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Keep the votes, but lose the vote count?
I know similar topics have been discussed, but I'd like to talk about removing the vote count OR, having the count appear after you've voted. To be clear, I'd like to keep the voting mechanism as-is, just reduce the visibility of the actual number of votes.
It's not foolproof, but it might reduce the "bandwagon" voting we're trying to avoid. I realize that vote count could still be guessed based on sorting by "most votes," but I think this is a worthwhile discussion to have.
*Edit 2: Removed the joke I made about spamming as I think it detracts from the conversation.
Well first of all, I don't think you're going to get in trouble for offering a legitimate suggestion, so you're good :)
What you're essentially suggesting is what Reddit started to do several years ago (and still has in place) where some subreddits can "hide" the vote count in an attempt to prevent users from "piling on" a particular post or comment with upvotes/downvotes which allows everything to essentially be unbiased/neutral, correct?
I think this is a fantastic idea.
Absolutely. Love how you phrased it! What's your opinion on hiding it entirely vs. it appearing after you vote?
Of course if it appears after, you can go back and change your vote, but I feel a person like that is an entrenched bandwagon voter and cannot be helped.
I don't think it should show right away after you vote nor do I think it should be hid entirely. I think it should be time-gated to whatever settings the admins would prefer.. an hour, six hours, a day, two days? That would be my ideal suggestion.
That is definitely an interesting suggestion. It might be a per-group setting, some groups might need a higher threshold than others.
I was thinking it would only show if you voted though, do you think it'd be better if everyone (even those who didn't vote) saw the vote count after X time?
If it's not too hard to program, I agree with you. Show count if you vote AND if elapsed time = the decided upon value.
I agree, I think it's a great idea. You don't really need to show anything, but you could show like one or two green '+' marks for highly upvoted ones, or a red '-' or two for downvoted posts. I don't know if that defeats the purpose of no count though.
Something similar was discussed here, but I think I prefer not showing anything at all. Also, remember there is no downvote in tildes.
Lol, why would you be banned? But yes, you can throw me under the bus if need be.
In any case, as I said, I think this is a good idea. Showing the votes just after voting would certainly force users to avoid piling votes. The only downside is if you are low on time and just want to find topics with high number of votes (not most votes), but I guess ordering by most votes is close enough...
Sorry, I was just being silly. I definitely don't think I'll get banned. :-)
Oh, ok. I was starting to worry people were afraid to post! That wouldn't be a good atmosphere!
Agreed. I removed the joke just in case!
I think this is an excellent suggestion to avoid bandwagoning, so long as the functionality to sort by most votes remains available for those of us short on time ;)
Hopefully the "trust system" will weed out most of the people with a nefarious agenda, but I can see your point. We all have an agenda, even if we don't notice it, but I think the system of trust is intended to select the users whose agenda has proven over time to most closely match ~'s core values.
It's something to keep an eye on!
Yes, I'm a little concerned about the vote weight thing, although it seems the difference is weight won't be very big. But I've seen it having negative effects on another forum, where the opinion of a few power users counts much more than others and can bury or boost a submission or a user opinion easily.
What about a "Show Vote Count" button which you can press only after you've voted? I must admit that I like to know how many votes something has. I love data.
My issue with this is that even if I don't vote for something, I'd still like to see how it's doing
Myself and @cffabro had an interesting (if heated) discussion in another thread that led to this when the topic of moving the vote button from right to left came up.
The vote button is being placed on the right of the screen in order to make people vote AFTER viewing a thread.
What's odd about this is - why does the vote count being visible exist?
The vote count is visible so that people can see it. We can only assume that the very purpose of a visible vote count is so that people can look at votes to judge the quality of a post before they view it.
What's odd about this is that these are two completely competing notions, the vote count is visible so people can pre-judge but the votes are on the right so people don't pre-judge.
What could be changed?
All of these possibilities would then allow you to move the vote button to the more sensible placement on the left too.
Either way, you're onto something here OP, the vote count is at odds with the goal of the site. So why have it? I would be for any of the above changes (because I'm also for moving the button to the left where it would feel nicer).