Som's Experiment

[Somnastra]

Don't. Panic.

You might notice something different about the ratings bar. This is intentional. I am running an experiment for a month or two to see if removing the dislike rating helps engender a more harmonious attitude on the forums. This might eventually extend to the disagree rating, too. We'll have to see.

Now. I understand that there may be some grumbling about this. I've seen lots of folks saying that negative ratings - and let's be clear, here, this is just the dislike rating - should be handed out with the same supporting justification as positive ratings. Which is none, in most situations. Let me tell you why I think this argument is specious: the psychological reaction that individuals have to positive ratings ranges from ambivalence to warm fuzzies to excitement, while the reaction to dislikes (particularly when they are not explained) is most mild at defensiveness (not actually a constructive reaction), and has been demonstrably shown to escalate quickly and engender hostilities and often mindless arguments more often than not. (I use mindless in the sense that people argue with their emotions, not their rationality in these cases.)

So I'm gonna run this experiment for a while. In a a few weeks, I'll solicit feedback and let you guys let me have it.

One thing we may do, depending on how this goes, is implement an upvote/downvote kind of system instead of like/dislike, and have both of these ratings be neutral. We'll explore this some more later.

In the meantime, if you don't like a post, either ... don't "like" the post, or actually tell someone why it disagrees with you like bad meat. We'll all learn to communicate a little better for it .

Thanks, guys!

UPDATE:

Ladies and gentlemen,

There has been a disheartening trend lately of abusing the disagree button. I understand that frustrations are high right now, and I empathize. However, lashing out at folks, and then hiding behind semantics is not the way we should handle this.

I'm removing the disagree button at the request of more than a few people, for well-argued reasons. I can be convinced to make this a temporary change, but it cannot return until I am assured that this will not continue.

 

[DraconDarknight]

Don't. Panic.

You might notice something different about the ratings bar. This is intentional. I am running an experiment for a month or two to see if removing the dislike rating helps engender a more harmonious attitude on the forums. This might eventually extend to the disagree rating, too. We'll have to see.

Now. I understand that there may be some grumbling about this. I've seen lots of folks saying that negative ratings - and let's be clear, here, this is just the dislike rating - should be handed out with the same supporting justification as positive ratings. Which is none, in most situations. Let me tell you why I think this argument is specious: the psychological reaction that individuals have to positive ratings ranges from ambivalence to warm fuzzies to excitement, while the reaction to dislikes (particularly when they are not explained) is most mild at defensiveness (not actually a constructive reaction), and has been demonstrably shown to escalate quickly and engender hostilities and often mindless arguments more often than not. (I use mindless in the sense that people argue with their emotions, not their rationality in these cases.)

So I'm gonna run this experiment for a while. In a a few weeks, I'll solicit feedback and let you guys let me have it.

One thing we may do, depending on how this goes, is implement an upvote/downvote kind of system instead of like/dislike, and have both of these ratings be neutral. We'll explore this some more later.

In the meantime, if you don't like a post, either ... don't "like" the post, or actually tell someone why it disagrees with you like bad meat. We'll all learn to communicate a little better for it .

Thanks, guys!

Not sure if the disagree button should go.

What would be nice in that regard though is a rule stating that you have to explain yourself when putting up a disagree - cause lets be honest disagree without a comment why is kinda like 'I disagree' without further words - meaningless and walking on a thin line between a normal comment and trolling.

 

[Valonyx]

'Mah point's that if you remove dislike, you also gotta remove like, and keep only Agree/Disagree and Love, to keep the perfect balance of things good in my brain.

 

[dogbew]

'Mah point's that if you remove dislike, you also gotta remove like, and keep only Agree/Disagree and Love, to keep the perfect balance of things good in my brain.

I agree, a lot of people dislike the dislike feature because they feel like it reflects on their character, out of characterly. However, if we are going to do away with dislikes in favor of that, we should as well do away with the like feature, as to promote fairness.
If we want to promote discussion rather than harassment, we could even do away with ratings entirely, and encourage actually replaying your opinion in threads.

 

[7632]

I agree with Som 100% and reject the notion of like/dislike balance. There's a reason various social media sites don't have negative ratings, and it's that dislike buttons are unfair shortcuts of expressing displeasure without explanation. Every single opinion can and should be iterated unless it already has been, and every opinion deserves respect, even if it is ill founded.

If one disagrees, the proper action is respectful explanation.

I fully support the idea of encouraging the growth of a more positive community and I think this will help immensely.

Edit: I realize this is an experiment and will fully respect and accept its conclusion(s), whatever it/they may be, as evidence either for or against the iterations I support.

 

[Valonyx]

I think that by leaving the users/players only the abilities to either like or not do anything, this will on the opposite HEAVILY undervalue the ''like'' or ''agree'' that we had as recently. If the only thing the people can do to a post other then not caring is giving it positive agreement, this is quite misleading on what people think, and I think that it is quite hypocritical. We are on a server community to be able to escape for a short duration the real world, a place where we can share arguments with like-wise minded people, and a place where we can tell what we really think. If we start preventing people from showing what they really think (while giving an explanation for it afterwards), we become no better then social networks like Facebook or the likes, where you show a mask of illusions and hypocrisy.

For those that cannot even deal with dislikes or disagrees, i'll be very honest, I think its their problem to solve, as they must learn to take the objective opinion of others, not the system's problem. I am all for a true and transparent system.

 

[Gaby]

seems weird to discuss when we're all talking rationality, but,

well, I think anyone who's visited the confessions thread might notice that I personally panic and get distraught at every dislike.
yes, I'm sensitive as heck. I can't be the only one who gets really sensitive about this sort of thing. I think my biggest issue with the ratings is that once they were placed, they were counted on the statistic, and undoing the rating or deleting the post wouldn't remove it.
something about wanting a forgiveness policy of some sort for negative ratings.

but no, the negative ratings, they probably made arguments ten times worse, too...

I wanna see what happens with this.

For those that cannot even deal with dislikes or disagrees, i'll be very honest, I think its their problem to solve, as they must learn to take the objective opinion of others, not the system's problem. I am all for a true and transparent system.

....gonna take advantage of the disagree button here.
because I'm one of those people, partially,

but also because I don't think any philosophical ideal or value should hold priority over someone else's wellbeing.

on a tangential point, places like this are a place to get away, and as a result, you oftentimes have emotionally vulnerable people turning to this server as a place to cool down and escape from their often hostile irl situations.

of course these people are going to be sensitive to anything negative.

 

[dogbew]

seems weird to discuss when we're all talking rationality, but,

well, I think anyone who's visited the confessions thread might notice that I personally panic and get distraught at every dislike.
yes, I'm sensitive as heck. I can't be the only one who gets really sensitive about this sort of thing. I think my biggest issue with the ratings is that once they were placed, they were counted on the statistic, and undoing the rating or deleting the post wouldn't remove it.
something about wanting a forgiveness policy of some sort for negative ratings.

but no, the negative ratings, they probably made arguments ten times worse, too...

I wanna see what happens with this.

I only hand out negative ratings to posts that i find unhelpful to the conversation, fueled with anger, or just downright inappropriate. And as Valonyx said, if you have a problem with negative ratings you cannot expect everyone to change. That would be like me saying i don't like taxes, and having the government exempt me from taxes.
I believe we should rise above petty conflicts as a community, and that we should all look towards the bigger picture of the server by focusing on bettering ourselves and others. I do not mean to make myself seem on some sort of high horse, as i am guilty of holding petty grudges with people many times in the past.

 

[Gaby]

One thing we may do, depending on how this goes, is implement an upvote/downvote kind of system instead of like/dislike, and have both of these ratings be neutral.

wait...

Som, think about what you're doing.

YOU CAN'T GET RID OF THE MICHCAT LIKES!

I kid this is a joke im joking

 

[Kyle1322]

wait...

Som, think about what you're doing.

YOU CAN'T GET RID OF THE MICHCAT LIKES!

I kid this is a joke im joking

NONNONNONOONNOONNNONNOONNNONONONONONO
this is not a drill, you cannt get rid of the years of michat likes, its just...;-;

 

[Dr.Patriot]

Actually please get rid of likes as well I don't them they're too easy to give.

 

[Spark]

Removing likes all together will just cause people to spam threads with "This is good", "I like this", etc. We already have a problem with some people spamming random crap on threads, J don't think this would help.

I think people just need to accept negative ratings, people almost always justify it if needed. But if you're going to get that worked up over a rating, you should probably like....go outside and experience the world a bit, to realise that the ratings really do have next to no impact on your life.

I like having the dislike button, but if people are too immature to use it/react to it correctly then I guess it's removal was needed.

 

[ForestRose]

I believe this is a wonderful idea, Som. Dislikes really aren't needed in my opinion as you can simply get along with the neutral rating of a disagree. By doing this gives the better option to explain a disagreement with the situation rather than a dislike which is (again in my opinion) more of a.. petty "I don't like this, you're wrong." The like button should still stay as I think it shows the positive views towards something, unlike an agree as that's more for topical posts, or those you can have an agreement on. Although the like button could be overtaken with the player love, I cannot see the player love as being the more suitable choice out of the two - like and love.

Hopefully all the points made make sense.. blame my sleepy self if not.

 

[Michcat]

*Snuggles the mass of likes on own profile*

 

[Sankera]

*Snuggles the mass of player loves on own profile*

Much better

 

[Anithola]

I feel like the "If you have nothing positive to say, don't say anything at all" rule applies to this. People gain absolutely nothing from disliking other people's posts, the only thing it achieves is letting that person know you don't like what he just posted, and that is in my opinion a feature we can live without. In certain situations the "dislike" feature can be used constructively to some degree, but lets be real, that is rarely what its used for. So yeah, definitely for this!

 

[Lord_Sinclair]

I'm going to take a different view on what the removal of dislikes will do.

To start, consider this point:

Removing likes all together will just cause people to spam threads with "This is good", "I like this", etc. We already have a problem with some people spamming random crap on threads, I don't think this would help.

But apply it to the removal of dislikes, instead.


My opinion is that if the dislike option is removed, then one of two things will likely begin to happen:

1) People will begin getting more vocal about their dislikes, including the petty ones leading to drama. In such a scenario, the primary argument for removing the dislike button, decreasing the amount of dislike drama, becomes null and void.

2) People will begin hiding their opinions and issues will not be solved. Over time, this could easily lead to an explosion of drama when people let their true feelings simmer until they eventually boil over, or worse.


Substituting an Up/Down system for our current Like/Dislike system might work, but it would only really work if people are able to separate "down" from "dislike" in their heads. I don't see that happening, especially for the more sensitive people who the changes are supposed to be aimed at anyways.

 

[Somnastra]

I'm going to take a different view on what the removal of dislikes will do.

To start, consider this point:

But apply it to the removal of dislikes, instead.


My opinion is that if the dislike option is removed, then one of two things will likely begin to happen:

1) People will begin getting more vocal about their dislikes, including the petty ones leading to drama. In such a scenario, the primary argument for removing the dislike button, decreasing the amount of dislike drama, becomes null and void.

2) People will begin hiding their opinions and issues will not be solved. Over time, this could easily lead to an explosion of drama when people let their true feelings simmer until they eventually boil over, or worse.


Substituting an Up/Down system for our current Like/Dislike system might work, but it would only really work if people are able to separate "down" from "dislike" in their heads. I don't see that happening, especially for the more sensitive people who the changes are supposed to be aimed at anyways.

Hence, experiment~

 

[Lord_Sinclair]

Every experiment needs a hypothesis!

Proper hypothesis, for you picky people:
If the dislike button is removed, then people will either become more vocal with their displeasure or hide it until it boils over in a very unpleasant manner.

 

[NiNi]

You don't need a dislike button~
I've always seen it as: why rate a post anyway when you can type out a more depth response, such as Why you dislike it, opening the door to constructive criticism. Often the way improvements are made.