I've never liked upvote/downvote systems in general because of vote brigading and other non-constructive behavior. It allows people to avoid having to actually engage directly with other users. This is especially egregious when it comes to downvotes, as on many sites it allows users to outright bury comments they don't agree with instead of having an actual debate. Clicking a button is an easy way to avoid actual conversation and to silence unpopular opinions. And on most sites, upvotes and downvotes are anonymous.

I'd personally be fine with them being gone entirely from both the forum and article comments. If people want to agree or disagree, it needs to be expressed in some substantive way, not by simply clicking a button. At the bare minimum, unpopular posts should not get buried.

Agreed it should never have been implemented, I can't even remember my position on the matter when it was first introduced though, whether I was for or against it but if something isn't working and we realise it isn't working, do we just let it continue because "well, we implemented it now so we can't take it away" or do we fix the situation? That's part of growing, realising mistakes and correcting them.

I don't know why those who were against the perk being introduced would be now for it remaining, that only really makes sense if someone is paying for Supporter solely for the extra voting power but I'm sure the Staff will give everyone enough of a heads up before removing it.

Can a Supporter also tell me if the length can be stacked? I'm honestly not sure and it would help with coming up with a fair removal system.

I dont even think you can see it, i woke up one day and had it, i cant see the time i got it or when it ends. Or this is so hiden i cant find it.

One idea that comes to mind is keeping the downvote system (with or without the supporter perk) but hiding the exact downvote count. Instead, simply display the upvote count, and if there are 'enough' downvotes compared to upvotes, display a 'this comment is controversial' symbol near the upvote count. What the symbol might look like and what's 'enough' are up for debate and deeper specificiation, but it could certainly be made to work if this kind of a system was desired.

Pros:

• Allows upvotes to somewhat dictate the order the comments are shown in.
• Allows controversial comments to be recognized.

Cons:

• Potentially gives unwarranted visibility to bad comments.
• If only one 'controversial symbol' is used, different 'grades' of controversialness cannot be distinguished.

Replace the increased voting perk with something else. It's not that important of a perk anyway, the perk I like the most is the removal of ads. Without it the site is very unusable.

Keep down votes, remove the extra power to it. Just replace it with something else. Maybe a Supporter only section of the forum? I don't know,

I think a supporter-only area would just be dead.  So, while a fine idea in theory, I don't support that in practice.  

As far as voting "power", I think if you take the downvote multiplier away from supporters, you should take the upvote multiplier away too.  It doesn't make sense any other way.  Either supporters get extra votes or they don't.  Otherwise, you're saying that supporters get extra voting power only if they vote the way you (we) want them to.  That eliminates the validity of the upvote/downvote system completely.  

To be clear, I still support no changes at all at this time.  But, if the admins decide to kill the multiplier, it needs to be eliminated both ways. 

Also, as a supporter for a few years now, here are the three "perks" that I make use of:

- No ads
- Vote multiplier
- Support staff income

Of those three, the vote multiplier is least important to me, by a wide margin. But, it does eliminate one of the only three perks that mean anything to me. I can get around the ads with an ad blocker. So, that would leave support for staff as the only reason for someone in my position to be a supporter. The other perks are of zero interest to me. I don't even remember what they are, because I simply don't care about them. I think it is reasonable to assume that some other supporters might feel similarly.

To be clear, I am not threatening to drop supporter status based on decisions made about the voting system. I am simply saying that this discussion does impact something that holds value to supporters. If there are people subbing on alt accounts just for the purpose of vote multiplying, that tells us for sure that the perk is very valuable to some people.

Also, to reiterate what I mentioned above, eliminating only the down vote multiplier is bad for everyone on the site, supporters included.  That significantly skews the voting "results". So, leaving half of the vote multiplier in place is worse than eliminating it completely, from my perspective. 

I would say the three things I use it for are:

No ads

Supporting the staff

The blue theme

As a supporter, if I may.

I am very proud of supporting a site with such dedicated writers and staff, and am honored to be a part of it. The perks I gained with my support are important to me, especially the voting power and here is why.

I have noticed a lot of cases of people downvoting or upvoting not because something is true or false, but because they don't like hearing it. The way I see it, I have the power to counter that toxic force and restore balance. I almost always seek to reduce the popularity of comments which to me are not honest but people like to hear, or to increase the popularity of comments which are honest but are not getting enough visibility. I feel in a good position to do that since, as a supporter, my desire is to prop up the site. So if I notice a toxic pattern, I want to counter it to help the site flourish.

Having been victim of auto downvoting, this perk has made my life much easier, and I noticed that people are voting more normally around me now that they realize I can break their bashing in a single click. It works.

For all else, I also believe that the upvote in forums has allowed more positive discussion to flourish, as people like seeing their opinion valued and thus make an effort to be more educated or to offer more value in their posts. I personally use it to encourage more obscure users who are making a legitimate effort, and encourage their participation. It should be kept.

True but it also shows us a broken system which is being abused and if they're alts, they're going to get banned anyway.

I do think the entire vote boost system should be scrapped though, I think Supporter should primarily be for supporting staff but with a few extra perks for users but not perks which negatively affect other users or give more weight to someone's voice which I believe the extra voting power does do, perks should be geared towards more fun and convenience stuff.

I do think name change should be locked behind Supporter beyond the first use, although I don't think that will be a popular opinion but instead of having to go to Trucks all the time, you can just manually change your name, I also think we could take some ideas from Discord, we have an emoticon button in the rich text reply, how about allowing Supporters to upload their own emoticons (a certain limit per tier) for quick access, can be applied to Gifs too, or titles like Era/Gaf has for certain users but in the form of banners? I know that was in development, the titles were game themed but it never got finished, I don't know, can probably add a lot of stuff if we had more Admins.

Oh, more site theme colours for supporters too, currently there's only blue.

Official VGChartz Supporters Thread - New Perks Added

Perks can be suggested in this thread if anyone has any ideas although I will repeat, I doubt many changes will happen anytime soon.