DO YOU VOTE ON POSTS?

When I 've attended fora in the real world,
I 've had occasion to express both approval and condemnation
of the manifested expressions of other attenders thereof.
That 's no big deal; not weird.

It seems to me that voting up or down is the same thing
being incarnated into this website.





David

If the post is useful- thumbs up.
Post is irrelevant to topic or offensive to any users- thumbs down.

To my mind, it has to be extremely useful, well expressed, or just plain funny to get a thumbs up - unless I'm correcting something rated out of spite.

Logically, can we liken up or down votes
to applause or to booing in a real world forum ?





David

Better would be to liken it to the audience meters used to track the second by second appeal of commercials and TV programs (and sometimes political speeches) .....this is always used by those who are trying to sell us something, it is not an appropriate tool to use in a space that is being used for the debate of ideas. The existence of the popularity tools on A2K cheapen A2k, and make it less useful than it could be.

Really ?

HOW can it be "less useful" ???

I usually thumbs up something I was going to say - or wish I was smart enough to say. And I thumbs up DJ's weird tangents if they make me laugh. Rarely thumbs down a post unless it's rank trash - and I have pretty low standards.

I also got sucked into the Dutchy politeness thumbing on game threads. Although now find I'm only thumbing up Dutchy's posts. (there must be a sociology thesis in there somewhere).

And on the 'race for the race for the race' thread I took to thumbing up anything 'on topic' (which wasn't the least bit taxing).

I'm more likely to put someone on ignore - or call them on their bullshit, than thumb them down.

It took me a while to learn what the thumbs up were. I will vote posts up, occasionally I will vote down a thread, usually its one I don’t care to see again.

I don't often see Dave's post (had him on ignore for years) but I think he makes a fair point that I'd disagree with on these grounds: The internet isn't a public space like a realworld forum - I guarantee that many here would not express their opinions as stridently, or cast aspersions as viciously, in a real public forum. Imagine you're in a theatre and one person guffaws at something no-one else finds funny, or if someone booed during a eulogy.

The bravery of anonymity is shallow indeed.

If the hamsters were to tweak this function at all I'd like to see the Facebook ability to see who 'liked' something. Better yet to have the thumb count not include the votes of those who I've ignored. But really it don't mean shite to me.

Only this -- some thumbers have access to multiple computer positions, say like, in an insurance business, and can acquire multiple identies; just a guess, and therefore you can see more thumbs up/thumbs down than actual individual responders.

one computer will do, all you need is a separate email account for every forum account, if you had 6 identities, you could have 6 windows open, busy voting up or down as you saw fit

lol I think I touched someone's nerve.

not at all, i rarely bother voting and never vote own, i sometimes vote up unpopular threads to piss people off just for the fun of it

i hate seeing collapsed threads or posts, so i also don't ignore (only when i report spam do i see collapsed threads, but they go away eventually)

hehe You must have missed my zero.

I often vote up on posts to which I don't respond, but find interesting. And of course, I vote up those posts which possess that indefinable "something". I vote down stupid posts, and posts that are written solely to inflame.

There is someone who always votes down my posts, even an innocuous one. May a million fleas make their home in her hair.

For quite a while now there has been someone who comes arond in the early morning, EST, and votes down the last post in every thread, and sometimes more than that. There is absolutely no pattern to it. You needn't think it's personally directed.

I guess it's better than having them wander the streets and scaring the horses.

If they would just spit on the sidewalks we could get them arrested . . .

Thanks for the "heads up". I was beginning to think that there was someone on A2K who hates me, but does not have the cojones to confront.

Not sure how this thread got revived, but I have been following the back and forth between RL and SpadeMaster over in one of the religion threads...and they talk about the voting constantly.

I do not think I have ever voted any post up or down...and I really do not know what a vote is supposed to mean.

Do the people who vote down a post do it because they disagree with the content of the post; because they think the post is off topic; because they think the comment is inappropriately worded or needlessly provocative; or because they simply do not like the individual making the comment?

So people who vote up a post do it because they agree with what was said; because they think the post was "nice"; or because they like the individual making the comment?

If someone truly agrees with a post...seems to me the thing to do would be to say so in a response post...and perhaps add strength to the argument being made. If someone truly disagree with a post...wouldn't it be better to say so in a response post and give some indication of why the disagreement exists?

The voting up or down seems a waste, but I am open to hear why others think it to be a reasonable thing to do...and to hear their reasons for considering it a valuable feature.