On another note, the point system can also have the hivemind effect.

OT : The upvote system is to me a big part of what's wrong with the internet today. Most websites have turned into a popularity contest. Feels like High School all over again.

Well, a "Like" button of some sorts is more than sufficient. A "dislike" one would only cause more problems.

Yeah, I don't think the implementation of an upvote system would be possible without causing chaos.

Up-vote system is like communism of the internet... People, whether they agree or not, do not initiate debate because of fear of being heckled by those who follow popular opinion

I agree with most here and I don't want a down vote button, but a upvote or like button would be welcome because in a lot of threads you see people quoting posts only to say "+1", "agree" or "seconded". So a system to show that you agree or like a comment could be useful.

Besides, given that the forum posts are shown by when they were posted and not by the number of likes/dislikes, the number of likes a post has won't make it more visible.

Alternatively, we could implement a feature that allows us to show that we agree with a certain post without having to resort to a upvoting or like system. I've seen forums, powered by vBulletin (if that helps somehow), where users can "thank" a user for a post, and their names appear at the end of said post. We could implement something like that but with an "agree" feature rather than a "thank" one.

Oh, I would like to see the day the "like" function on facebook dissapears

I'd much rather we add a "You so silly." button for the really ridiculous posts.

I don't want to see any of that here. If you can't articulate a positive or negative response then it's unlikely I'll think much of your opinion, anyway. WHY you disagree or agree is much more meaningful, especially when you're talking about a post with multiple opinions.

Besides, with a house divided like VGC, you'd just have the biggest Nintendo and Playstation figureheads getting tons of up-votes. Those of us with enemies all over the map would have a tough time!

Actually, I'm all for banning people who think, "yeah lol," or, "wrong lol," are acceptable responses. If you think "lol" is a type of punctuation then pray I never achieve mod powers.

Great idea but people ruin it. People seem to be generally unable to vote for quality instead of opinions similar to theirs. The problem becomes even worse with downvotes, because then perfectly reasonable and good comments get downvoted just because of disagreement.

*cough* IGN comments *cough*

Though I noticed that it really went to shit when the downvotes were removed. Now it's just a whole bunch of stupid memes. I fell into a trap that the OP mentioned where I made comments that would get me upvotes (and they sure did) but at least I tried hard with my posts. When the memes came I quickly removed myself. It wasn't worth it anymore and I stopped caring about it.

Same with YouTube. The worst thing about YouTube is that is forces on you the most popular comments. When you switch to newest comments on a popular video you just see a whole bunch of people with something to say getting almost completely ignored. The only real way to get visibility is to respond to a popular comment, which only aids the popularity of the already popular with stupid names and stupid avatars. Or to be popular yourself, which on YouTube is very low praise.