That [+] should stay. There are so many benefits to this system for example: someone posts a funny picture, but you don't wan't to make a post just to say it was funny, so you rate up.
The argument for this is, why shouldn't we be able to [-] people. It is, after all, a negative form of judgment and should be used to express displeasure or disagreement with what a user has said, or done.
One of the hardest things in this issue is to remove any opinion you have of the system and look at both sides fairly.
The issues with both of these are they are BOTH abused. You see an admin or mod and the majority of people rate them up. That's not a bad thing really, after all they are helping to maintain the community, love them or not. I don't see popular users being ratted up like admins or mods do though, so they are not abused to the extent that [-] was.
Everyone knows the [-] was abused, whether you posted or not. There were many many attacks on users ratting down all their posts and comments. Comments being harder to keep track of, I tried a quick search with google and it only came up with forum posts. Did/Do some users in a way deserve the negative reviews of the public? Possibly.
User profile pages, you have comments from friends that have long since quit, but they get tarnished by a user, or users, who rates down these comments. Why did this user do this? Is it funny for them? Do they have something against this user? Did the person say something to them to provoke them?
The majority is to follow the flow of where the votes are going. If you have +20 on a comment people are going to join in and push that number higher, and if its -20 people join in because they think its fun. This provides an answer to the majority of rate up's and rate down's, that people join in.
For example, look at
kraken club. Just a few hours ago the top comment was at 1330. It is now 1332 (and will possibly rise or fall due to the link being here in this post because I point it out). Is it really neccisarry to have that high of a vote? Possibly one of the highest ratted user comments on this site? It doesn't say all that much to warrant the rate ups, although is important:
Quote:
Midgardsormr.Sammitch
Pointing out the obvious to the oblivious.
This site has Bazaar and Wanted functions built in. Stop spamming the comments if you want to buy or sell something. There are people on 31 other servers that could care less.
Yes, users would like for the comment spamming for people wanting to buy or sell an item to stop. But does it really need that much? The answer, simply, is no. It is fun to join in and join the crowd and contribute your vote because you have the power to do so.
Now look at this screenshot:
http://www.ffxiah.com/screenshots/4889
It definitively is horrendous, but what is important about this picture is the time it was released in. This shortly after PW was released and all the buzz going on was about PW and what it could drop. The list of possible drops was narrowed down relatively quickly, but people still haven't seen one yet. In fact that screenshot was submitted two months before
the big news drama came out that put SE through a shitstorm of trouble. (Although I'm not sure how you could blame SE for their actions, it was ignorant of them to think that people wouldn't try to do it though). Anyways, this creates a domino effect. You post a picture on a user profile people are only going to see it on your user page, or during the short period its on the front page. After that no more views. Now if you post it on an item page the difference is night and day. People who look up that item, a very popular search result at that, will see that screenshot and say "wtf?" and insist on clicking it and getting a closer look at it. Then they notice how many people have ratted down this screenshot and join in.
Did the screenshot deserve such negativity and outrage? No, but it got the reputation it did because of the time it was created in, people were all pissy that they couldn't find the body and no one could kill PW yet. And also that it was submitted on an item page so people will see it forever until it is removed, which is very unlikely.
The point I made in my examples are that it is very unlikely for someone sitting around 0 to suddenly get 20 votes in a day, or -20 votes in a day. If someone starts the domino effect people join in whether its up or down. People who are known to be an elitiest and are at times very rude and blunt are more commonly ratted down just because of their attitude all the time. There are also the people who do this on purpose, because they enjoy the attention of rate downs. Whether its bad reputation, attention whoring, disagreement, or they posted incorrect or unverified information that is just speculation atm, people rate them down because they can.
It is true, if you can't handle being ratted down then you should not be on this site, as it happens to everyone. If you can handle it, but you just don't like it, I'm with you there. I don't enjoy it, but it isn't something I'm going to fuss over. It doesn't mean anything really when people rated down my topics. When I created the topic that SE was going to shut down the servers due to the earthquake people ratted down my post. Was it because it wasn't confirmed yet (as the information was just coming in through twitter and they weren't sure yet if they had to shut them down or not), or was it because they didn't like hearing the information? It doesn't matter, people use the - for different things and it isn't always an attack on you particularly, rather possibly just the information within the post itself.
This is the internet and understanding peoples attitudes through text can be difficult, and misleading. I'm guilty of snapping at people when in fact they weren't being rude to me. Text is so unemotional that people often misunderstand what is being said, and mistaken you for being arrogant, foolish, or a number of other possible things. With [-] being thrown out it solved the issue of people crying over nothing, but it has also increased the amount of people calling out a post disagreeing them, and possibly insulting them for their stupidity (very common).
People would even rate down posts like these and just call them a wall of text, which I agree. Is that going to make me put it in spoiler tags? No, because I'm expressing my opinion on the topic. The majority of people skip over the longer posts anyways, or skim through.
Basically, the [+]'s encourage a feel good environment. Just because the world isn't all rainbows and sunshine doesn't mean we have to be mean to each other. Is that ever going to happen? Of course not, people need a balance of hate and love in the world. People want to express their opinion, even if they express it emotionally or go on to insult that person for even thinking of such thoughts. I think the [-] was an outlet for people, and I don't necessarily miss it. I believe the benefits of having just the [+] far out weight having both, or removing both. If we removed both I believe the site would loose a lot of traffic, because it is to some degree a source of entertainment. You read good posts and comment on bad ones, and join in on conversation on things you don't agree with 100%, or are confused about something.
In the end the forums, for me, is the greatest source for information. You can read a webpage but it might not have everything. Even if it does you'd earn infinitely more information talking to other players than any website can give you. It is a nice place to start, but actively discussing topics with players is much more real and positive. The [-] had many good qualities, but the abuse was far too much. I believe that they should remain only on item pages, but that is just my opinion. I don't mind them being on the players page but I disagree with them being there. Screenshots is something I don't mind having them there, but I haven't made up my mind there. I definitively don't think the [-] should return to forum posts, although I would love to see a ratting system introduced for topics (1-5 stars or something). The issue with this is it is far to late to bring in this system I fear, and would be a major outlet of negativity once again.
/end wall of text