A few words about users reputation
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I'm sure that a community is the most important factor for any product development. I have seen the rise and fall of several promising communities, I think I know what things can be a serious problem for Vivaldi community and I hope the team listens to my arguments.
Probably no one notices this yet (because today everything is almost fine), but the community can become toxic. And main reason for this is users reputation. You know how it work, but I want to show you a potential problem.
- If you agree with my comment / post, you press "up". My reputation is growing, I'm glad.
- If you disagree with my comment / post, you press "down". My reputation is falling, I'm sad.
It means that if I express an unpopular opinion, users will trample me in the dirt just because they disagree with my point of view. Are you sure that reputation should work like this? I'm not...
If someone writes about a rare bug and other users don't have the same issue, his reputation falls. If someone write he need some feature and other users don't think that this is really necessary, his reputation falls. If someone writes that some feature works better in other browser and Vivaldi should make the same, his reputation falls. Do you still not see the problem?
Now I see an simple way to fix it – just forget about negative reputation:
- Zero should be the minimum possible rating for a comment / post – "0" instead of "-15"
- Zero should be the minimum possible reputation value for every user – "0" instead of "-356"
Should I explain why this is so important? Reputation must work like a karma: you should not punish the user for his opinion.
Maybe someone remembers GFace, a social network for gamers from CryTek. GFace have similar reputation system: there were heroes, but there was no rogue. If you wanted to support the author, you gave him a "star" (+1), but you couldn't take the star that someone else gave him (-1). It was fair.
I understand that "-1" is really important for developers: when the team see "+128" they know that their users really need this feature and when they see "-17" they know that their users don't want to see this feature right now. So just hide a negative rating from ordinary users and show it for the author and the developers only. This is a right step and this is so simple!
P.S.
Don't be taxing, guys!
Your opinion isn't more important than that guy's opinion... -
@Semenov-Sherin thanks for sharing this great input and I’d love to hear more from the rest of the community. If we had the possibility to not show downvotes, would you prefer it?
Looking forward to reading everyone replies. -
If user posts stupid thing, community have right to see "-123" and do not read that idea.
This is completely different from "0", which, in most situations, means that no one is interested in idea.
Of course, people can incorrectly undestand good idea and send "-1" to it.
But I am 100% sure that if user have -100 in his profile, he deserves it.
And it will be disrespect to novices if forum software will rate them in the same way as trolls, with "0". -
@Vort said in A few words about users reputation:
If user posts stupid thing, community have right to see "-123" and do not read that idea.
This week a user wrote that he had lost his data. Probably it was because of a rare bug. The community should works together to find the causes of this bug. But now this post has about "-10" rating. And you're right: nobody read this now.
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@Semenov-Sherin said in A few words about users reputation:
This week a user wrote that he had lost his data. Probably it was because of a rare bug. The community should works together to find the causes of this bug. But now this post has about "-10" rating.
Please post a link.
What I see close to -10 (-9) is a post, which states that browser will alienate someone. Most users never heard about "feature creep", so it is just plain wrong.Here is the post with a problem (-2):
Снова всё пропало.
Short summary is obscene language and confusing description.
@Shpankov said in Снова всё пропало.:По вашему описанию не очень понятно.
Any of these problems can turn away people.
Both of them - especially. And only -2 rating. Don't see a problem, here. -
@Semenov-Sherin Down-voting is disabled for the Feature Request forum because the developers only want to know if a request is popular or not.
Users don't usually get down-voted for expressing an opinion, not even for being critical. They get down-voted for being rude, arrogant, or for using foul language.
Karma means intention. If the intention is good, even harsh, critical speech is good karma, if it is aimed at benefit. If users vent their frustration with anger and slanderous remarks about the developers, moderators, or those who are here to help them, that is bad karma, so they get the results of their own karma with a negative reputation.
If a rude user's negative reputation is visible to other users it serves to warn them not to bother engaging with that person, or to be cautious.
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@Pesala said in A few words about users reputation:
Down-voting is disabled for the Feature Request forum because the developers only want to know if a request is popular or not.
By the way, request can be completely wrong.
They do not want to know about it? -
@Semenov-Sherin Perhaps you mean this post. I wrote a reply which explains why the user got down-voted. You up-voted the post, but presumably only out of sympathy.
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@Vort If the request is completely wrong, users can reply to explain why it is wrong, or how to improve the request so that it will be viable. The developers will just ignore the request if it cannot be implemented for some reason.
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@gaelle It's definitely worth having a "0" minimum. Putting aside the fact that it may discourage users who just get downvoted massively on a particular topic, in the early days of reddit there were users who competed to get the worst possible score. Removing low scores precludes such activity.
I would also not mind just removing downvoting altogether. This is a pretty positive community, and as I see it there is no reason to downvote. If you disagree with something, you explain why. If you think something is offensive or shouldn't be on the forum you report it. Downvoting achieves nothing.
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@Pesala said in A few words about users reputation:
If the request is completely wrong, users can reply to explain why it is wrong
Just in the same way they can explain why it is good, without upvoting.
What is the difference?Same here:
@LonM said in A few words about users reputation:If you disagree with something, you explain why.
If you agree, you can just explain why.
@Pesala said in A few words about users reputation:
It is just -4.
@LonM said in A few words about users reputation:
in the early days of reddit there were users who competed to get the worst possible score. Removing low scores precludes such activity.
If user intentionally collects "-1"s, just ban him.
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@Vort said in A few words about users reputation:
If you agree, you can just explain why.
If you have some extended response, sure. But if all you want to say is "I agree", then it's easier to just do a "+1".
You might at this point find a bit of a contradiction - why is it not fine to just "-1" if you disagree? The reason I see is that if you disagree, you probably have a reason why. If you agree, all of the reasons may already have been said, and you have nothing new to add.
@Vort said in A few words about users reputation:
If user intentionally collects "-1"s, just ban him.
You are correct. These forums are not really big enough for that kind of behaviour to be a real problem.
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@Vort said in A few words about users reputation:
Just in the same way they can explain why it is good, without upvoting.
What is the difference?Upvoting takes only a second, and the counter increments. If 250 users added +1 in a post or reply, the thread becomes ridiculously long for no good reason. It also takes much longer to post a reply with one's reasons and the developers have not got time to read all replies to see if they are in favour or against the request.
Likewise, voting down takes only a second, and replying in a negative way often starts a flame-war. Mostly, posts do not get down-voted. If they do, then the OP should reflect on that: “What did I say, or how did I express it, that other users do not like?”
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@Pesala said in A few words about users reputation:
Mostly, posts do not get down-voted. If they do, then the OP should reflect on that: “What did I say, or how did I express it, that other users do not like?”
So the problem is that people can't believe that their thoughts can be wrong?
Why it should be fixed by technical means?If 250 users added +1 in a post or reply, the thread becomes ridiculously long
Situation, where one user answered why topic is bad and 10 other users just pressed "-1" is symmetric enough.
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@Vort said in A few words about users reputation:
So the problem is that people can't believe that their thoughts can be wrong?
Why it should be fixed by technical means?OK, another reason to hide a negative reputation: what if I just don't like you? I could vote against every your publication. You write a lot of comments and I can put a lot of "-1". Today I can destroy your reputation just because I want. Are you sure this is OK?
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@Semenov-Sherin said in A few words about users reputation:
OK, another reason to hide a negative reputation: what if I just don't like you? I could vote against every your publication. You write a lot of comments and I can put a lot of "-1". Today I can destroy your reputation just because I want. Are you sure this is OK?
Will ban remove negative votes?
Effect can be smoothed if every user will have fixed amount of allowable downvotes per day (5, for example).
Upvotes may need such limit too (20, for example).
This scenario is more related to software security.
Going from 1000 reputation (for example) to 0 is the same problem as going from 1000 to -1000.
Also user can register hundreds of accounts and reset every post to whichever rating he want. -
@Semenov-Sherin It is OK if it is not hidden, but if it is hidden to users, and only mods can see the down-votes, the user won't know that someone is behaving like a troll.
If someone consistently down-votes your posts you can contact a moderator to tell them what is going on.
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My opinion is that downvoting shouldn't be removed. Why?
@Pesala said in A few words about users reputation:Users don't usually get down-voted for expressing an opinion, not even for being critical. They get down-voted for being rude, arrogant, or for using foul language.
Edit: this has already been said by others:
@Semenov-Sherin said:
OK, another reason to hide a negative reputation: what if I just don't like you? I could vote against every your publication. You write a lot of comments and I can put a lot of "-1". Today I can destroy your reputation just because I want. Are you sure this is OK?
If a banned user has no right to vote, I think you'd be banned.
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@Semenov-Sherin said in A few words about users reputation:
the community can become toxic
Just my 2 cents: a community becomes toxic because of certain individuals, not because of some artificial reputation system. There are platforms which allow only positive votes for posts/comments and yet some communities on those platforms are very toxic and hateful.
@Semenov-Sherin said in A few words about users reputation:
It means that if I express an unpopular opinion, users will trample me in the dirt just because they disagree with my point of view.
(...)
If someone writes about a rare bug and other users don't have the same issue, his reputation falls. If someone write he need some feature and other users don't think that this is really necessary, his reputation falls. If someone writes that some feature works better in other browser and Vivaldi should make the same, his reputation falls. Do you still not see the problem?I don't see such a problem here. OK, I admit - I don't read every post on this forum, but from my experience, in most cases, users receive downvotes because of their attitude, language, for being rude, not because of the ideas or opinions they were trying to express...
And if there's any abuse concerning the reputation system, you can always report such posts for moderation. You can flag even the post which - in your opinion - has been wrongfully downvoted. I can assure you that each report is looked at by the forum moderators and community managers and you'll face no consequences for just reporting such post, even if the staff won't share your opinion in a certain case.
Now, concerning downvotes: I'm neither for or against them. For me, it can stay the way it is, but I'm not going to oppose their possible removal. I just wanted to say that it might be like trying to fix a problem that doesn't really exist (at this moment, at least) and that this is not even a "fix" since the voting system is never actually the source of the problem...
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@potmeklecbohdan said in A few words about users reputation:
My opinion is that downvoting shouldn't be removed. Why?
@Pesala said in A few words about users reputation:Users don't usually get down-voted for expressing an opinion, not even for being critical. They get down-voted for being rude, arrogant, or for using foul language.
Edit: this has already been said by others:
@Semenov-Sherin said:
OK, another reason to hide a negative reputation: what if I just don't like you? I could vote against every your publication. You write a lot of comments and I can put a lot of "-1". Today I can destroy your reputation just because I want. Are you sure this is OK?
If a banned user has no right to vote, I think you'd be banned.
I perfectly agree with both of you. The reputation method is a tool, depending on how you use it may or may not be useful.
@Pesala said in A few words about users reputation:
@Semenov-Sherin It is OK if it is not hidden, but if it is hidden to users, and only mods can see the down-votes, the user won't know that someone is behaving like a troll.
If someone consistently down-votes your posts you can contact a moderator to tell them what is going on.
Exactly when a user realizes that he is being targeted, he reports the user(s) and a moderator will evaluate the measures to be taken.
I think it's right that users can evaluate with + and - the comments of other users, as already mentioned, this should make it clear to users that when they take a negative vote, maybe they have mistaken the method of approach or have used an inappropriate language. The examples given by @Vort are a clear example of this.
Unfortunately it is not a perfect method because there are those who could abuse it, but in case of abuse Moderatoti or Comunity Manager will restore the order.