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Can we please remove the vote buttons?
- Thread starter InsanelyApple
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The voting buttons are like a crosswalk button. Most of the time, it doesn't really do anything, but the person pushing the button feels good about it.
I feel that the voting does serve a purpose if used correctly. If I run into a problem, I look up similar threads and tend to judge a response by the number of up-votes and try that solution first.
I suppose removing the down-vote wouldn't hurt (kind of like having a "like" button).
In the end though, just ignore it if it doesn't work for you, because it might work for some people... me!
I feel that the voting does serve a purpose if used correctly. If I run into a problem, I look up similar threads and tend to judge a response by the number of up-votes and try that solution first.
I suppose removing the down-vote wouldn't hurt (kind of like having a "like" button).
In the end though, just ignore it if it doesn't work for you, because it might work for some people... me!
Huh?!! Yeah, because I certainly wouldn't like to see more helpful, correct posts as opposed to incorrect, useless posts.
Huh?!! Yeah, because I certainly wouldn't like to see more helpful, correct posts as opposed to incorrect, useless posts.
Not every post is helpful or correct by default. As usual, you miss the point and/or haven't read the relevant post from the site founder.
Are you trolling? Looking for an argument?
Of course not every post is helpful or correct by default. One would have to be extremely naive to think so. That's the entire point of the up vote for correct answers and down vote for wrong ones, because its against the rules to post 'I [dis]agree' or similar.
I like them. It gives you an idea on how popular/unpopular/controversial a post is. Its interesting.
Actually it doesn't.
To begin with, it only shows the "net" score of all the votes that have been added. So a post on a highly controversial topic might receive 50 "up" votes, and 49 "down" votes, and show a net plus one. The same as an essentially meaningless factoid, which gets voted up by its own author. The Net score tells you very little.
Secondly, its worth noting that not all areas of the forum get voted on equally. I've seen extremely useful and informative posts, min-articles that actually are very helpful to people trying to accomplish something with their Macs, iPhones, or iPads, get essentially zero votes. Obviously the voting has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the writing, and even less to do with the originality of the thought behind it.
In my opinion, all the current voting does is encourage a strange sort of "political correctness" and a tiresome form of GroupThink.
What do you think the Italian Cardinals would have "voted" on Gallileo's writing about the earth and the sun? What do you think the Royal Society membership would have "voted" on Darwin's theory of evolution? And what do you think corporate data managers would have "voted" on the idea that scruffy Jobs and Wozniak's "personal" computer would one day upend the computer world?
The current voting system is an abomination.
The ENTIRE POINT of a vote up/down system is the ability to say "I agree" or "I disagree" with a given post on here without having to fill the forum with pages and pages of stupid "I agree" posts that don't say anything else. This lets you get your say without clogging the bandwidth or having to write some huge column on WHY you like/dislike a post when no one really cares WHY if it's ultimately just your taste/opinion.
But limiting it to only 'up' replies gives false impressions and a total sense of bias to the process and then forces everyone who disagrees to have to post a bunch of "I wish I could just vote down but I can't so now I'll bore you with a 'I hate your opinion' post." You then get pages and pages of crap no one wants to read. It'd be better to just allow the votes to continue since it leads to more posting efficiency.
I would, however, prefer a system that tallies both up and down votes separately instead of just canceling them out since it gives you no idea of scope or how many actually voted the opposite if the numbers are even remotely close. For instance, you could get 80 down votes and 83 up votes and you'll just see "+3" on here. Well, that makes it look like hardly anyone cared one way or the other when in fact, it could have been dozens voting. Likewise, if I get 20 down, I just think everyone hated the post, but in reality, there could have been 80 down and 60 up leaving a net total of 20 down. The difference is that I then know that 60 people really agreed with me and there's simply a lot of controversy period. You have no idea about that with it canceling out. Thus, I'd rather see the system modified slightly than removed or worse yet, set to up only.
In any case, if you don't like the system, IGNORE IT. If you can't ignore it, seek professional help.
I'm all for the like and dislike buttons. I think feedback is important, the only reason I don't think it's necessarily effective is because if they never go back and look at that particular post they never see if what they said was great or terribly stupid. I think your total tally of all posts should show up under "statistics" or something.
This may be the intention, but it doesn't work this way in practice. People on this forum vote based on their emotions. Anything anti-Apple gets downvoted, regardless of how useful or well-reasoned the post may be. Tutorial threads on how to perform benign, uncontroversial tasks have double digit downvotes. It makes no sense.
The user base here is simply not mature enough to use the voting system in the manner in which you describe.
Oh I completely disagree. If someone disagrees with something in a post, they should use their words to explain why.
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Bingo.
Ignore it, make an actual case for removing them, or leave. It's unobtrusive and easily ignored.
In general, I agree about the fanboy issue on here, but what you're saying amounts to you don't like the people on here's opinions (regardless of the reason) and so you don't think they should be allowed to vote. That's more of an argument against ALL forms of democracy in general since one could make the same argument against allowing various people to vote in political elections as well (i.e. they're emotional and/or uneducated and so they shouldn't be allowed to vote). Well, vote for Communism or an Oligarchy then because that's the way voting works in general in a democracy. One can argue the U.S. in general isn't a democracy since the representatives ignore everyone and everything anyway, but that's a separate issue.
Maybe you should find a more mature forum, then?
People can explain all day long, but if you don't like their answer, it's no different, what-so-ever and will inevitably lead to pointless bickering rather than discussion, IMO.
No, that's not at all what I'm saying.
As I stated above, if someone has an opinion, they should use their words to articulate it. What does a upvote/downvote on a tutorial thread signify? Does it mean the tutorial is accurate/inaccurate? Does it mean the voter likes/dislikes the OP? Does it mean something else?
We have no idea if they don't use their words. This isn't kindergarten.
Because of one flawed feature? Use some common sense.
Completely false.
If I don't like the answer, at least I have an explanation. The voting system in its current form doesn't address that.
A downvote could mean that a.) the post is factually inaccurate, b.) the post is anti-Apple, c.) someone disagrees with the opinion presented, d.) someone doesn't like the person posting, e.) someone is trolling, etc.
Voting tells us absolutely nothing.
At first, I was shocked to see the results of the poll up there. But after I thought about it more, it's really better to look at the results as 53.44% in favor of some sort of change. That's pretty damning.
There's obviously more wrong with this community than just one flawed feature; people here are so close-minded it's ridiculous. iFans, which is rampant with 13-year-olds running around trying to figure out how to jailbreak their iPod touches, is overall more mature than this place (maybe not as intellectual but still, way more mature).
I haven't even been here a month, but I've been dealing with forums in varying capacities (member, founder, administrator, etc.) for a while and damn this place has quite an awful aura about.
Aaaand let the down votes roll.
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I have to disagree here. I believe overall that the MacRumors membership is more mature and understanding than you give them credit for. With any forum in real life or on the Internet, you will always have a very small percentage of people who fit your description. I would venture to say no more than 10% of the user base fits that description. With over 570,000 (
I can vouch for myself here and say that I am not an Apple exclusive person and that I always recommend the best product for a person is the product that they like and works best for them, and it may be a non-Apple product.
Two examples of this are found in these recent threads that I happened to participate in.
Woz prefers Android for "voice" & nav...
Mouse & KB
As an Internet forum, with a limited number of admins and moderators covering the overwhelming number of threads and posts each day, they rely upon the user base to use the Report button (
Keep in mind that all the moderators are unpaid volunteers and fellow members of the site. They're donating their time and even taking away time from them participating in threads to moderate other ones. But they aren't going to catch them all. The ones they don't get, we just need to report that post and move along, don't worry about the negative people here.
Moderators & the admins do so in an effort to create a forum that is friendly to all and as fun and informative as they can humanly provide.
Like I said, I've only been here for less than a month, but usually have a good sense of a community when I join one, and thus far it doesn't seem like there is much of one here. Not sure what your bit about the moderators has anything to do with the discussion at hand, as the overall "feel" of the community is almost exclusively driven by the membership and its attitudes. This place is almost like a cult, it's extremely off-putting.
I'm not here to bash this place, even moreso because that's getting off-track in this particular thread, but I believe that the post-rating system as a whole goes to illustrate the points I'm making about this place being very hard to "fit in" to. Not that I really give two ***** about the votes my posts receive, but half the time I end up not even saying anything because subconsciously I know that it's probably going to get down votes, even though it's nothing negative, wrong, or pointless.
The witty, smartass, unhelpful comments (not to mention anything even remotely pro-Apple) are always the ones that get up voted (by the fellow clan members) and it's almost like what people say here is dictated by the desire to get up votes. It's petty, and breeds hordes of content that is written and posted merely by the drive to get up votes. Kinda like how to teenagers, Facebook is a war to post the best status and get the most likes, the same thing applies here. It's quite ridiculous.
When you get rid of the measure of "social acceptance" of content (i.e. the rating system), the quality of the content will increase as it will be legitimate, pure, and directly from the author - there's no "competition" coming into play and it's simply organic content. Instead of "hey, I'm going to make this guy look like an idiot for asking such an idiotic question," you'll see more genuine, helpful posts.
I don't see why anybody who's been here long enough and is caught up in the cult wouldn't.
Not to defend one way or the other, but to play the devil's advocate here, what is your intention of being a MacRumors member? I hope you didn't come here expecting not to see a lot of pro-Apple things, because after all, the name of the site kind of gives away it's purpose for being.
There is and should be plenty of different and non-Apple things for people to discuss and debate. My bit about the moderators was about the feeling I got from your other post about the implication of immature users and negative posts you're describing. I thought it would be helpful to point out that they make an effort to mitigate those types of posts with the reporting system. The voting system, I felt directly correlated with reporting system when it came to the negative posts/attitude and dramatic down votes you describe.
The voting system here, to me, makes no difference if it stays, goes or changes. I normally don't even pay a lot of attention to it and when I do, I look at a post with many votes up or down, and that gets my attention to read it and make a personal judgment of my own. That judgment may be contrary to what the vote count looks like. Once I've finished reading said post, I move on and forget it had 329 down votes or 147 up votes.
I don't view the rating system as a comparison to Facebook and teenagers vying for numbers and popularity. That's a stretch in my opinion.
Ditto. A lot of my posts have been downvoted when I've corrected someones blatant mistake or called someone on an obvious lie. Do the downvotes make my post wrong? No, but a lot of the newer members here see it as a sign of 'that person is talking crap'.
Personally I hate the downvote system. Since it was added the MR forums have been a horrible place with a hell of a lot of trolling.
By other, you mean:
I'd vote this to every argument on this forum. Including some of my own and for sure every post in this thread.
I'd vote this to every argument on this forum. Including some of my own and for sure every post in this thread.
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