Why I dislike the upvote system (and thank God that it isn't in the forums
*Note* I placed this in website feedback because I could not think of a better forum. I am not asking for anything to be added or removed from the site. In fact, I'm asking for it to remain the way it is ;)
So..... the negation of an upvote/downvote button in discussion-based areas. It can be polarizing a debate as the button itself. It is one of the many reasons I come here to discuss gaming instead of going to places like Reddit.
Here I will explain to you why I believe the lack of said button in the forums is so awesome. I acknowledge that upvotes never were a thing in most forums. Think of this as justification for that decision
- It dampens the hivemind: One feature of upvoting is giving a post more chances to be seen. More upvotes = more visibility. Thus, you will frequently only see the most popular opinions, while some equally weighted unpopular opinion may possibly get downvoted into oblivion; giving the impression that everyone thinks the same thing (thus the hivemind). Users may deliberately downvote other posts to give their post more visibility. Present the opinions on level grounds and it creates possibilities for better debate! (If you want an example of hivemind, check out r/finalfantasy)
- You don't enable the trolls: kekekekekek I am gonna downvote every post I see cos ima troll kekekekekek I have a collection of rare Pepes and enjoy viewing them on my Lenovo kekekekek mom bring me a hot pocket. Oh whoops did I offend you? Too bad there isn't a downvote button.
- It prevents quality loss: Popularity does not always equate to solid content. This is semi-relatable to the hivemind/circle-jerk principle. If you prevent the users from upvoting only what they agree with and downvoting what they disagree with, you will be presented with more sides of the story and avoid thread stagnation (the circle jerk/echo chamber). Variation in comments creates quality, or at least the illusion of it.
- You prevent karma-whoring: Might as well call this point 3 1/2. Upvotes are more motivation for users to appeal to a mass audience. Users may begin submission of circle-jerky or cheap posts that appeal to the lowest common denominator. Instead of incidentally getting upvotes based upon their submission, they start submitting stuff for the sole purpose of gaining upvotes. The quality plummets.
- Votes snowball: A post with a high number of upvotes is: a) more likely to be taken as fact, or to be considered reasonable, by the average person. b) as a result, that person upvotes said post. c) rinse and repeat. Same thing happens with downvotes too. Think of it like mob psychology. People are more likely to agree with something if other people do. It snowballs from there.
- You avoid the Unidan: Unidan was a popular Reddit user who consistently had hundreds of upvotes on his comments. People rarely stood a chance with him in an argument. Why? He had multiple accounts to quickly upvote his own posts while downvoting others. Thus, his posts were visibile and appeared more agreeable, while others appeared unreasonable and were frequently buried quickly.
Looking at the above posts, a few are ambiguous. You could allow quality content to be seen by upvoting it. You could downvote trolls to lessen their impact. You could downvote any hiveminders and..... and.... naah you'd just create an atomic wasteland of a thread.
I tried, but I cannot agree with an upvote system. Maybe you do though, or maybe you think a variation on the system like a one hour score delay would be great! Well then argue with me about it.
#1 Amb-ass-ador
