Who Would Downthumb Something Positively Positive?

@Real Music,

I think it results in the opposite. If you can thumb down something, there is no need to post a flame or otherwise express your disagreement. Ten people don't need to post their opinions when they can easily just thumb down.

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@engineer,

It works on able2know the same as it works in real life. If someone says something I don't agree with I just give them a thumbs down sign. That way I don't have to talk to them.

I can express my disapproval without having to acknowledge their humanity. This way we can avoid talking to anyone outside our ideological bubble.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

That way you can express your disapproval without spamming the board with ten posts saying the exact same thing and acknowledge that you read and respectfully disagree instead of calling someone a poopy head.

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

I think it results in the opposite. If you can thumb down something, there is no need to post a flame or otherwise express your disagreement. Ten people don't need to post their opinions when they can easily just thumb down.

If people's IDs were attached to downthumbs and upthumbs, that would strengthen the goal of letting people express their opinions of posts. At the same time it would weaken the impact of votedown abuse.

"Engineer disapproves of this post" carries a lot more weight than "xq904589304556467645 disapproves of this post".

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They have 5 and you have 6
The extra thumb you use for kicks
Sometimes just to vent the spleen
Sometimes so posts can't be seen

Wham bam, you thumb it down
Wham bam, you dumb it down
Wham bam, without a sound
Wham bam, you put it in the ground

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The entire thumbing program should be eliminated. If a person wants to hide topics or individual posts, let them have at it. Have a tool to do so, just as there is an ignore feature. Turning this into a ratings contest cheapens things.

1 Reply

@Ponderer,

Ponderer wrote:

I like those theories. Kinda science-fiction.

Science fiction needs a modicum of actual science as a backbone or skeleton. Sans science? These deranged fan fiction tend to just highlight the person's deteriorating mental health.

Ultimately, those threads are poorly written fantasy/delusions... not science-fiction.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

If thumbs were public... if you could see the names of each person who upthumbed or downthumbed posts... I think you would see that much of the thumbing is driven by cliques. People use the thumbs to support their friends or to punish people who don't support the ideological narrative.

People may use downthumbs to collapse threads. I don't believe this explains the downthumbing behavior on specific posts inside of a thread.

I strongly advocate for making the names of people adding thumbs public. The anonymous thumbing leads to abuse.

This is fine. But of course, any substantial improvements will never come to fruition. I don't think a2k will ever progressively move forward but stay stagnant... or just fester to lower levels of 4chan or reddithood.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

t is for the people who are being bullied by thumb abuse.

I agree with you regarding removing the anonymity from the voting system. But seriously. You really need to get some perspective regarding the voting system.

Down votes do not mean actual threats to your life. Thumb abuse? That's overkill of an interpretation. If you really are taking this too seriously? If down votes clearly is taking a physical toll on your health? You have far greater issues that need addressing than people thumbing down your a2k posts. Thumbing down isn't the same as doxxing people or death threats.

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I vote for a hand, where posters have an option of which finger they'd like to attach to a post.

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@Sturgis,

Quote:

If a person wants to hide topics or individual posts, let them have at it. Have a tool to do so, just as there is an ignore feature.

That is a really good suggestion.
Then there will no longer be a need to hide a thread topic with down-thumbing.
You could just put that thread on ignore.

1 Reply

@Real Music,

You could also have a setting to turn off thumbs for those who find them objectionable. You just wouldn't see them anymore.

1 Reply

@engineer,

engineer wrote:

You could also have a setting to turn off thumbs for those who find them objectionable. You just wouldn't see them anymore.

The biggest problem with the thumb score is that it encourages bad behavior. It rewards personal attacks from people with the majority opinion (which get high thumb scores) and discourages well thought-out and rational arguments from people with other points of view (which often get negative thumb scores).

It is interesting (but not surprising) that support for the thumb score has a strong correlation with political ideology. The largest clique, the majority, on ableknow is more progressive and more feminist than society in general. The effect thumb score is a way for them to reward conformity and show disapproval of dissent. Engineer and Real_Music are supporting the thumb scores. Oralloy and I (people who often challenge the majority opinion) don't like them.

The thumb score is a prominent feature this website. It is a number that is displayed, in a bigger font and a contrasting background, next to every post that is made. The people who run the site keep saying that it doesn't matter, but the design of the site says otherwise.

My biggest argument against the thumb score is that it encourages bad behavior from the people in the majority. It is a fact that often the highest scores go to posts that have a personal insult that has nothing to do with the topic.

3 Replies

@maxdancona,

I disagree.

My post received 4 thumbs up. It wasn't political in any way. I wasn't engaging in bad behavior. Three people agreed that a hand with a finger option is a good idea.

I think the bolding function should be disengaged. But that's just my opinion.

1 Reply

@neptuneblue,

I thought your post was funny, Neptune, it made me chuckle.

But, you are still following the ideological pattern... people in the progressive clique support the thumb scores.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

The biggest problem with the thumb score is that it encourages bad behavior.

I disagree, I think it is exactly the opposite. Why bother to flame someone when you can politely disagree with a thumb? You seem to take someone disagreeing with you in the most innocuous way as a huge insult. Without the thumb, you would have a lot more flame posts than you already do.

maxdancona wrote:

Oralloy and I (people who often challenge the majority opinion) don't like them.

When you say "challenge the majority opinion", you mean post truly heinous stuff and expect no blow back, right? You have posted in favor of decriminalizing misdemeanor sexual assault like public groping. Oralloy has posted in favor of killing Democrats and others in favor of gun control. Have you considered that it is not a cabal of members that meet and decide to downpost you out of spite but people who actually just disagree with you?

maxdancona wrote:

The thumb score is a prominent feature this website.

That is true, there are many websites to hold discussions on, some of which don't use thumbs or have different moderation protocols. That variety and freedom of choice is a plus on the Internet.

maxdancona wrote:

My biggest argument against the thumb score is that it encourages bad behavior from the people in the majority.

I argue that it encourages good behavior by both bystanders and posters by allowing people to express their disapproval without having to post a flame. But my idea of allowing each member to turn off thumbs completely solves this problem. If you want to post an unpopular opinion and not see that it is unpopular, then turn off the thumbs and you'll never know. The issue is not that people don't like your posts, it is that you don't like it that they don't like them.

1 Reply

@engineer,

Nonsense Engineer. By "heinous" you mean that they disagree with the progressive clique. That is just another way of saying that people shouldn't dissent. Sure, there are some truly "heinous posts" here that do get thumbed down... but there are also posts that are perfectly reasonable that get thumbed down because they don't have the "correct" point of view.

- Posts that take a progressive point of view are thumbed up, no matter how unreasonable they are.

- Posts that are nasty, or personal attacks against someone outside of the progressive point of view are thumbed up. People love a good personal attack as long as it is against an ideological outsider. The high thumb scores I have seen have gone to posts that were nothing but nasty name calling.

- Posts are often thumbed down based on the person who wrote them rather than the how well-thought out the point of view.

Show me an example of a post from someone making a point outside ideological bubble that has a high thumbs score.

People don't get thumbed up for making good arguments or for acting civilly. They get thumbed up for having the "correct" opinions no matter how poorly reasoned or nasty the posts are.

Can you show me a post that you thought was especially well reasoned even though you disagree with the ideological position? Have you ever thumbed up such a post?

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Show me an example of a post from someone making a point outside ideological bubble that has a high thumbs score.

That would be difficult since it seems that anyone who disagrees with you is inside this clique and you consider all high thumbs up scores as inside the bubble thing by definition. (I think the reality is more that those who find you so objectionable have you on ignore and therefore are not thumbing you down, but I missed the last in-crowd meeting, so I can't say for sure.) Still, my point is that the thumbs reduce the need for flame posts by giving those who disagree an outlet other than posting flames and if someone didn't want the feedback, they could just hide the thumbs and be happy.

Quote:

People don't get thumbed up for making good arguments or for acting civilly. They get thumbed up for having the "correct" opinions no matter how poorly reasoned or nasty the posts are.

People thumb up arguments they agree with and thumb down arguments they disagree with. If you make an argument, no matter how articulate and people disagree, why not express that with a down thumb? It's a statement of disagreement, not a personal attack.

1 Reply

@engineer,

Quote:

That would be difficult since it seems that anyone who disagrees with you is inside this clique

You are making this personal... and this is false. I challenge the group think on both sides. I get just as much pushback from wwmjrr and oralloy as I do from you and Glitterbag. I point out when you are putting ideology over reason or facts, and I do the same to the conservatives.

I can't imagine that if we got rid of the thumbs there would be any more flames than we already have. Flames from the progressive clique are the most popular posts (by thumb score) that we have.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You are making this personal...

I believe you did that when you called me out in a post above.

maxdancona wrote:

I can't imagine that if we got rid of the thumbs there would be any more flames than we already have. Flames from the progressive clique are the most popular posts (by thumb score) that we have.

Then you lack imagination. There are plenty of discussion websites where the posters flame each other back and forth all day long. As for the majority of flames coming from this mysterious clique, I think you suffer from confirmation bias. I see streaks of right wing flames all time. Still, your concern is not that there are flames, it's that the flames get thumbs. Allowing a user to turn off the thumb view allows the user to ignore the unwanted feedback, problem solved.

2 Replies

Who Would Downthumb Something Positively Positive?

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