On hiding the down-voted posts... and everything below
After two months of experimentation, I can give my humble opinion on the voting system for this forum.
I like that a user can now agree in a click rather than in a useless post (just stating that she agrees). The coloring system is nice. It make apparent what the majority agrees/disagrees with (knowing both the number of up-votes and the number of down-votes would be even better).
I *strongly* dislike the hiding system. It somehow deters users from replying with a constructive argumentation because that argumentation can eventually be hidden (being under a message that many users dislike). That is why I have never down-voted anything (I sometimes up-vote).
In fact, I recently up-voted a post I disagree with because I spend an hour or so replying to it in a constructive way and then discovered that almost nobody would read my text: while I was writing it, three users down-voted the post I was replying to. It turns out that even -2 still is enough for the post (and everything below) to be hidden. I am talking about that post: https://trisquel.info/fr/forum/what-free-software-entusiastas-think-about-piracy-digital-media#comment-63471
I may be exaggerating when I write that "almost nobody" reads what is below a down-voted post. After all, my post (in the thread I mentioned) received +2. But I am pretty sure users do not feel like replying to those hidden posts. That is, after all, the whole point of the hiding system.
In fact, the whole thread tends to stop when any message, in direct response to the original post, is hidden. Indeed, the text box to answer the original post becomes hidden as well and using it means your post will be directly hidden (no matter how relevant). That is why, here, I create a new thread rather than replying to https://trisquel.info/fr/forum/so-now-we-ban-unpopular-posts !
I suggest you to use the voting system on this very post:
- Please, up-vote this post if you would prefer if the forum would never hide anything;
- Please, down-vote this post if you prefer the hiding system in place.
I am talking about that post: https://trisquel.info/fr/forum/what-free-software-entusiastas-think-about-piracy-digital-media#comment-63471
I now discover that you cannot even link to posts that were hidden (because they were down-voted or because they were responses to such posts)...
I am a translator!
I always read your text :)
Don't like the voting system and will never get tired repeating it. Never downvoted or upvoted a single post on this forum or any forum in general. I prefer words especially when I have to express simpathy or disagreement which are very important human feelings and require human words. not numbers or - +
I ignore the voting stuff and don't use it. never will.
But if you like it - well go ahead! I respect your (all of you not just magicb) opinion.
cheers
Me too; I prefer posting to voting, and I don't mind if others want to vote.
We'll lose more from stifling discussion than we'll gain from hiding mean posts
I'm not personally affected by this as I disable JavaScript, but I think the JavaScript code that causes low-voted posts to get hidden should just be removed. Just have the red banner and leave it at that.
The colouring is great, and helps excellent posts shine, etc.
The voting also helps show what people agree with, but the hiding is, in my opinion, bad, and kind of annoying.
"It make apparent what the majority agrees/disagrees with"
No, it definitly doesn't. It's like ... somebody in town beat up an immigrant and now the whole town is anti-immigrant?
How do you come to the conclusion that two or three votes represent the majority?
It's mainly people with the *strongest opinions* on the topic who vote.
I would prefer a voting system that doesn't show the amount of upvotes unless a certain threshold - for instance, 5 or 6 votes - is reached.
Then this vote could get highlighted in green.
I don't think this down voting thing should exist at all.
You post something reasonable and some jerk gives you a -1.
It doesn't represent anything, it's just a way for trolls to spit in your face.
//
I just want to add that i agree on one point:
I think _a lot_ of up votes can to some extent represent the majority and are clearly beneficial.
And a few upvotes can show that at least some people support you, which is actually not a bad thing to know.
How do you come to the conclusion that two or three votes represent the majority?
Well, its does not necessarily represent the majority but I tend to believe it usually does (knowing the community, reading the replies, etc.).
I would prefer a voting system that doesn't show the amount of upvotes unless a certain threshold - for instance, 5 or 6 votes - is reached.
Like I wrote: I would prefer both the number of up-votes and the number of down-votes. In this way, you can see the difference between 3-0 (only three people strongly agree or disagree) and 13-10 (a polemical topic that strongly divides the community).
Anyway, this thread is about hiding. Thresholds can be discussed later. Until now, the result is +6 against hiding. It looks like it is closer to 6-0 than to 16-10 because no reply defends hidings (but I cannot be sure; maybe david or quidam himself can tell).
+1
The voting system is terrible. Get rid of it.
I am a translator!
plus eleven
I agree! Please remove it. Thanks
Ill vote to get rid of the vote system.
+13 after a day and no defense for the hiding system in the replies (so probably close to 13-0). I guess we should wait one or two more days (to get more votes). Assuming the difference clearly remains positive, we would then point this thread out to quidam and see if he agrees to disable hiding.
I'm skeptical that the voting is a good idea at all in the long run, hiding or none. I think it could be too easy to conflate upvoted posts as being endorsed by the Trisquel project - a casual observer may just assume the views of the community reflect those of the Trisquel project.
Right now this isn't an issue because the community aligns pretty well with Trisquel, but it's not hard (for me, anyway) to imagine a situation where this changes - the project gains steam with the general population (as opposed to mostly just those who really care about freedom), and we could be seeing heavy criticisms of free software upovoted en masse, next to very little support for Trisquel's honest philosophy. I'm sure if it got that far, the rating system would get removed, but removing it specifically to de-emphasize certain posts would not go over well with any community.
Let me first emphasize one more time that this thread is about hiding. We could later create similar threads to discuss other issues.
I personally consider that the rest of the voting system currently works well and you seem to agree ("right now this is not an issue"). I believe it is better to solve problems when and if they happen, not preventively (at least for problems that can be solved in a click).
I would be in favour of removing the voting system. All voices should be heard even those we disagree with.
I see some problems that need to be addressed.
I implemented the voting+hiding system almost exclusively to deal with trolls. With that I mean rude users that were posting angry/unpolite/unfriendly comments, not bad enough to grant a banning, but still making the forum look very unpleasant to newcomers. If used properly a voting+hiding system (as inspired by reddit) could work well as a self-regulating system for a community.
Problems are:
- Users downvoting comments they *disagree* with. Don't do that! Downvotes are meant for offending comments that don't follow the community guidelines, not to punish somebody that you don't personally agree with, or to win an argument.
- The voting widget not coming with any explanation on usage. I now realize that it is not intuitive enough.
- The voting calculations could be improved so upvotes could balance out downvotes, thus unhiding wrongly hidden comments (although that is still not a good fix).
- The hiding code sometimes hides too much, including even the reply form.
I agree with most protests in this thread, on how the system doesn't work very well, but if only trolling comments were getting hidden then the only people protesting would be the trolls themselves.
I'm going to rethink the whole thing, and come back to you.
---
Also, while analizing this (thanks magic_banana for your input) it became obvious that the community guidelines need a rework and should not be in the wiki but on a protected document. I'll be working on a more thorough and clean set of guidelines, along with a long overdue update on the legal statements such as the trademark license.
Hi me! looking good.
So far I fixed a bug on the code that set where to stop hiding after a downvoted comment. Now it is only hiding the offending comment. What I was trying to do (hiding the whole subthread) cannot be done the way I was trying, at least in a consistent way. In any case, hiding just the offending post may be more fair to the other comments, so I think it is already an improvement.
Why not make a button that explicitly reads "spam" instead of a minus sign?
That way there can't be any misunderstanding.
I am a translator!
plus one quidam.
I've been coming here regularly for three months now. Offending comments I've read maybe 4 or 5. This is a rarely good place in this sense.. There are many forums out there where trolling seems to be a rule, not an exception. But I agree with you - trolling, offending posts even if rare give the community a bad look. I personaly don't upvote nor downvote anything but if this system doesn't censor anyone but mean trolls I think it would be useful to keep it.
Btw I don't enable javascript so I can see all the posts even the stupid and politically incorrect ones. If I come across one of those I just move over it. But to a new guy who comes here for the first time they could be somehow annoying and he could think that trolling is something that happens often here, which is not.
quidam
Do you have a trisquel digital confessional booth?
A lot of us like to confess all our sins against Trisquel 7.
Maybe, that will help.
You could ask Supertramp for more information. He is my favorite and master privateer troll.
Any how, good job and concern with your follow up.
+1 for a color code system for comments and a "spam" button for trolls.
Also, agree this is one of the most pleasant forums, Crunchbang has a nice forum as well, however, they are quite in favor of flash and other things so....
:)
PS: If you ever want to see an abusive forum, hang out in the main Debian forum...geesh, they are brutal to newbies, and anyone not running pure Debian. LOL
I am a translator!
I've spent some time on the debian irc - some very original folks there indeed :)