Technically downvotes don't remove a comment, they hide it, if you hover over the comment you should see a little + symbol to the side which you click to expand the comment again and so you can see it.

Having said that, I'm in favour of their removal, I think it hurts discussion, I think it will discourage users from posting and I'm fairly confident in believing that folk use them simply for console war reasons or use them against users they dislike without bothering to read the comment, I also hate having to constantly click expand to see the comments.

And I don't like the Supporter perk which gives extra voting power, it causes an inaccurate representation of the community when a few users could have like 10x voting power between them, especially when the site is as small as it is right now, at minimum I think the perk needs to be removed but I feel for the Staff because it's a perk to encourage signups for their pay as they get sh*t from Ioi.

Honestly I think I could be convinced to support removing upvotes from threads too, I do wonder if they also hurt discussion, no need to put any thought into a reply or be like "yeah, I agree, for these reasons" when you can just click "like"

Can agree 100% with the removal of double votes, and i never knew you could see the comments once they where hided. But i think the up votes can be good for a reason as they would make the top comments go to the top but i still think the down votes dont work as like you say some users follow others around and just down vote for the sake of it and then it becomes a pile on even if the comment is valid and fine.

Huehe.

*Gets two likes*

I'll try to keep an open mind, I'll watch how this thread goes, I doubt we can even change anything though without Talon around, I will not be moved in my position that the extra voting power needs to be removed from supporters though.

Unfortunately hurts Staff which I don't want to do though.

To clarify, I'm not saying to remove upvotes from articles.

But I do wonder if upvotes in threads specifically are hurting discussions, there's an argument to be said that they remove the useless "agreed" posts but I also imagine they discourage posts of "I agree, for these reasons" when you can just slap an upvote to the comment and move on.

And I say this as someone who receives a lot of upvotes, Lol. Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate them but it also sometimes makes me wonder from time to time if they hurt discussion.

I would say, it looks like people usually get downvoted for saying very disagreeable, some times stupid things.
But I've definitely seen comments getting downvoted for reasons I couldn't even understand. That is, not based on whether I agree or disagree with the comment, but couldn't even understand from the perspective of the people voting it down.

If this thread is going against forum rules in anyway or going to make hassle Ryuu you can lock it bro, i dont mean to make any hassle for the staff or mods with this thread.

I liked this comment and almost decided against replying to it

I'd say it's like 70%-80% crap that is downvoted, no longer have to worry about spambots in articles anymore either, but I too have seen comments downvoted from all sides that have made me think "Eh, why?" Lol.

If it's a truly garbage comment though, to the point where, it breaks rules, we would surely deal with it.

Idk though, imagine if we had a similar system for threads, downvotes on posts which hid them, is there a justifiable reason for the distinction of having them in articles but not threads?

Thread isn't against the rules.

Not really a hassle, it's just a simple discussion, though I don't think we can do anything about it in the near future no matter what way the poll goes and if it goes in the way of keeping them then no harm done, I'll go with what the community wants at the end of the day.

Buut if it goes in the direction of removing them, which I would be in favour of, I can't help but feel bad about it removing a perk from the Supporter program which goes to funding Staff, I would simply hope that most users are signed up out of the goodness of their hearts and cause they want to support the Staff

Who are the staff? if its ioi im all for removing the supporter program xD he makes enough from the ads (I kid i kid in case he decides to finally come back and eat me). However i cant imagine the staff makes enough here for the supporter program to even be worth while. But like i said if they did want to keep it i think the best thing would be removing the down votes and allowing supporters to have a limited number of double votes a week or month. Im sure the is plenty of other things people could come up with to make it worth while being a supporter.