A lot of times I vote on content, but that doesn’t always mean I want others to know that I’m around. I feel it could also be used to fuel passive aggression when someone doesn’t vote.
A lot of times I vote on content, but that doesn’t always mean I want others to know that I’m around. I feel it could also be used to fuel passive aggression when someone doesn’t vote.
I could definitely see this too, or just feeling nervous. Like "I respect @Kat's opinion, I see them elsewhere in the thread, and they haven't voted on my thing! Oh no!" Maybe that's not a dynamic...
I could definitely see this too, or just feeling nervous. Like "I respect @Kat's opinion, I see them elsewhere in the thread, and they haven't voted on my thing! Oh no!"
Maybe that's not a dynamic that would matter to most people, but my nervous ass doesn't want to deal with it.
That might be an argument that works with a small community, but is it really an issue later on when Tildes grows? If you're constantly checking every post just to see which big names have voted...
That might be an argument that works with a small community, but is it really an issue later on when Tildes grows?
If you're constantly checking every post just to see which big names have voted and to feel insecure over it, you might have some issues.
For one, scale is not a 100% thing and I don't think making decisions based on the assumption that this will become a cold faceless place like most of Reddit is a good idea. Even decent sized...
For one, scale is not a 100% thing and I don't think making decisions based on the assumption that this will become a cold faceless place like most of Reddit is a good idea. Even decent sized websites manage to maintain dynamics like that, and it would be quite a failure of this website if we ended back in the Reddit situation where you might as well see entirely new users in every thread you open.
Also yes, I noted that it's something that comes from nervousness and anxiety. Though I imagine checking who voted on your comment (especially for conversations or arguments where other users become relevant) would be more or less standard behavior. You saying that means I have issues adds nothing except for an insult out of nowhere.
Alright then, apologies for saying so, it was not meant as an insult. I was simply implying it is non-standard behavior. We appear to have dramatically different expectations of Tildes. Here, I...
Alright then, apologies for saying so, it was not meant as an insult. I was simply implying it is non-standard behavior.
We appear to have dramatically different expectations of Tildes. Here, I almost expect to come into conflict with other views - and I welcome it! - since everyone is so civil here. Hence it would be standard behavior for me to check for notable users, yes, but instead of an 'Oh no!' response when they presumably ignore, or (gasp) pseudo-dislike my comment, I'd just consider it part and parcel of the civil discourse culture of Tildes.
Regardless, on net I disagreed with the overall idea of OP's suggestion, for other conceptual reasons as outlined later in the thread.
I'm not sure what to take from sublime_aenima and my own comments getting a decent number of votes, if that's the case. I don't want to extrapolate too far from just votes since it's unclear what...
I'm not sure what to take from sublime_aenima and my own comments getting a decent number of votes, if that's the case. I don't want to extrapolate too far from just votes since it's unclear what they mean here, but I'd imagine there's either a decent amount of users who feel similarly or who found them to be reactions worth paying attention to, at least.
Here, I almost expect to come into conflict with other views - and I welcome it! - since everyone is so civil here.
Well, sure. Of course people will disagree, but sites like this aren't just for discussions on serious things like politics or whatever. There's a lot of casual (but still substantial) space where it could be a bit uncomfortable. Regardless of the tone, the thing with a vote is that it's either all positive or nothing (in some cases being an implicit show of non-support). When you attach names, it makes it personal without the advantage of other personal interactions (like a reply) where context and the reason / degree of disagreement can play in. There's no room for one's mind to wander and assume that must mean another user hates them or whatever.
Don't get me wrong, this is not the biggest of deals, but it seems to be a pretty popular opinion here that downvoting on Reddit is unnecessarily brutal and disheartening, and to me this possible scenario dwarfs that by bringing in weird social media-y social dynamics.
You're contradicting yourself here. You want to change "vote" to become "a sign of reputation‐empowered endorsement for a positive/productive contribution", but in the very next sentence, you say...
I feel like it could help shape the culture of voting on the site by encouraging it to be slightly more thoughtful—as opposed to the kneejerk “I agree” or “I find this funny” of Reddit—by making it a sign of reputation‐empowered endorsement for a positive/productive contribution. I can’t think of many opinions you’d want to support only if no one knows you support them, and fewer still where that bodes well for the opinion in question.
You're contradicting yourself here. You want to change "vote" to become "a sign of reputation‐empowered endorsement for a positive/productive contribution", but in the very next sentence, you say that it's about opinions you support. Then you propose a third usage, which is to provide closure on a discussion.
And this...
The anonymized voting serves that purpose well currently, but seeing “1 vote” at the top of a reply still feels substantially less significant than “1 vote→UsernameIRespect”.
... feels like a fourth option. Somehow, by voting on a topic or comment, people are supposedly validating the writer of the topic/comment.
So, we have:
Recognising positive contribution.
Signalling agreement.
Providing closure.
Delivering validation.
That's way too much complexity for one simple button that you then want me to put my name to. How will someone know that I've voted on something because I think it's a positive contribution and not because I agree with it? I don't really wanted to be identified as agreeing with some of the things I upvote - because I may not actually agree with them.
I really think that what you're doing here is making a case for Tildes to have a variety of ways to acknowledge a topic/comment, beyond a simple "vote". You're basically proposing buttons for "good post" and "I agree" and "Thank you".
And I really don't see a need for my (or anyone else's) username to be attached to these actions. If I want someone to see that I agree with a point, then I'll write a comment saying so. If I'm just recognising a good contribution, that doesn't need my name attached. The only thing that needs my name is that "thank you"/"closure" option.
Very much agreed. I disagree very often with people on this site, mainly due to different political leanings, but I still tend to upvote many things I disagree with as long as it is written...
Very much agreed. I disagree very often with people on this site, mainly due to different political leanings, but I still tend to upvote many things I disagree with as long as it is written respectfully and contains some kind of information I can learn from, or at least empathize with. This idea would make me less likely to vote on anything and would simply promote accusing others of "wrong vote", rather than issuing counter-arguments to their ideas.
I run into a lot of situations where I don't want to open myself up to conflict but there's still something worth supporting or recognizing the quality of in there. I, personally, have to be very...
I can’t think of many opinions you’d want to support only if no one knows you support them, and fewer still where that bodes well for the opinion in question.
I run into a lot of situations where I don't want to open myself up to conflict but there's still something worth supporting or recognizing the quality of in there. I, personally, have to be very careful (despite my activity) with the conversations I enter myself into because I have a hard time not getting provoked and diving into a full argument. I like anonymous voting because it's a way for me to participate or show someone "hey, your thing was worthwhile" while staying out of it.
That's just it really, it's not about the content of what I'm voting on so much as it is my willingness to get dragged into it myself. Some might say that to have any presence in a conversation should come with the requirement of being publicly accountable...but that's a bit over that line for me.
Maybe not where we're at right now, but I could see it happening (or at the very least, I would feel like it's happening). If leftbook-style callout culture somehow made its way here, that would...
Maybe not where we're at right now, but I could see it happening (or at the very least, I would feel like it's happening). If leftbook-style callout culture somehow made its way here, that would certainly be something to worry about.
Would that necessarily be abuse, though? If it's public, I would think starting a conversation based on that would be totally expected and fine. I would personally dislike it, but it would be...
Would that necessarily be abuse, though? If it's public, I would think starting a conversation based on that would be totally expected and fine. I would personally dislike it, but it would be weird and unintuitive to ban.
Like, if we had to pretend it's not there...why would it be there?
EDIT: I guess all I mean is that, I don't think I would vote a whole lot if this was how it worked. I never really used likes on traditional forums that implemented them, and I think here I'd either reply or not do anything at all. I might not be the majority on that, though. I like transparency and accountability, but I like having something I can do with the reasonable expectation that I won't have to follow it up.
If I'm reading it right, it seems like this is one of the effects OP intends. They want voting to be more thoughtful and less knee-jerk, which implies fewer votes to a degree. Personally, I think...
I guess all I mean is that, I don't think I would vote a whole lot if this was how it worked.
If I'm reading it right, it seems like this is one of the effects OP intends. They want voting to be more thoughtful and less knee-jerk, which implies fewer votes to a degree. Personally, I think if someone wants to vote on a comment, yes they should stand by it with their name.
I think you're reading my comment a little too generously. I mean that, to me, the utility of a vote is basically gone at that point. It won't push me toward only voting for high quality things, I...
I think you're reading my comment a little too generously. I mean that, to me, the utility of a vote is basically gone at that point. It won't push me toward only voting for high quality things, I just won't vote.
It could be, but Whom argues that the button'll come to represent more of 'I agree' rather than 'this is high quality'. Unfortunately, the former is closer to the default state of human voting...
It could be, but Whom argues that the button'll come to represent more of 'I agree' rather than 'this is high quality'. Unfortunately, the former is closer to the default state of human voting behavior, as is evident on sites such as Reddit or Facebook.
I upvoted this post because I think it's worthy of discussion, but I don't agree with it. This is the main reason I don't support revealing who voted for what. When I enter a comment in a thread,...
I upvoted this post because I think it's worthy of discussion, but I don't agree with it. This is the main reason I don't support revealing who voted for what. When I enter a comment in a thread, I am voicing something specific. This may not be the case when I upvote. Without context, revealing the username is 1) not useful, and 2) possibly misleading.
Well anonymous voting has been a big step to allowing more freedom of speech as it becomes easier to oppose an opinion. I think tildes should stick to it - particularly for posts that are on the...
Well anonymous voting has been a big step to allowing more freedom of speech as it becomes easier to oppose an opinion. I think tildes should stick to it - particularly for posts that are on the margins of what the general users thinks. Not everyone wants to publicly support something you become liable to get draged into consversations you're not interesed in having at that moment, sometimes you just want to give it an vote annd move on. If you're looking for discussion a comment is quite sufficient.
Yeah anonymity is an absolutely essential part of voting. Public showing of votes, if ever added to the site, should be opt-in, or at least be implemented using another button ("support" or...
Yeah anonymity is an absolutely essential part of voting. Public showing of votes, if ever added to the site, should be opt-in, or at least be implemented using another button ("support" or "promote" - for "I support/promote this").
I personally don't see the point in it at all but it can be added in a way that still respects privacy.
Some people may not be comfortable openly participating in certain discussions, but still wish to express that they value or support some other persons comment. An example off the top of my head:...
Some people may not be comfortable openly participating in certain discussions, but still wish to express that they value or support some other persons comment.
An example off the top of my head: a closeted individual who reads someone's coming out story and identifies deeply with it may want to increase the visibility (because it so closely mirrors their own story they're not ready to tell yet) or simply to express support, while not being ready to attach their own name to that discussion yet.
Oh cool, as far as we're adding reputation-based features we should also have user profiles, automatically-curated per-user content, higher post weight for "famous" users, more voting power for...
by making it a sign of reputation‐empowered endorsement
Oh cool, as far as we're adding reputation-based features we should also have user profiles, automatically-curated per-user content, higher post weight for "famous" users, more voting power for reputable community members,, groups exclusive to certain people... /s
I think your idea completely misses the point of a community like Tildes. If you want a platform where people matter more than the ideas themselves, feel free to sign up for Facebook.
I'm not a fan of this for the regular voting - I like that to be quiet, private, and low-key. When we get around to implementing the 'exemplary upvote' feature, however, there may be some merit to...
I'm not a fan of this for the regular voting - I like that to be quiet, private, and low-key.
When we get around to implementing the 'exemplary upvote' feature, however, there may be some merit to having the names of the people who use an exemplary vote attached in some way. That mechanism is meant to highlight high-quality content and effectively nominate that submission as something worthy of moving up a hierarchy chain towards the root group. It isn't meant to be used frivolously.
I don't think I'd put it in people's faces, though. Probably under the topic log or some other sidebar-based element meant to track the exemplars.
One thing I have really been enjoying about Tildes is that there isn't a "downvote" option to silence those with a differing opinion, even if they are contributing to the discussion. I don't like...
One thing I have really been enjoying about Tildes is that there isn't a "downvote" option to silence those with a differing opinion, even if they are contributing to the discussion. I don't like the idea of a public based voting system, as it takes away from the privacy-oriented aspects of this site that I, and many other users, have come to love.
This thread did give me an idea and I'd like some input on it as to whether it makes sense to others. What if we had two separate votes. We keep the current voting system in place, where votes can be placed when a post or comment adds to discussion. We continue to not have a "downvote" option and that vote is just counted as a "This post contributes to the discussion." Then, a second voting system for agree/disagree that has no effect on how high or low the post appears amongst other posts. Comments are still sorted by quality and content, but also shows how other users are reacting to the content of the submission.
For example, this thread is getting a lot of votes because many users think that it's a discussion that should be had, but from the comments it seems like most users disagree with what the content is suggesting be added to the site. So, it would appear on the top posts of Tildes, but would also show that the content/suggestion is mostly disagreed with. Currently, without looking at the comments, it may appear that a lot users support the idea because it has been voted for so many times.
EDIT: After looking at the thread that @Algernon_Asimov linked, I think I have changed my mind on this. In theory, it sounded like a good idea but in practice I do think it would ultimately lead to lower quality discussion. If you liked the idea I posted from above, and haven't read the thread linked below I recommend doing so. An agree/disagree would likely lead to users hitting disagree and moving on without stating why they disagree.
To be honest, I dont think even the vote counts should be shown. I think the only thing g the vote count should be used for is to sort comments in order of "thoughtfulness / discussion...
To be honest, I dont think even the vote counts should be shown. I think the only thing g the vote count should be used for is to sort comments in order of "thoughtfulness / discussion provoking-ness". I feel that even just showing the vote count to users minimizes the goal of Tildes: to have good discussions.
I agree with you: without downvotes to counter them, votes are basically just a count of "who posted first in the thread" (which reddit research has proven over and over). They shouldn't even be...
I agree with you: without downvotes to counter them, votes are basically just a count of "who posted first in the thread" (which reddit research has proven over and over). They shouldn't even be used for sorting in Tildes for this exact reason.
Votes are basically entirely worthless without downvotes on Tildes and I'm all for removing anything related to them, even the Vote button itself.
Yeah truly I'm OK with that or even the sorting as-is. My point is more that even then votes are completely useless right now. Really, what is the point of voting on Tildes right now except as a...
Yeah truly I'm OK with that or even the sorting as-is. My point is more that even then votes are completely useless right now. Really, what is the point of voting on Tildes right now except as a weak measure of how many "likes" you got? It's non-sense and offers no tangible benefits except for how popular your comment is (but wrongfully, since people who disagree cannot downvote, making it useless again as a metric for anything at all).
I mean mostly for the comment section. For the overall content sorting it makes more sense, even though the lack of downvoting there is asinine as well. Why can I promote a post that I think other people should see but cannot demote a post that I think is garbage? Don't the creators of Tildes think I'm wise enough to put my voting to good use? If so, why am I allowed to upvote?! Makes literally zeros sense, walks backward in terms of community building online and on top of that is mildly insulting to us as users by taking away an extremely useful feature because it doesn't trust us to use it well.
It's super lazy design, taking away an important tool instead of being bold and designing a proper use for it.
Downvote button isn't here for reason. If you disagree with someone, you can do two things: either downvote it (which is done on reddit) or comment that you disagree and say why. The latter is...
Downvote button isn't here for reason. If you disagree with someone, you can do two things: either downvote it (which is done on reddit) or comment that you disagree and say why. The latter is more time-consuming and "harder" to do, so most people just downvote. But because discussion is the goal here on Tildes, @Deimos decided to not allow the downvote. No downvote button promotes discussion.
Upvote button, on the other hand, seems broken. It is used to both mark "high quality" - even if you disagree with someone, you should upvote him when he wrote high quality post - and "I agree" button. This is the problem when comments are sorted by upvotes. Both quality and popular comments goes up. It is better than Reddit, but it still could be done better. Either sort to promote even new comments with low amount of upvotes as @tumbzilla suggested, or add an agree button, that would do nothing, but might make people use vote button on high-quality content, not popular content.
Excellent description of the problem. Much more eloquent than my attempt. I've been thinking about this issue on and off for a while, and another solution I came up with was to sort by the number...
Excellent description of the problem. Much more eloquent than my attempt.
I've been thinking about this issue on and off for a while, and another solution I came up with was to sort by the number of replies. That way, the most discussion-prompting comments are at the top. If we wanted to go further, we could sort by the maximum depth of replies to a comment. A large depth would mean that a back-and-forth discussion has taken place. Perhaps again with some shuffling to promote new posts, since they still suffer from the "early poster get ahead" problem.
I'd love to get @Deimos to share his thoughts here. Do you feel the Vote button is working as intended so far? What potential downsides would there be to sorting by number of replies.
So far, voting isn't very consequential overall. The site's default sort for topics is by activity (which voting doesn't affect), and most comment threads are small enough that you can easily read...
Do you feel the Vote button is working as intended so far?
So far, voting isn't very consequential overall. The site's default sort for topics is by activity (which voting doesn't affect), and most comment threads are small enough that you can easily read the whole thing. It's still useful, because you can do things like easily change the sorting of topics to show "most votes in the last 24 hours" to catch up on popular topics from the day, but it's kind of a minor factor in the site's default behavior for now.
For comments at least, the biggest issues will probably be the lack of separation between the various purposes you can use a vote for. Clicking "Vote" can mean "I acknowledge that you replied to me", "I agree with this", "This is funny", or "This is one of the best comments I've ever read". Those are very different meanings, and if we want things to work really well, we probably need to find a better way to recognize the distinctions.
There's also always that core problem of comment sorting: most methods have a feedback loop of "more visibility causes more votes/replies, and more votes/replies cause more visibility".
What potential downsides would there be to sorting by number of replies.
Mostly downsides similar to some of the ones we're seeing with using "activity" as the default topic sort. More controversial discussions or ones that attract many quick responses get treated as "better", when they're usually not. As a simple example, this comment in the Black Mirror re-watch thread will always get the most responses. That's certainly not the best comment to show people first when they come into the comments, I'd even consider it the worst.
In general, I don't think there's a comment sorting method that's clearly the best. They all have different biases, and will work well sometimes and poorly other times.
Thanks for your thoughts, Deimos. A way to address this would be to sort by average comment depth. For example, if a comment had 50 direct replies, and none of those 50 replies had any further...
Thanks for your thoughts, Deimos.
More controversial discussions or ones that attract many quick responses get treated as "better", when they're usually not.
A way to address this would be to sort by average comment depth. For example, if a comment had 50 direct replies, and none of those 50 replies had any further discussion, would then have a score of 1. However, a comment with a single reply, but the replies go back and forth 10 times, then the parent comment would have a score of 10. Using the comment depth to sort comments would result in the most heavily discussed comments being at the top.
Of course, you're right that there is no best way to sort comments. In the end, all sorting methods can be gamed, and are all biased in some way. It's not that I dislike the way things are currently done, just that I want to share my 2 cents. :)
Yeah, that will work well in some cases, but also favors "discussions" that are just bickering back and forth over small things where none of the involved users want to let someone else have the...
However, a comment with a single reply, but the replies go back and forth 10 times, then the parent comment would have a score of 10. Using the comment depth to sort comments would result in the most heavily discussed comments being at the top.
Yeah, that will work well in some cases, but also favors "discussions" that are just bickering back and forth over small things where none of the involved users want to let someone else have the last word (which happens quite often).
Overall, I think the core issue is that it's very hard to recognize a "good discussion" solely from things that are effectively metadata. They're all ways of looking at characteristics of the discussion instead of the actual content, which is the part that's truly important. And the best way to understand the content is to get humans to read it, which kind of leads back to a voting system.
There are certainly some things we can do better though, and I hope we can figure out some ways to improve the ability to pick out the better discussions in posts, once comment threads start getting large enough that it's more important.
What are your thoughts on agree button that would do nothing but people would use it instead of vote button when they just agree with someone? This could limit vote-sorting becoming...
What are your thoughts on agree button that would do nothing but people would use it instead of vote button when they just agree with someone? This could limit vote-sorting becoming popular-sorting.
Good example is here, where @Kat had popular opinion and tons of people agreed with him and @demifiend had unpopular opinons, while quality of both comments were approximatelly the same.
It's kind of an interesting idea, but I don't know how it would need to be implemented or how it would work out in practice. I doubt people would go out of their way to use it, so it would...
It's kind of an interesting idea, but I don't know how it would need to be implemented or how it would work out in practice. I doubt people would go out of their way to use it, so it would probably have be equally convenient (or even more convenient) than voting.
I'm not entirely at home with promoting "discussion value" because this can encourage manufactured controversy. A comment espousing an extreme position may generate a great deal of heat as...
I'm not entirely at home with promoting "discussion value" because this can encourage manufactured controversy. A comment espousing an extreme position may generate a great deal of heat as everyone seeks to weigh in with their opinions, but it can suck energy away from what may be more illuminating conversations.
Sorting comments by discussion value - number of replies - is excellent idea, better than my agree button. And it doesn't do anything invasive, it's just another sorting method.
Sorting comments by discussion value - number of replies - is excellent idea, better than my agree button. And it doesn't do anything invasive, it's just another sorting method.
There's a lot of ways it could be tweaked, such as a certain percentage of child comment's votes being used to boots the parent comment, but clarity could be an issue maybe. Discussion value...
There's a lot of ways it could be tweaked, such as a certain percentage of child comment's votes being used to boots the parent comment, but clarity could be an issue maybe. Discussion value doesn't necessarily mean high quality comments either though, it too is a measure of popularity like the current vote-based sorting.
Yeah can definitely see that positive feedback loop working to make it all about votes. Not showing total votes for a user and minimising it as a status symbol or thing to acquire should help in...
Yeah can definitely see that positive feedback loop working to make it all about votes. Not showing total votes for a user and minimising it as a status symbol or thing to acquire should help in making it less about getting votes and more about just discussions.
Agreed, I see votes as more of a way to sort the comments, nothing more. I think even just hiding vote count from all but the comment poster would help.
Agreed, I see votes as more of a way to sort the comments, nothing more. I think even just hiding vote count from all but the comment poster would help.
Yeah I can see that working, it really should not be the focus of the discussion. It should be tool to help the computers understand the discussion not informing the users what opinion they should...
Yeah I can see that working, it really should not be the focus of the discussion. It should be tool to help the computers understand the discussion not informing the users what opinion they should like or not.
I like the idea, but how would you be able to gauge how well your comments are contributing to discussions if you can't see the number of votes of other submissions? Just playing devils advocate...
I like the idea, but how would you be able to gauge how well your comments are contributing to discussions if you can't see the number of votes of other submissions? Just playing devils advocate here, but if you don't know how many votes other users in the thread have, it would be hard to judge if your post is doing well or not, no?
I don't have a lot to add other than, I REALLY do not want this feature implemented. Others have stated reasons I agree with, but I just wanted to add another voice to disagree. Honestly, if this...
I don't have a lot to add other than, I REALLY do not want this feature implemented. Others have stated reasons I agree with, but I just wanted to add another voice to disagree.
Honestly, if this were implemented, I'd likely stop using the site.
I feel like, although it would be massively less simple, a separate "Rep" button would be a better option. Given voting's not supposed to be "I agree," at least.
I feel like, although it would be massively less simple, a separate "Rep" button would be a better option. Given voting's not supposed to be "I agree," at least.
I always considered voting as "promoting this", not necessarily "agreeing with this". I mean, is what upvoting on Reddit was meant to be as well. About the Rep, I don't see the need for it to be...
I always considered voting as "promoting this", not necessarily "agreeing with this".
I mean, is what upvoting on Reddit was meant to be as well.
About the Rep, I don't see the need for it to be honest as it push the direction of the cult of ego that I'd like not to see on tildes.
Generally, voting is "added to the discussion, here's an internet point." At least on most sites. (If you scroll down to the end of the link at the end of this post, Deimos implies that votes are...
Generally, voting is "added to the discussion, here's an internet point." At least on most sites. (If you scroll down to the end of the link at the end of this post, Deimos implies that votes are supposed to be used for roughly that purpose, too.)
So basically, vote="Good Contribution," rep="I agree and am backing this statement."
The problem with what you're proposing, in my opinion, is that voting isn't necessarily thought of as "This contributed" right now. So if someone uses it thinking, "Hey, this [Defense of Horrible...
The problem with what you're proposing, in my opinion, is that voting isn't necessarily thought of as "This contributed" right now. So if someone uses it thinking, "Hey, this [Defense of Horrible Ideology in Good Faith] was a rare and unique contributing, I'm going to vote it up," that basically exposes them to a tonne of blame from people who don't necessarily understand the system.
I genuinely can't think of a reason for voting, as stated in the docs, should be public. It'd add a tonne of complication to a really simple matter at not a tonne of benefit, as far as I can gather.
Yeah, I caught what you meant! It's the outcome that I disagree with; I feel like it'll effectively turn it into an "I Agree/I Rep This" button even beyond what it is right now if the information...
Yeah, I caught what you meant! It's the outcome that I disagree with; I feel like it'll effectively turn it into an "I Agree/I Rep This" button even beyond what it is right now if the information goes public unless there's another button saying its function is that flat-out.
I'm author of the agree button idea. I think there is issue with the vote button - people use it as agree button. I often find myself upvoting oneline comment that I agree with, but it's not...
I'm author of the agree button idea. I think there is issue with the vote button - people use it as agree button. I often find myself upvoting oneline comment that I agree with, but it's not contributing to discussion, and I later unupvote it. I think the upvote button should be for marking quality content, not popular content. That's why I proposed agree button that wouldn't do anything, but might make people use vote button for quality content - even if they disagree with it l.
it would add complexity without fixing the issue
Do you consider usage of the vote button as agree button an issue? And what is the issue that you want to solve? What exactly could be solved by your public voters' names? The only thing I think it will do is that you'll find users that vote (and think) like you.
So you're proposing that peoples' voting is public so there's accountability - from who? If someone isn't voting the way someone else works, are we going to call them out and shame them? Report...
So you're proposing that peoples' voting is public so there's accountability - from who? If someone isn't voting the way someone else works, are we going to call them out and shame them? Report them? If someone is using their votes to promote content they agree with, the only purpose making their votes public is to promote more disagreement. Does someone deserve to be dragged back into a conversation that they elected not to participate in?
StackOverflow has long held that the down vote button (something users have to have a small amount of rep to use) is for whatever they decide to use it for, as policing it's use is an impossible task, though they've tried to force people to leave a comment explaining the down vote. If people go around down voting everything, then that person is likely pretty negative, but they're not punished for doing so. In the same way, upvotes are trusted to the prerogative of the user.
On the other hand, what of I want my votes to stay private. Say I upvote things in r/yiff (nsfw warning). I wouldn't want reddit to say what I vote for (which they accidentally did with they...
On the other hand, what of I want my votes to stay private. Say I upvote things in r/yiff (nsfw warning). I wouldn't want reddit to say what I vote for (which they accidentally did with they recent breach). The same here. What if I don't want people to see I'm upvoting in some nsfw/controversial group. Should each group decide if they show upvoters' names? And if you let people decide if they want to show their names there, once someone starts upvoting poor quality content and someone tells him to stop - he'll just disable it and continue.
I agree that it's an issue, but I'm not sure if this is the solution - for privacy reasons.
A lot of forums have public usernames attached to Likes and Thank Yous, and I've never seen issues arise from it. Can't really think of any situations where I'd want to vote a comment but leave my...
A lot of forums have public usernames attached to Likes and Thank Yous, and I've never seen issues arise from it. Can't really think of any situations where I'd want to vote a comment but leave my name off of it. I think it's a fine idea, and it'd be nice to know who supports which comments. If anything, it could provide extra context for discussions happening in other threads within the topic.
Other possibility: Have two types of voting classes: A) anonymous and B) identified. Then you could weight the classes, an anonymous vote gets 1 point, an identified vote gets 3 points. Or you...
Other possibility:
Have two types of voting classes: A) anonymous and B) identified. Then you could weight the classes, an anonymous vote gets 1 point, an identified vote gets 3 points. Or you could keep the voting results segregated:
My topic (56 anonymous votes) (3 identified votes)
Once the site goes public, I could see this getting abused very easily if one users vote counts as more than one. You could theoretically just create a few dozen alt accounts and just submit a...
Once the site goes public, I could see this getting abused very easily if one users vote counts as more than one. You could theoretically just create a few dozen alt accounts and just submit a bunch of identified votes.
A lot of times I vote on content, but that doesn’t always mean I want others to know that I’m around. I feel it could also be used to fuel passive aggression when someone doesn’t vote.
I could definitely see this too, or just feeling nervous. Like "I respect @Kat's opinion, I see them elsewhere in the thread, and they haven't voted on my thing! Oh no!"
Maybe that's not a dynamic that would matter to most people, but my nervous ass doesn't want to deal with it.
That might be an argument that works with a small community, but is it really an issue later on when Tildes grows?
If you're constantly checking every post just to see which big names have voted and to feel insecure over it, you might have some issues.
For one, scale is not a 100% thing and I don't think making decisions based on the assumption that this will become a cold faceless place like most of Reddit is a good idea. Even decent sized websites manage to maintain dynamics like that, and it would be quite a failure of this website if we ended back in the Reddit situation where you might as well see entirely new users in every thread you open.
Also yes, I noted that it's something that comes from nervousness and anxiety. Though I imagine checking who voted on your comment (especially for conversations or arguments where other users become relevant) would be more or less standard behavior. You saying that means I have issues adds nothing except for an insult out of nowhere.
Alright then, apologies for saying so, it was not meant as an insult. I was simply implying it is non-standard behavior.
We appear to have dramatically different expectations of Tildes. Here, I almost expect to come into conflict with other views - and I welcome it! - since everyone is so civil here. Hence it would be standard behavior for me to check for notable users, yes, but instead of an 'Oh no!' response when they presumably ignore, or (gasp) pseudo-dislike my comment, I'd just consider it part and parcel of the civil discourse culture of Tildes.
Regardless, on net I disagreed with the overall idea of OP's suggestion, for other conceptual reasons as outlined later in the thread.
I'm not sure what to take from sublime_aenima and my own comments getting a decent number of votes, if that's the case. I don't want to extrapolate too far from just votes since it's unclear what they mean here, but I'd imagine there's either a decent amount of users who feel similarly or who found them to be reactions worth paying attention to, at least.
Well, sure. Of course people will disagree, but sites like this aren't just for discussions on serious things like politics or whatever. There's a lot of casual (but still substantial) space where it could be a bit uncomfortable. Regardless of the tone, the thing with a vote is that it's either all positive or nothing (in some cases being an implicit show of non-support). When you attach names, it makes it personal without the advantage of other personal interactions (like a reply) where context and the reason / degree of disagreement can play in. There's no room for one's mind to wander and assume that must mean another user hates them or whatever.
Don't get me wrong, this is not the biggest of deals, but it seems to be a pretty popular opinion here that downvoting on Reddit is unnecessarily brutal and disheartening, and to me this possible scenario dwarfs that by bringing in weird social media-y social dynamics.
You're contradicting yourself here. You want to change "vote" to become "a sign of reputation‐empowered endorsement for a positive/productive contribution", but in the very next sentence, you say that it's about opinions you support. Then you propose a third usage, which is to provide closure on a discussion.
And this...
... feels like a fourth option. Somehow, by voting on a topic or comment, people are supposedly validating the writer of the topic/comment.
So, we have:
Recognising positive contribution.
Signalling agreement.
Providing closure.
Delivering validation.
That's way too much complexity for one simple button that you then want me to put my name to. How will someone know that I've voted on something because I think it's a positive contribution and not because I agree with it? I don't really wanted to be identified as agreeing with some of the things I upvote - because I may not actually agree with them.
I really think that what you're doing here is making a case for Tildes to have a variety of ways to acknowledge a topic/comment, beyond a simple "vote". You're basically proposing buttons for "good post" and "I agree" and "Thank you".
And I really don't see a need for my (or anyone else's) username to be attached to these actions. If I want someone to see that I agree with a point, then I'll write a comment saying so. If I'm just recognising a good contribution, that doesn't need my name attached. The only thing that needs my name is that "thank you"/"closure" option.
Very much agreed. I disagree very often with people on this site, mainly due to different political leanings, but I still tend to upvote many things I disagree with as long as it is written respectfully and contains some kind of information I can learn from, or at least empathize with. This idea would make me less likely to vote on anything and would simply promote accusing others of "wrong vote", rather than issuing counter-arguments to their ideas.
I run into a lot of situations where I don't want to open myself up to conflict but there's still something worth supporting or recognizing the quality of in there. I, personally, have to be very careful (despite my activity) with the conversations I enter myself into because I have a hard time not getting provoked and diving into a full argument. I like anonymous voting because it's a way for me to participate or show someone "hey, your thing was worthwhile" while staying out of it.
That's just it really, it's not about the content of what I'm voting on so much as it is my willingness to get dragged into it myself. Some might say that to have any presence in a conversation should come with the requirement of being publicly accountable...but that's a bit over that line for me.
Maybe not where we're at right now, but I could see it happening (or at the very least, I would feel like it's happening). If leftbook-style callout culture somehow made its way here, that would certainly be something to worry about.
Would that necessarily be abuse, though? If it's public, I would think starting a conversation based on that would be totally expected and fine. I would personally dislike it, but it would be weird and unintuitive to ban.
Like, if we had to pretend it's not there...why would it be there?
EDIT: I guess all I mean is that, I don't think I would vote a whole lot if this was how it worked. I never really used likes on traditional forums that implemented them, and I think here I'd either reply or not do anything at all. I might not be the majority on that, though. I like transparency and accountability, but I like having something I can do with the reasonable expectation that I won't have to follow it up.
If I'm reading it right, it seems like this is one of the effects OP intends. They want voting to be more thoughtful and less knee-jerk, which implies fewer votes to a degree. Personally, I think if someone wants to vote on a comment, yes they should stand by it with their name.
I think you're reading my comment a little too generously. I mean that, to me, the utility of a vote is basically gone at that point. It won't push me toward only voting for high quality things, I just won't vote.
It could be, but Whom argues that the button'll come to represent more of 'I agree' rather than 'this is high quality'. Unfortunately, the former is closer to the default state of human voting behavior, as is evident on sites such as Reddit or Facebook.
I upvoted this post because I think it's worthy of discussion, but I don't agree with it. This is the main reason I don't support revealing who voted for what. When I enter a comment in a thread, I am voicing something specific. This may not be the case when I upvote. Without context, revealing the username is 1) not useful, and 2) possibly misleading.
Same for me, I'm not keen on this idea. There's a lot of value in having anonymous voting.
Well anonymous voting has been a big step to allowing more freedom of speech as it becomes easier to oppose an opinion. I think tildes should stick to it - particularly for posts that are on the margins of what the general users thinks. Not everyone wants to publicly support something you become liable to get draged into consversations you're not interesed in having at that moment, sometimes you just want to give it an vote annd move on. If you're looking for discussion a comment is quite sufficient.
Yeah anonymity is an absolutely essential part of voting. Public showing of votes, if ever added to the site, should be opt-in, or at least be implemented using another button ("support" or "promote" - for "I support/promote this").
I personally don't see the point in it at all but it can be added in a way that still respects privacy.
Your username is attached to every comment. How is attaching your username to votes any different as far as privacy is concerned?
Some people may not be comfortable openly participating in certain discussions, but still wish to express that they value or support some other persons comment.
An example off the top of my head: a closeted individual who reads someone's coming out story and identifies deeply with it may want to increase the visibility (because it so closely mirrors their own story they're not ready to tell yet) or simply to express support, while not being ready to attach their own name to that discussion yet.
Yeah that's a good example. Thanks!
Oh cool, as far as we're adding reputation-based features we should also have user profiles, automatically-curated per-user content, higher post weight for "famous" users, more voting power for reputable community members,, groups exclusive to certain people... /s
I think your idea completely misses the point of a community like Tildes. If you want a platform where people matter more than the ideas themselves, feel free to sign up for Facebook.
I'm not a fan of this for the regular voting - I like that to be quiet, private, and low-key.
When we get around to implementing the 'exemplary upvote' feature, however, there may be some merit to having the names of the people who use an exemplary vote attached in some way. That mechanism is meant to highlight high-quality content and effectively nominate that submission as something worthy of moving up a hierarchy chain towards the root group. It isn't meant to be used frivolously.
I don't think I'd put it in people's faces, though. Probably under the topic log or some other sidebar-based element meant to track the exemplars.
One thing I have really been enjoying about Tildes is that there isn't a "downvote" option to silence those with a differing opinion, even if they are contributing to the discussion. I don't like the idea of a public based voting system, as it takes away from the privacy-oriented aspects of this site that I, and many other users, have come to love.
This thread did give me an idea and I'd like some input on it as to whether it makes sense to others. What if we had two separate votes. We keep the current voting system in place, where votes can be placed when a post or comment adds to discussion. We continue to not have a "downvote" option and that vote is just counted as a "This post contributes to the discussion." Then, a second voting system for agree/disagree that has no effect on how high or low the post appears amongst other posts. Comments are still sorted by quality and content, but also shows how other users are reacting to the content of the submission.
For example, this thread is getting a lot of votes because many users think that it's a discussion that should be had, but from the comments it seems like most users disagree with what the content is suggesting be added to the site. So, it would appear on the top posts of Tildes, but would also show that the content/suggestion is mostly disagreed with. Currently, without looking at the comments, it may appear that a lot users support the idea because it has been voted for so many times.
EDIT: After looking at the thread that @Algernon_Asimov linked, I think I have changed my mind on this. In theory, it sounded like a good idea but in practice I do think it would ultimately lead to lower quality discussion. If you liked the idea I posted from above, and haven't read the thread linked below I recommend doing so. An agree/disagree would likely lead to users hitting disagree and moving on without stating why they disagree.
You'll be interested in this previous discussion from a couple of weeks ago: Idea that could change Tildes - Agree/Disagree buttons
Yep, I missed that thread. I figured I wasn't the first one to think of the idea. I will give the thread a read. Thank you.
To be honest, I dont think even the vote counts should be shown. I think the only thing g the vote count should be used for is to sort comments in order of "thoughtfulness / discussion provoking-ness". I feel that even just showing the vote count to users minimizes the goal of Tildes: to have good discussions.
I agree with you: without downvotes to counter them, votes are basically just a count of "who posted first in the thread" (which reddit research has proven over and over). They shouldn't even be used for sorting in Tildes for this exact reason.
Votes are basically entirely worthless without downvotes on Tildes and I'm all for removing anything related to them, even the Vote button itself.
I'd be okay with a soft sorting algorithm: sort by votes, then shuffle the order a little somehow to reduce the "first poster" effect.
Yeah truly I'm OK with that or even the sorting as-is. My point is more that even then votes are completely useless right now. Really, what is the point of voting on Tildes right now except as a weak measure of how many "likes" you got? It's non-sense and offers no tangible benefits except for how popular your comment is (but wrongfully, since people who disagree cannot downvote, making it useless again as a metric for anything at all).
I mean mostly for the comment section. For the overall content sorting it makes more sense, even though the lack of downvoting there is asinine as well. Why can I promote a post that I think other people should see but cannot demote a post that I think is garbage? Don't the creators of Tildes think I'm wise enough to put my voting to good use? If so, why am I allowed to upvote?! Makes literally zeros sense, walks backward in terms of community building online and on top of that is mildly insulting to us as users by taking away an extremely useful feature because it doesn't trust us to use it well.
It's super lazy design, taking away an important tool instead of being bold and designing a proper use for it.
Downvote button isn't here for reason. If you disagree with someone, you can do two things: either downvote it (which is done on reddit) or comment that you disagree and say why. The latter is more time-consuming and "harder" to do, so most people just downvote. But because discussion is the goal here on Tildes, @Deimos decided to not allow the downvote. No downvote button promotes discussion.
Upvote button, on the other hand, seems broken. It is used to both mark "high quality" - even if you disagree with someone, you should upvote him when he wrote high quality post - and "I agree" button. This is the problem when comments are sorted by upvotes. Both quality and popular comments goes up. It is better than Reddit, but it still could be done better. Either sort to promote even new comments with low amount of upvotes as @tumbzilla suggested, or add an agree button, that would do nothing, but might make people use vote button on high-quality content, not popular content.
Excellent description of the problem. Much more eloquent than my attempt.
I've been thinking about this issue on and off for a while, and another solution I came up with was to sort by the number of replies. That way, the most discussion-prompting comments are at the top. If we wanted to go further, we could sort by the maximum depth of replies to a comment. A large depth would mean that a back-and-forth discussion has taken place. Perhaps again with some shuffling to promote new posts, since they still suffer from the "early poster get ahead" problem.
I'd love to get @Deimos to share his thoughts here. Do you feel the Vote button is working as intended so far? What potential downsides would there be to sorting by number of replies.
So far, voting isn't very consequential overall. The site's default sort for topics is by activity (which voting doesn't affect), and most comment threads are small enough that you can easily read the whole thing. It's still useful, because you can do things like easily change the sorting of topics to show "most votes in the last 24 hours" to catch up on popular topics from the day, but it's kind of a minor factor in the site's default behavior for now.
For comments at least, the biggest issues will probably be the lack of separation between the various purposes you can use a vote for. Clicking "Vote" can mean "I acknowledge that you replied to me", "I agree with this", "This is funny", or "This is one of the best comments I've ever read". Those are very different meanings, and if we want things to work really well, we probably need to find a better way to recognize the distinctions.
There's also always that core problem of comment sorting: most methods have a feedback loop of "more visibility causes more votes/replies, and more votes/replies cause more visibility".
Mostly downsides similar to some of the ones we're seeing with using "activity" as the default topic sort. More controversial discussions or ones that attract many quick responses get treated as "better", when they're usually not. As a simple example, this comment in the Black Mirror re-watch thread will always get the most responses. That's certainly not the best comment to show people first when they come into the comments, I'd even consider it the worst.
In general, I don't think there's a comment sorting method that's clearly the best. They all have different biases, and will work well sometimes and poorly other times.
Thanks for your thoughts, Deimos.
A way to address this would be to sort by average comment depth. For example, if a comment had 50 direct replies, and none of those 50 replies had any further discussion, would then have a score of 1. However, a comment with a single reply, but the replies go back and forth 10 times, then the parent comment would have a score of 10. Using the comment depth to sort comments would result in the most heavily discussed comments being at the top.
Of course, you're right that there is no best way to sort comments. In the end, all sorting methods can be gamed, and are all biased in some way. It's not that I dislike the way things are currently done, just that I want to share my 2 cents. :)
Yeah, that will work well in some cases, but also favors "discussions" that are just bickering back and forth over small things where none of the involved users want to let someone else have the last word (which happens quite often).
Overall, I think the core issue is that it's very hard to recognize a "good discussion" solely from things that are effectively metadata. They're all ways of looking at characteristics of the discussion instead of the actual content, which is the part that's truly important. And the best way to understand the content is to get humans to read it, which kind of leads back to a voting system.
There are certainly some things we can do better though, and I hope we can figure out some ways to improve the ability to pick out the better discussions in posts, once comment threads start getting large enough that it's more important.
What are your thoughts on agree button that would do nothing but people would use it instead of vote button when they just agree with someone? This could limit vote-sorting becoming popular-sorting.
Good example is here, where @Kat had popular opinion and tons of people agreed with him and @demifiend had unpopular opinons, while quality of both comments were approximatelly the same.
It's kind of an interesting idea, but I don't know how it would need to be implemented or how it would work out in practice. I doubt people would go out of their way to use it, so it would probably have be equally convenient (or even more convenient) than voting.
FYI: Kat is a "her", not a "him".
I'll remember it.
Fun fact, in my language, Kat is the medieval person who decapitated criminals :-)
I'm not entirely at home with promoting "discussion value" because this can encourage manufactured controversy. A comment espousing an extreme position may generate a great deal of heat as everyone seeks to weigh in with their opinions, but it can suck energy away from what may be more illuminating conversations.
Hmmm, I hadn't considered that. You make a great point. In the end, it's up the us to put the effort into finding comments we want to reply to.
Sorting comments by discussion value - number of replies - is excellent idea, better than my agree button. And it doesn't do anything invasive, it's just another sorting method.
There's a lot of ways it could be tweaked, such as a certain percentage of child comment's votes being used to boots the parent comment, but clarity could be an issue maybe. Discussion value doesn't necessarily mean high quality comments either though, it too is a measure of popularity like the current vote-based sorting.
Thanks! It'd also be cool to display the number of replies at the top of a comment or something
What if the vote counts were only shown to the poster? I worry that as Tildes grows the vote count will encourage hive-mind thinking
Yeah can definitely see that positive feedback loop working to make it all about votes. Not showing total votes for a user and minimising it as a status symbol or thing to acquire should help in making it less about getting votes and more about just discussions.
Agreed, I see votes as more of a way to sort the comments, nothing more. I think even just hiding vote count from all but the comment poster would help.
Yeah I can see that working, it really should not be the focus of the discussion. It should be tool to help the computers understand the discussion not informing the users what opinion they should like or not.
Exactly. And making the vote count visible to the poster lets people know how well their own comments are seen to contribute to the conversation
I like the idea, but how would you be able to gauge how well your comments are contributing to discussions if you can't see the number of votes of other submissions? Just playing devils advocate here, but if you don't know how many votes other users in the thread have, it would be hard to judge if your post is doing well or not, no?
What if it gave you a percentile? A "you got more votes than X percent of of other posters"
I don't have a lot to add other than, I REALLY do not want this feature implemented. Others have stated reasons I agree with, but I just wanted to add another voice to disagree.
Honestly, if this were implemented, I'd likely stop using the site.
Edit: hate -> have (too early, need caffeine)
I agree, I don't like this idea either. It wouldn't even work once tildes user base grows and we have 5k votes on a comment.
I feel like, although it would be massively less simple, a separate "Rep" button would be a better option. Given voting's not supposed to be "I agree," at least.
I always considered voting as "promoting this", not necessarily "agreeing with this".
I mean, is what upvoting on Reddit was meant to be as well.
About the Rep, I don't see the need for it to be honest as it push the direction of the cult of ego that I'd like not to see on tildes.
Generally, voting is "added to the discussion, here's an internet point." At least on most sites. (If you scroll down to the end of the link at the end of this post, Deimos implies that votes are supposed to be used for roughly that purpose, too.)
So basically, vote="Good Contribution," rep="I agree and am backing this statement."
The problem with what you're proposing, in my opinion, is that voting isn't necessarily thought of as "This contributed" right now. So if someone uses it thinking, "Hey, this [Defense of Horrible Ideology in Good Faith] was a rare and unique contributing, I'm going to vote it up," that basically exposes them to a tonne of blame from people who don't necessarily understand the system.
I genuinely can't think of a reason for voting, as stated in the docs, should be public. It'd add a tonne of complication to a really simple matter at not a tonne of benefit, as far as I can gather.
Yeah, I caught what you meant! It's the outcome that I disagree with; I feel like it'll effectively turn it into an "I Agree/I Rep This" button even beyond what it is right now if the information goes public unless there's another button saying its function is that flat-out.
I'm author of the agree button idea. I think there is issue with the vote button - people use it as agree button. I often find myself upvoting oneline comment that I agree with, but it's not contributing to discussion, and I later unupvote it. I think the upvote button should be for marking quality content, not popular content. That's why I proposed agree button that wouldn't do anything, but might make people use vote button for quality content - even if they disagree with it l.
Do you consider usage of the vote button as agree button an issue? And what is the issue that you want to solve? What exactly could be solved by your public voters' names? The only thing I think it will do is that you'll find users that vote (and think) like you.
So you're proposing that peoples' voting is public so there's accountability - from who? If someone isn't voting the way someone else works, are we going to call them out and shame them? Report them? If someone is using their votes to promote content they agree with, the only purpose making their votes public is to promote more disagreement. Does someone deserve to be dragged back into a conversation that they elected not to participate in?
StackOverflow has long held that the down vote button (something users have to have a small amount of rep to use) is for whatever they decide to use it for, as policing it's use is an impossible task, though they've tried to force people to leave a comment explaining the down vote. If people go around down voting everything, then that person is likely pretty negative, but they're not punished for doing so. In the same way, upvotes are trusted to the prerogative of the user.
On the other hand, what of I want my votes to stay private. Say I upvote things in r/yiff (nsfw warning). I wouldn't want reddit to say what I vote for (which they accidentally did with they recent breach). The same here. What if I don't want people to see I'm upvoting in some nsfw/controversial group. Should each group decide if they show upvoters' names? And if you let people decide if they want to show their names there, once someone starts upvoting poor quality content and someone tells him to stop - he'll just disable it and continue.
I agree that it's an issue, but I'm not sure if this is the solution - for privacy reasons.
A lot of forums have public usernames attached to Likes and Thank Yous, and I've never seen issues arise from it. Can't really think of any situations where I'd want to vote a comment but leave my name off of it. I think it's a fine idea, and it'd be nice to know who supports which comments. If anything, it could provide extra context for discussions happening in other threads within the topic.
Other possibility:
Have two types of voting classes: A) anonymous and B) identified. Then you could weight the classes, an anonymous vote gets 1 point, an identified vote gets 3 points. Or you could keep the voting results segregated:
My topic (56 anonymous votes) (3 identified votes)
Once the site goes public, I could see this getting abused very easily if one users vote counts as more than one. You could theoretically just create a few dozen alt accounts and just submit a bunch of identified votes.
This might be a good idea, but only if it's opt-in. Otherwise, people might feel pressured to conform to the hivemind.