Maybe that's how people with higher self-esteem are inclined to respond, but I can't help getting discouraged, besides which I simply lack the energy to bother half the time these days. I mean it's an anonymous down-vote; what's there to respond to? It's not like the other person offered a counterpoint or something. It's also not like most people are persuadable anyway, and least of all the kind of lazy asshole who goes around throwing those out anonymously (it usually happens in waves, in my observation, with people going through and down-voting everyone who criticized company A or something like that) and then just vanishes.

I'd at least like to know WHO is doing the down-voting because if it's certain people then I won't care. I don't hold everyone here in equal esteem and will have an easier time disregarding certain people's negative opinions.

You already know who is voting which way. Don't let it bother you.  Record and archive it for future reference and future arguments.  

That's a shame and exactly my worry, I don't consider you or Zkup to be trolls who make crappy posts, quite the opposite, your posts are often detailed and thought out but we have you both claiming to have received downvote barrages in the past which have pushed you away from commenting, I don't see how this issue gets better, I see it getting worse, downvotes weaponised more and good users discouraged from posting.

I'll say again, the chances of someone not posting anymore because they were downvote bombed is hugely higher than someone deciding to not comment anymore because they lost downvoting power, it's a weigh up of which is hurting the site more and I believe downvotes are.

I also agree, I'm not sure why downvoting isn't an option in the main forums, I also don't understand why there's a difference in policy, it does make no sense, I've asked why in this thread multiple times and nobody else seems to know why there should be a difference either, not that I would want downvoting in forums, I think that would be awful but I think that's what most others would think too, so why the difference?

I'd be fully in favour of making downvotes and upvotes not anonymous anymore.

Is anyone able to speak to the technical feasibility of making the names associated with up/downvotes visible? If so, I'd like to hear how big of a deal that is.

I'm not able to speak on it but I do know the information is already available to Admins, it's how we found out someone was using alts to upvote their own comments.

I hope it wouldn't be that hard, Talon is MIA though and the only other Admin is Trucks.

@TruckOSaurus Thoughts?

Happy new year to you too my friend and to all my friends on VGChartz happy new year.

Your post is one of countless i have seen saying why they wont post in the Article comments, and no user should feel like they cant post their opinion. Like i said this is the only site I've been to that has this problem as we just dont have a big enough user pool, and any system that allows a user to have 2-5x voting power just sucks in this case as it turns things into an eco chamber.

Like Ryuu has been saying and now you too we don't have Down Votes in the forums since no body wants them and we all know it would be a bad idea, so i honestly dont know why we have them on the articles the place that needs even more people to post then the forums. The is a reason why you see the same small pool of users out of all the ones on VGC posting in the articles. Everyone else just sticks to the forums to avoid the impending down vote brigade. 

Here is an excellent example of how I use my priviledge.

Why is this guy downvoted for expressing his personal and subjective opinion?

So I took a priviledge which I gained for the price of a new game, and fixed the bad vibe this creates, in an easy click. And voilà, the page no longer feels like it is intolerant to peoples' subjective opinions and Mr. Nub can feel more comfortable expressing himself.

Why staff feels that there is a problem with people paying them and their staffmates money, who get a perk for it, just defies my understanding.

If someone paid 70$ to support the site, you can feel pretty confident you can trust them to make good use of their power.

It's quite mind-boggling that this is even considered an issue worth serious thought, (and worse dev effort!) when there are so much bigger problems in the site such as political intolerance towards those with more traditional political viewpoints. It is actually a plague everywhere on the internet but we are not free from our own intolerance in our own society on vgchartz, and it needs proper thought.

This, in relative priority, is so completely low in terms of problematic.

Staff, better to start by adressing the lack of social tolerance on the political forums and articles, then we can adress minor issues like Supporters who pay a lot to the site and the highly unlikely case where they abuse their priviledges when their goal is to support the site, as their role is aptly named.

I swear, sometimes it's as if folks don't realize that all these ideas such as the embassador and the supporter programs came from old problems, and that these programs are basically live, working solutions to those problems, and you are so focused on going backwards on them when first of all they work, and second of all there are much more serious issues for us to fix, and thirdly they may actually be non-issues and changing things may make the old problems return. We return to the age-old question: if it ain't broken, why fix it?

It really boggles my mind, what could lead to this kind of vision? It's beyond me.

You sorta prove the point that the downvote system isn't really working when you have to ask why someone is being downvoted even with you 'restoring' the balance, I would also ask why this comment is downvoted too.

Despite the claim that the majority of downvoted comments are troll comments, that isn't really what I've seen personally, it's mostly difference of opinions being downvoted which aren't trolling and if they are trolling a Moderator deals with them.

You can claim to use your privilege for good but that's just one example of your I assume hundreds of upvotes/downvotes, you're only one Supporter though, the system is inherently extremely easy to abuse if someone wanted to and I have no doubt it has been abused in the past and at the end of all that, I still strongly don't believe that anyone should have a stronger voice than someone else simply because they paid more, you're paying to have more power above other users, that in Politics would be corruption

Your voice is not worth x4 users Imo, it's not an accurate representation of VGChartz.

But this isn't just the Staff who feels there's a problem, clearly quite a lot of users do too, it was multiple users who brought it up in the first place but if even Staff think there's a problem, the folk who actually receive the money, then I'd say that's pretty damning.

I'm sorry but I can't feel confident that someone who paid to support the site won't abuse their power and $70 is the max tier, there's far cheaper options.

It's an issue worth thought but I feel you're exaggerating things, it could be a relatively simple change and it's not really going to get in the way of 'fixing' other problems, it's like when people claim we can't fix one thing because another thing is broken but it's like, both can be done?

I'm not going to delve into that Political minefield but I will say that I don't believe you should have extra voting power on Political matters, although, I don't think anyone should.

Ambassador didn't really fix anything, it was so half-assed implemented (and the Mods who implemented it even admit that!) that it never really amounted to anything and nobody really knew what to do with it, it ultimately became a pretty pointless endeavour. Supporter program was created to support the Staff, it's main draw is meant to be users supporting Staff willingly, the perks are an extra benefit, if a perk if deemed damaging to the site then it should be removed Imo and replaced with something else.

Supporter program works, the extra voting power (one of many perks) doesn't work, it's an inherently flawed system, one that can be easily abused, it says your voice is more important than 4 users simply because you paid, it's not the direction I wanted VGChartz heading in.

Not sure what old problem would return if we removed the supporter perk along with making likes and dislikes in articles no longer anonymous to curb abuse and make people think more about just slapping a dislike on something with no explanation.

You are focusing on the wrong problem. As I said, people who pay 70$ to a website are not in a position of abuse but of support. And the rare cases do not warrant this obsession. You are better off focusing on individuals like Runa who outright attack others than put your energy on a marginal issue.

If you actually focused on real problems we suffer on the site, this place will only get better, and we are on the right track, and the features you want to remove have helped to make it better despite the few cases of weirdness.

Anyhow I know I won't change your mind, I don't get a sense that you are here to discuss but rather to pressure the community to remove the features.

My point is not that there is no problem, or that the cost to change things are monumental, but there is time and effort spent to make them happen and to remove them is to throw that investment. Moreover, my point is that the benefits far outweigh the problems possible, and that the site has gotten much better in terms of quality posts, and the systems you are criticizing helped achieve this, and that there are mich more severe problems to take care of before this.

You need to concentrate on users who don't tolerate others and antagonize, not on debatable details such as perks that supporters get for caring about the site, and have no grounds to suspect the intentions of people who pay 70$ to you and other staff.

They quite literally are in a position to be able to easily abuse the power, it's extremely easy to abuse this downvote system, you keep throwing out the highest price too when all tiers have extra voting power, if we're talking specifically about the 4x voting tier, there's a $20 and $10 option too, the system is broken and unfair.

We're talking on an ethical standpoint too, me and you will never agree here cause I don't believe that you (or any other supporter) should have extra voting power simply because you paid more, your voice should not matter more because you paid, you should not be worth x4 users, you're only one and that is an opinion that I won't be likely to change.

Runa is dealt with if they break rules, Runa has been heavily moderated in the past, other users will be dealt with if they break rules, this thread isn't really about Moderator issues, the Mod team can deal with those issues, this Supporter/Downvote stuff is a separate issue than can be dealt with too.

How did extra downvoting power help make the site better? It artificially skews the site into an inaccurate representation and says that users are more important than others because they paid, it gives them 'power' over other users, I don't see that as being better, what made the article section better was Talon actually fixing it and that had nothing to do with the supporter perk.

But I've been discussing it, I originally was strongly in favour of removing the dislike system altogether, I still am, however, I made clear from my very first post here that I would go with what the community wanted, I made a follow-up post recently stating that the poll is leaning towards keeping downvotes so that is what I will accept, I've repeatedly tried to offer middle-ground solutions and accepted middle-ground solutions, I don't think you've read through the thread...

There's multiple conversations going on though, there's the topic of removing dislikes altogether, there's the topic of removing the supporter perk, there's not hiding comments, there's removing upvotes from threads, etc. I've backed off from my original argument of dumping dislikes altogether but I will still say how I dislike them, I am however strongly against supporters having extra voting power and given this current poll for the removal of dislikes altogether is nearly even, I have no doubt that it's likely a strong opinion that the extra voting power supporter perk should be removed.

And I disagree, I think there very much is a problem, there's a negative attitude being created which is steering users away from posting, it will grow over time and more and more users will be put off from posting and in regards to the supporter perk, there's definitely an aura of unfairness felt by other users which I've noticed for years now.

Just because something has been invested in, doesn't mean it should be kept forever, you've got to know when something isn't working and move on, that's life, some stuff you do ultimately ends up being thrown away later down the line. I don't see any evidence that the perk has helped improve the quality of posts.

Mods can concentrate on those users, Staff can also focus on Admin stuff, it shouldn't be one or the other, also, Mods don't receive any of the money.