's anything we've learned from the endless threads about sexism/racism/circumsisionism/feminism etc, it's that people have to have their opinions heard

Nah, he means that people would be discouraged to put their own thoughts down. Not everyone thinks the same way.

I'm not a big fan of these kinds of systems. Is it not enough to get quoted a whole bunch?

Like this?

BTW, what is the source of your avatar?

All of my avatars depicting the black cat Mao are from Darker than Black. Go watch it now!

I heard it had a terrible ending, is that true? I'd hate to really get into a series and then get Mass Effected.

OT: While I do think it would be great for good posts to have some way of being more visable, you then perpetuate the e-peen problem and it stops being about content and about trying to gather upvotes, with dissenting opinions basically being censored. It happens on reddit and youtube and it sure as hell will happen here. It's pretty funny actually, quite often on Youtube vids i'll see the UPLOADER have comments marked as spam because s/he has said something someone doesn't like.. it's ridiculous.

Season 1 has an okay ending. Nothing spectacular, but nothing that devalues the series as a whole. The ending to the 2nd season though... Season 1 stands incredibly well on its own, so don't even bother with its successor.

The ending wasn't my problem with the series. It was fucking Suo. We already have an established protagonist, but noooo, we'll swap him out for some chick that isn't even as remotely interesting and borderline Mary Sue!

News flash! thesilentman HATES Suo!

 

[Casual Shinji]

Not to mention all the crap you could get if you hold an unpopular opinion :/

As opposed to now? How would a "like" button change the amount of crap you took for stating an unpopular opinion?

Assuming it worked by giving awards where you had "top comments" or "lowest/worst comments" then it'd terrible. It wouldn't really change anything, but it'd be like sanctioning pointing and laughing at anyone who holds a different viewpoint rather than discussing it. It wouldn't be a huge deal in practice, but now a days people at least have to discuss it.

Erm..."like button" as in how Facebook does it - you don't have "dislike" or "downvote" or whatever. So you won't really have "worst comments" but...you'd have comments and better comments, though.

If you implement a Like/Award system it will automatically drive a lot of posters into begging, I'm afraid. Not so much outright "please like this post", though these might also pop up occasianally, but people posting from a sense of wanting to be liked/awarded rather than posting because this is what they generally want to say.

The fact that we don't have such a system means we have to put into words why we like someone's post instead of clicking an icon next to it. Afterall, it's in our nature to make it easy on ourselves. And while you could argue that people can quote someone saying "This" to the same effect, that usually gets moderated pretty well. Add to that a Like/Award system and I think the moderators would get fucking swamped.

 

[4RM3D]

It seems most people are against the idea. I really thought it could work, oh well...

All of my avatars depicting the black cat Mao are from Darker than Black. Go watch it now!

I did watch the series, but I never completed it. It it one of those few series that got a lot of praise, but I just couldn't get into. Same goes for Mushishi.

 

[Lionsfan]

Aaaaand I see my prediction has come true. Seriously, guys, like buttons don't do anything negative. At least not unless they have an accompanying "dislike" button. It's just an alternative to quoting someone and writing "this," one that has the benefit of virtually eliminating a very common form of low content post without needing a rule to enforce it.

It is rather annoying to see the knee jerk reactions from a lot of posters here.

Nobody ever said anything about "hiding posts", or these rewards actually meaning anything, it's just way to see where the site falls on things.

And I don't buy the "would stop discussion", if there's anything we've learned from the endless threads about sexism/racism/circumsisionism/feminism etc, it's that people have to have their opinions heard

Nah, he means that people would be discouraged to put their own thoughts down. Not everyone thinks the same way.

I disagree wholeheartedly. If there's one thing we can learn from all the repeat threads about circumcision/feminism/sexism/elitism/gun control/Mass Effect 3 ending/EA/etc. It's that a lot of people on this site are more than willing to share their opinions, no matter what