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Can we please do away with the voting system?

P

p0intblank

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Sep 20, 2005
2,548
2
New Jersey
This is in relation to Apple's recent update to Aperture. The latest thread about it has more negative votes than positive. This isn't right... how can an update to Aperture be negative? It's all the whiners who are voting negative; aka the ones who were waiting for a MacBook Pro upgrade and didn't get it. That has nothing to do with Aperture and photographers. If you're not a photographer, then simply do not vote.

All these negative votes could be a turn off for some newcomers. They may see a discussion voted 75% negative and 25% positive and may just assume the product everyone is talking about is bad.

This may seem like a rant because well... it is. I come here to discuss what I'm passionate about: Apple; and I'm sure many others here do as well. In my opinion the voting system does nothing but causes commotion, which is why I think it should be axed.

[/rant]
 
You make a good point. People's criteria for voting positive or negative seem so subjective as to be totally arbitrary.

I can't see the vote system actually going away, but it's seemed pretty useless for a long time. It's more of a curiosity to see how the rest of the community reacts to something (regardless of their reasoning).
 
i agree it should be removed, but for another reason: it serves no useful purpose. it hasn't for a long time.

time to take it out back and shoot it.
 
I completely agree. It serves NO purpose whatsoever and is completely worthless.

More than anything, it's a way for lazy people to throw out a general "Apple Sux" on every topic.

And much of the time, you can vote either way depending on how you interpret it.

I'd LOVE to see it go away, it's more of an annoyance than anything useful.
 
Allotriophagy said:
That's as dumb an idea as an update being a bad thing.
Click to expand...

It's not really dumb at all. Who's to say a person not familiar with computers glances at the discussion of a new Mac and jumps to bad thoughts? It may sound far-fetched, but it could happen.

The point being... the voting system has no purpose at all. It only causes trouble.
 
why don't you just ignore it ... I'm going on a few years of not even reading that far ...
 
Kwyjibo said:
why don't you just ignore it ... I'm going on a few years of not even reading that far ...
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Yup I agree, you're (@ p0intblank) someone that like reads every little detail of the site (kinda like a nerd). Just ignore it. That voting system (even though it's funny how everyone reacts to this news) doesn't justify anything, it's the comments that counts.
 
p0intblank said:
All these negative votes could be a turn off for some newcomers. They may see a discussion voted 75% negative and 25% positive and may just assume the product everyone is talking about is bad.
Click to expand...
Is this the thread you're referring to? I've browsed through it but don't see where you get "votes". Do you mean "posts", instead? Or is there another thread somewhere?
 
xsedrinam said:
Is this the thread you're referring to? I've browsed through it but don't see where you get "votes". Do you mean "posts", instead? Or is there another thread somewhere?
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The so-called voting system of each news can be seen on the front page of MacRumors.
 
scott523 said:
The so-called voting system of each news can be seen on the front page of MacRumors.
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Well it's a "rating" system. People from n00bs to pros will show up and post because it's a MacRumors' site. I don't know that doing away with the system will accomplish anything other than direct immature comments elsewhere. Maybe a 100 post minimum would help?
 
Not great; not hurting much

I'm not personally fond of the ratings systems, and I mostly ignore it. If people like to participate by voting for or against a story, I'm glad it makes them happy. I don't consider the tally to have much importance, but it's easy enough to pay it no attention.

When "why did people vote negative?" posts appear, it can in effect mean "what do other people think of this news story?" so I don't think it derails the discussion.

I wonder if voting results would be more meaningful if there were a set of attributes you could rate stories on, each on a 1-to-5 scale, the way some videogame magazines and websites rate game attributes. But what would they be for news stories?
 
I never look at them myself. I don't think it adds anything but don't mind if they are there or not.
 
It wasn't the aperture release that got negative, it was apple calling a special event and inviting the press for a point 5 update and not core 2 duo that gave it neg. It was LAME!
 
macenforcer said:
It wasn't the aperture release that got negative, it was apple calling a special event and inviting the press for a point 5 update and not core 2 duo that gave it neg. It was LAME!
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It is a professional photography exposition. Why would anyone think (maybe I should stop there) that it would be computer hardware related?

The voting is a bit useless because anyone can do it. You don't have to be a member. You just have to be able to click.

Why worry about it?
 
macenforcer said:
It wasn't the aperture release that got negative, it was apple calling a special event and inviting the press for a point 5 update and not core 2 duo that gave it neg. It was LAME!
Click to expand...

This is EXACTLY what I am talking about! People like you... why don't you understand this was a photography event and not a consumer electronics event? Get it through your head already. And didn't Apple's invitation clearly have a graphic of a camera lens on it? That has to tell you something.

scott523, I do consider myself to be a geek/nerd. I guess that's why I look at every little detail. :eek:

Edit: And yes, it was the Aperture 1.5 announcement that received way too many negatives. Again if the story does not apply to you (i.e. non-photographers), then don't vote.
 
I never voted on the stories but when I come to MR and read the front page and see the voting percentage of the story it makes me want to see why it got the votes it did. Sometimes it is interesting to see why people thinks its negative/positive but other times its just BS.



Bless
 
xsedrinam said:
I don't know that doing away with the system will accomplish anything other than direct immature comments elsewhere.
Click to expand...

I'd be very happy if that's what it did.

macenforcer said:
It wasn't the aperture release that got negative, it was apple calling a special event and inviting the press for a point 5 update and not core 2 duo that gave it neg. It was LAME!
Click to expand...

And here's a perfect example of why the voting is worthless. People are mad, but there's no story about the thing they're mad about, so they vote negative on whatever is handy. Stupid and a waste of time.
 
Nobody knows what is being voted on which makes the vote tally completely arbitrary... they don't annoy me as I don't look at the front page hardly ever (I'm a new posts/forum spy addict) but the votes could be a deterrent to a new user... I have a notion that the majority of the votes are negatives due to people wanting other things but not if the update to Aperture in itself is a good/bad thing.

Heck some people might be voting on if the article is well written or not...

I was kinda hoping this thread was about getting rid of polls though... ah well... :)
 
Doctor Q said:
I'm not personally fond of the ratings systems, and I mostly ignore it. If people like to participate by voting for or against a story, I'm glad it makes them happy.
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Exactly right.

It's beyond me why we'd want to get rid of something that encourages more folks to interact with the community.

If you don't like the results, you're welcome to start a thread like this about them. But I think calling the the voting system "worthless" or saying that it serves "no purpose" misses a fundamental idea: we're not bound by Apple, but by interacting in a community about Apple.
 
thedude110 said:
It's beyond me why we'd want to get rid of something that encourages more folks to interact with the community.
Click to expand...

Why is it a good thing to encourage people to interact? This is a rumor site, what's wrong with people coming and getting their rumors? Personally, I don't think people need any encouragement, too much interaction is the electronic equivalent of pissing on a wall.

thedude110 said:
If you don't like the results, you're welcome to start a thread like this about them. But I think calling the the voting system "worthless" or saying that it serves "no purpose" misses a fundamental idea: we're not bound by Apple, but by interacting in a community about Apple.
Click to expand...

What does that even mean? If you're saying that the interaction is more important than the rumors about apple, I think you'd be better off finding a nice happy little chat site. I stand by my statement that the ratings are worthless and serve no purpose. Worse than that, they give the false impression that they do serve a purpose - the last thing I want to see is someone citing the rating in an attempt to back up an argument.
 
Well, I have to say, after reading this entire thread, I am going to have to give it 2 stars.
 
:)

The voting system was actually removed when the site was redesigned a few years ago, but was quickly brought back due complaints about it being removed.

The voting system is entirely arbitrary, no one (including myself) knows what a vote really means or is supposed to mean. It's just one of those quirks of the site.

It probably does give people some involvement in the story/site by expressing their love/hate for a story... again, in an ambigious but strangely satisfying way.

There may be a slight reformatting of the front page in the coming months, so I'll consider changing and/or removing it at that time, but prob not before then.

arn
 
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