Making Facepunch better - Don't post about ratings
5,003 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Shugo;48154320]So if SH participation/posting falls, thus warranting less moderator action just on principle, will this be considered a victory or a failure?
Also, out of genuine curiosity, what kind of "dumb shit" do you guys currently deal with in SH? What have you been banning for lately that you think the removal of ratings will stop?[/QUOTE]
Lol if people just aren't posting in SH anymore then we'd obviously consider that a step in the wrong direction. That's a very silly question. As far as what we're hoping to see, specifically?
In no particular order:
Less dumb snipes
Less pointless video game references
Less pun posts
Less PM's from people whining about negative ratings
More active participation
Smoother flow to threads
More involved conversations
Basically, just less of what makes SH annoying and more of what makes it good. We want it to be more discussion-oriented and less about jockeying for ratings. Maybe this will help, maybe it won't. Time will tell!
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]Less PM's from people whining about negative ratings[/QUOTE]
You should just ban people who do it
I should ban everybody
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]Lol if people just aren't posting in SH anymore then we'd obviously consider that a step in the wrong direction. That's a very silly question. As far as what we're hoping to see, specifically?
In no particular order:
Less dumb snipes
Less pointless video game references
Less pun posts
Less PM's from people whining about negative ratings
More active participation
Smoother flow to threads
More involved conversations
Basically, just less of what makes SH annoying and more of what makes it good. We want it to be more discussion-oriented and less about jockeying for ratings. Maybe this will help, maybe it won't. Time will tell![/QUOTE]
Can totally live with that because those left-field video game references are awful. Just hope it doesn't last more than a month - I'm way more inclined to participate in SH if ratings exist. Ratings help me judge how the discussion is going - I get to see who agrees and disagrees with each opinion, I get to see what the majority thinks, I get to look back on comments that get lots of disagrees and dumbs and figure out why it didn't appeal to it when my other comment got mostly agrees, etc. It helps me follow the discussion and it helps me keep track of the posts that are influential and the posts that are controversial. It's difficult to have a discussion when every single post has the same weight, and when other people can be looking at posts and thinking that the majority agrees when (if ratings were enabled) they'd see that the majority strongly disagrees, or vice versa.
Not that you won't see me ranting at people if a racism thread pops up.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]Less pun posts[/QUOTE]
Sometimes those are the best parts of threads.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]Lol if people just aren't posting in SH anymore then we'd obviously consider that a step in the wrong direction. That's a very silly question. As far as what we're hoping to see, specifically?
In no particular order:
Less dumb snipes
Less pointless video game references
Less pun posts
Less PM's from people whining about negative ratings
More active participation
Smoother flow to threads
More involved conversations
Basically, just less of what makes SH annoying and more of what makes it good. We want it to be more discussion-oriented and less about jockeying for ratings. Maybe this will help, maybe it won't. Time will tell![/QUOTE]
And what exactly is disabling ratings going to do about 6 out of 7 of those?
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48149836]Ratings have been removed from SH, everybody freak out.[/QUOTE]
Gawddamnit, I thought there was something wrong with my browser, at first. :v:
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]Less dumb snipes
Less pointless video game references
Less pun posts[/QUOTE]
I don't think having no ratings is going to do anything about those, given that I see them all the time in other forums that don't even have ratings. (I also don't think a lot of them are even ban-worthy, but that's a different discussion that we've already had.)
[QUOTE]Less PM's from people whining about negative ratings[/QUOTE]
This isn't the fault of the rating system itself. People will whine about anything. I'm sure you get plenty of dumb whining about stuff beyond ratings. Isn't it already bannable to complain about ratings in the first place?
[QUOTE]More active participation
Smoother flow to threads
More involved conversations[/QUOTE]
So you [I]are[/I] against people who just skim a discussion and rate posts. I already stated my case about this, so there isn't much else to say. Which is really what a lot of SH threads boil down to: after a certain point, there isn't much else to say. I'm not going to bother posting about my opinion, position, or reaction on something if someone with the exact same thoughts has already done it before me. It would be redundant; I'd rather just vote "agree" on their post and gauge how many others agree with that stance at a glance instead of committing all my time to reading through the entire thread.
I still don't think removing ratings will change any of the things you listed, but I appreciate you giving a proper answer. Obviously now my point also turns into "we'll have to wait and see", but like most terrible changes made to FP, I feel like this is probably going to stick around forever no matter what happens. All these changes are just giving me increasingly less reasons to read or participate in the threads. Eventually I'll probably just read headlines or OPs and that'll be my SH dose for the day.
Can we just cut with the sham here?
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]
In no particular order:
Less dumb snipes[/QUOTE]
Debatable. I'd argue that there would be more snipes on the basis that people aren't going to read past the first few replies, so posters will realize they need to get their dumb snipe in fast.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]Less pointless video game references[/QUOTE]
Ratings affect this how?
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]Less pun posts[/QUOTE]
Pun posts are bad how?
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]Less PM's from people whining about negative ratings[/QUOTE]
Tell 'em to go pound sand.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]More active participation[/QUOTE]
I already explained how this is just a strawman. Nobody's going to participate in lieu of rating.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]Smoother flow to threads[/QUOTE]
So you argue that this will encourage participation, then argue that it'll make threads more concise and smooth? With everyone carrying on separate conversations and arguments? I don't think so, Tim.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]More involved conversations[/QUOTE]
This is different from participation how?
Maybe I'm biased, but I'm seriously not getting any straight answers here. From what I can tell, it boils down to "less ratings = less drama = less complaints = less work for us" but it's hidden behind this Cage-esque mystery supported by "you don't know until you try it". Yeah, well, banning everyone and closing down the forums makes mods' jobs easier too, but nobody's going to seriously suggest we give that a shot.
The bottom line is that experimenting with this isn't going to be neutral because a lot of SH posters are already pissed off about this change and will stop participating altogether, so yeah, your workload is gonna decrease either way, and you'll consider it a success.
Is this change supposed to make mods' jobs easier, or to improve the users' experience?
If the reason for removing ratings is to lead to an improved forum experience in general, i.e 'More involved conversations' and such as you say, just remove ratings everywhere.
Ratings were put in as a feature to fix other aspects of shitposting (and came with unforeseen benefits and problems of their own), and removing them may or may not solve some issues whereas they might also bring about a return of the old problems.
Also gotta say: Wow, I was so used to ratings that it feels like I just lost a limb. I'm browsing a few SH threads and even though I know ratings are gone, I still move to rate posts. Already tried to "funny" several posts but couldn't do it. Next instinct was to post a reply instead, but a short post like that would just get me banned.
Already feeling the negative impact of this change. I really don't like it.
From my own personal point of view... ratings are important to me. Yes, you get a lot of 'follow the herd' mentality where an overwhelmingly dumb or disagree rated post gets further rated that way without people giving serious consideration to what the post actually says... can't change that.
But for me, I'm a busy guy, I sit here at work and I barely get a few mins at random intervals to skim over news threads. I often look to ratings to guide me towards the most controversial / informative / correct postings in any given thread, based on the number of ratings it has received. Sounds silly I know, but it works. And I can always come back to that post a bit later and spot it easily amongst the thread and continue reading where I left off.
Maybe an adjustment of what ratings are available in SH would be more appropriate, and not an outright removal of all of them. Bad reading should come back, I put that on the same level as informative. Dumb probably isn't as important I think, it creates animosity. My 2 cents.
I really don't get what this change is even going to bring to the table in terms of post quality. SH was never a very super-serious forum to begin with. And honestly I doubt this is even going to stop people making bad jokes if they want to. It won't even stop people making dumb snipes at others for either posting badly or posting an unacceptable opinion.
I can skim posts and get their gist quickly enough for the most part, but not everybody'll have the inclination, the time, or both to read through every post in a thread, ratings were useful in that sense to understand the general mindset of the way the individuals in SH thought about each user's posts. It was like a small bonus for informative, useful, or plain funny posting. It may be just me but the loss of SH ratings seems to make the place just a bit more sterile and would likely even put off people from posting there, except for the users who really are willing to discuss the news in detail.
The people who were very vocal with their bad or otherwise unacceptable opinions (the racists, homophobes, etc.) could also be easily identified by the posts they agreed with/disagreed or dumbed. But at the same time, it wouldn't really stop them from posting the way they do, which perhaps would contribute more to a discussion if other users are more willing to point out exactly why their opinions are wrong, and would also help in flushing out said users somewhat. Point being is that the vocal users and those entrenched in a given opinion aren't going to stop posting the way they are because ratings are gone.
As far as discussion-oriented goes, you could clearly see that most threads in which the relatively good SH posters participated in, or those knowledgable enough on a subject to post good insights or answer another user's queries, would go with the flow regardless of any other posts that ended up becoming part of the thread. The other posts would provide a little humor or make a dry topic somewhat more bearable to read through.
I admit the ratings whoring was probably becoming a bit much, but since when have ratings ever mattered that much in the scheme of things, except to individual users? The dumb spam I can understand being a problem to deal with in the long run especially if people start complaining about ratings, but hasn't rating spam by users/bandwagon posting always been bannable? And that's just a small proportion of the unwanted posts in SH.
Even without ratings, I'd still probably be hanging around on SH, it doesn't matter to me one way or the other if they remain gone or come back in a limited form/come back entirely.
I can even understand the concept of 'make the change and then announce it' because there's always somebody who's going to be upset about the changes and made themselves known, and rather vocally at that, but this is a polarizing subject and it's not a change most people are going to be on board with. SH was at its root a place for people to discuss the news and have a bit of fun while doing it. You can still have some fun now, but like I said before, the loss of ratings makes the board perhaps a bit too sterile for some.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;48154346]Lol if people just aren't posting in SH anymore then we'd obviously consider that a step in the wrong direction. That's a very silly question. As far as what we're hoping to see, specifically?
In no particular order:
Less dumb snipes
Less pointless video game references
Less pun posts
Less PM's from people whining about negative ratings
More active participation
Smoother flow to threads
More involved conversations
Basically, just less of what makes SH annoying and more of what makes it good. We want it to be more discussion-oriented and less about jockeying for ratings. Maybe this will help, maybe it won't. Time will tell![/QUOTE]
I totally believe you guys give a shit, but the thing is that nothing ever comes back for community review. That in itself is fine, but do it and halt discussion about it. Don't give the illusion that community input matters at that point.
For instance, the forum reshuffling thing was pretty weird. We never hear about that, ever.
I'm also someone who misses Mass Debate, and a dedicated Creative Arts forum. If you asked people today if they want that forum back I think people would totally agree to bring that back.
I keep quiet about a lot of stuff because there's ultimately no point. No one is ever taken seriously, and while I agree people whine [I]way[/I] too much about a forum that's not serious, I don't know why you guys bother with a discussion when it's not us but you guys.
And, for what it's worth, I agree with a lot of what's been done to the forum, including the removal of certain forums and the experiment of removing ratings. But will we ever talk about it again? Probably not. It's gonna be up for [I]you[/I] guys to decide.
This whole thing plus wauterboi's post made me realize that we still have film/television threads milling around in GD 5+ months after the Great Condensing even after we were told that we would likely get a TV/Film subforum back in that megathread for it.
I'm willing to bet right now that even if this wrecks SH it's going to wither out and die, maybe be replaced with pure News Node, before the mods will go back on a decision.
I have a genius idea
Instead of ratings lets have an upvote/downvote system
[QUOTE=PollytheParrot;48154776]I have a genius idea
Instead of ratings lets have an upvote/downvote system[/QUOTE]
i will downbote everyone`
[QUOTE=TurtleeyFP;48154773]I'm willing to bet right now that even if this wrecks SH it's going to wither out and die, maybe be replaced with pure News Node, before the mods will go back on a decision.[/QUOTE]
Nah, if SH dies it'll probably stay dead until next time Garry condenses the forums again and posts more "Deal with it" image macros and nothing will happen.
Something I really want to accentuate in my post is that people are pretty ridiculous as evidenced by people who do not get when to stop trying for something that isn't going to change, or too scared to try and let a change sort out. I've got no problems with the bans that happened in the last few pages because the conversation is over. I like trying new things. I think that disabling ratings in the RC was a good thing, as well as removing forums like Cooking Chums which was severely underused. The problem is when there is a big hooplah about something that's happened, and then after a long while no one returns to the scene to see if anything worked out. And because there's hardly any outlets or opportunities to explain problems that people have, it's interpreted as a successful operation.
I will say that what I want for the forum is not what is best for the forum, and what most people want is not what is good for the forum. However, I think we could easily revisit things like re-implementing select forums that were removed like the art forum and creating forums for topics that are insanely huge would be awesome. Think about how media discussion and art threads can be separated into threads for different TV shows or different forms of art. It serves a greater purpose for everyone and isn't a selfish endeavor.
[QUOTE=PollytheParrot;48154776]I have a genius idea
Instead of ratings lets have an upvote/downvote system[/QUOTE]
I was just thinking there should be two ratings, thumbs up, thumbs down. That's pretty much what a lot of comment systems have when it comes to news. Or you can have + - or upvote/downvote etc. all the same
[QUOTE=fruxodaily;48154845]I was just thinking there should be two ratings, thumbs up, thumbs down. That's pretty much what a lot of comment systems have when it comes to news. Or you can have + - or upvote/downvote etc. all the same[/QUOTE]
Tbh Informative and useful are pretty great when skimming threads. Example, if a thread involves a story on a bugged game or program people will post info on how to repair/fix it (I remember the old puush hack topic helped me), and its easy to spot with those ratings.
I left 8 hours ago for work and people still bitching about ratings, right on.
[highlight](User was banned for this post ("Why reply?" - Starpluck))[/highlight]
And people will, either until they're getting banned for it or until some solution happens.
[QUOTE=fruxodaily;48154845]I was just thinking there should be two ratings, thumbs up, thumbs down. That's pretty much what a lot of comment systems have when it comes to news. Or you can have + - or upvote/downvote etc. all the same[/QUOTE]
Part of me thinks that would encourage downvoting into oblivion based on people's interpretations on what is bad. Having a more verbose system would be the best in that instance, or just straight up having none at all.
If I say something someone dislikes in a controversial thread, I don't really give a shit how many people think I'm dumb. I've said things before that I knew was going to be rated dumb into a oblivion. What I care about is getting a real answer back that makes a cogent argument, because that's how discussions change minds. Rating dumb into oblivion and trying to make the person out as an awkward dolt by forcing shitty comments like "uh" or "are you serious" contributes absolutely nothing to the conversation. It can actually push people farther into their views, create standoffish and toxic environments, and is all around not suitable for the discussion, which is why I agree with the experimental move.
I personally don't give a shit about how many people agree with me - I care about actual arguments because that's how I learn and personally feel my around the world.
[QUOTE=Arc Nova;48154902]I left 8 hours ago for work and people still bitching about ratings, right on.[/QUOTE]
i will try to conform to your posting schedule
[editline]9th July 2015[/editline]
rating removal wouldn't bother me nearly as much if i had some way to see all replies to my posts
Im just surprised ratings actually mean this much that people will bitch about it for days, if you cant tell a good post from a bad one without icons telling you then lol
[editline]9th July 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=paul simon;48154912]And people will, either until they're getting banned for it or until some solution happens.[/QUOTE]
First solution seems the best and easiest tbh
[QUOTE=Arc Nova;48154902]I left 8 hours ago for work and people still bitching about ratings, right on.[/QUOTE]
And why do you care so much if people are discussing ratings? maybe we should just roll over everytime a change happens without expressing what we at least think about it? A forum is for discussion, even if we have no direct say in the day to day happenings.
All of us know that FP is no democracy, but the point of a forum is to allow discussion even if the ultimate decisions are left up to the mod team and the forum admins. If you don't like the subject of a discussion, butting in to say that you think it's not worth discussing is an unpleasant thing to do at best.
[QUOTE=Arc Nova;48154945]
First solution seems the best and easiest tbh[/QUOTE]
For you.
But remember, this forum isn't only for you.
Everyone has the option to turn off ratings completely if they so please.
[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;48154951]And why do you care so much if people are discussing ratings? maybe we should just roll over everytime a change happens without expressing what we at least think about it? A forum is for discussion, even if we have no direct say in the day to day happenings.
All of us know that FP is no democracy, but the point of a forum is to allow discussion even if the ultimate decisions are left up to the mod team and the forum admins. If you don't like the subject of a discussion, butting in to say that you think it's not worth discussing is an unpleasant thing to do at best.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Arc Nova;48154945]Im just surprised ratings actually mean this much that people will bitch about it for days, if you cant tell a good post from a bad one without icons telling you then lol[/quote]
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