An Open Letter to that Person with a Stick Stuck in their Tuchas

I posted in one thread, an English language one, and my answers seemed to be rated as helpful, judging by the replies, but when I went back, they were all showing a vote score of zero. I was puzzled and asked why (I haven't been here long enough to make any enemies, and I would have hoped that if anyone disagreed with my answers, they would say why). One person suggested that some a2k users habitually vote down posts once they have read them, so as to hide them, kind of like marking an email as read. I am not convinced though, seems kind of dumb.

We all know who is doing it. It is also obvious that it has a compulsive nature.

Totally and utterly ignore the bugger on every single occasion, no matter how tempting, and it will greatly reduce the perverse pleasure that it gets from this site.

Nowadays, I tend to log in before even browsing on the site, as that way my few ignored people are already minimised before I have a chance to look.

If you do choose to ignore but peek, and are sorely tempted to answer a personal slur or a particularly annoying diatribe, just think how much more annoying it will be for our troll if you just pass it over and go chat with someone else, as if nothing has happened.

Try it and watch its response. Quite entertaining when you get into it.

They wouldn't - they would vote down a topic, not a post.

This is the behavior of a person with a great deal of time on their hands. Of course, I've got a kitchen ceiling that needs retiling, if someone wants to use all that vote-down time productively.

A day or two ago, some douche zeroed down 2 plus pages of Glitterbag's horse race thread. Astounding. At first I left it as some kind of monument, and then an hour or two later, fixed everybody's posts, except of course, my own.

Then I figured out that fixing this kind of thing shows I have too much time on my hands. I probably won't fix things to that level again.

Can't win, eh?

I spent some time upthumbing the other day while on a phone call.

I get the downthumbing on heated political/religious threads. When they run over into animal threads etc I get to wondering (briefly) about what a great sociology experiment this place, and other similar sites, would make.

Tile on a ceiling? that sounds interesting.

Is it tin?

Steve...you are more than this...or at least, I think you are more than this.

The "up/down" feature of A2K is an abomination. Anyone spending any time thinking about it...or caring about it in any way...ought to be ashamed of him/herself.

I have no idea of what the original intent of the feature (variations of which seem to be in every forum) but by now, anyone who spends any time on the Internet should realize that it is a feature that should only appeal to three-year olds.

I do occasionally thumb down a thread, simply because I am not interested in it...and if popular, I do not want it coming up in the feed every hour. I don't think I have ever thumbed any comment up or down...and I pay absolutely no attention to that feature on any of my posts or topics.

If everyone would just ignore the thumbs up/down feature...it would make the forum a better place simply by giving trolls one less item to use in their trolling.

Nothing so fancy. It's just acoustical tiles.

Can't this thumbs up/down feature be terminated with a simple hack?
It seems people spend way too much time on this particular feature well knowing that it insults/hurts some of the people.

It's a childish thing anyway, I'd say, discontinue it!

I agree with Calamity Jane.

If anyone who normally would "thumb up/down" a comment would simply write a quick note of agreement or disagreement...the entire "thumb" fiasco would go away. As would the anonymity.

It seems glaringly evident to me that removing the down-thumbing of posts would make the forum appear more credible, not to mention palatable, to anyone who happens upon the site. Could make the community a bit more mellow as well

That's not particularly in keeping with convention, or really necessary. I'm a member of several forums that have only a thumb up, or "thanks". On these forums, the members who express their accolades are identified by their SN.

I have those in the romp room.

I do understand the developer/owners' reasoning of having things beyond a certain downthumb balance invisible to non-members and noobs.

It'd be fine by me if things I thumb down are id'd.

_____


I suspect changing anything to do with the thumbs is not high on the owner/developers' list of things to do (if on the list at all).

It would also be fine by me if things thumbed up or down were ID'd.

I pay absolutely no attention to the thumb thing.

I've popped a few mercy thumbs once in a while - one even here. I never thumb down unless there is some scatalogical image I need not review.

I keep my thumb up my - sleeve, and ignore some, rather than thumb people. But I do thumb up some posts for varying reasons.

You poor dears . I had my EXACT same post of a photo copied and put in the same thread . I got -5 and the other got +3 . You are whinging about nothing but hurt egos . Grow up and spend your time on better things .