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Dislike button

Porco said:
I feel there is enough negativity in the world already, including online, so I am opposed to the dislike button. The point of a forum is surely an exchange of views. A button for liking something makes sense because if all you want to say is ‘yeah, I agree, me too’ etc, it doesn't add much, if anything, to the discussion.

In contrast, a dislike/disagree button is, it seems to me, just a cheap shortcut that actually stifles any actual debate or exchange of views. It doesn’t say anything about why the person disagreed with your post in many circumstances, and even when it seems obvious there is always some doubt, whereas engaging in a conversation/interaction would remove that.
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Okay, so a button for liking makes sense, but a button for disliking doesn't? You would prefer to ONLY quantify positive responses, but not negative? That's why the downvote/dislike button exists. It doesn't matter if YOU receive a direct response to your argument. The website, MacRumors in this case, cares about the numbers there, not whether you feel satisfied in an argument. They can't easily quantify positive/negative on comments, which is why one of the staffers stated that it is primarily for comment visibility, just like on Reddit.

Also, by your logic, every Like should be accompanied by a positive comment as to why they liked it or agreed with it in the first place. If I dislike your comment/post and don't reply, it's because your comment didn't warrant a full response from me. If I felt as though I needed to give a reason, I would reply, just like in this case...

Edit: The internet wasn't designed to be a "safe space" for anyone. If you don't like all of the negativity or can't deal with it, get off of the internet buddy. You'll be much happier in life.
 
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techfreak23 said:
Why is there a daily limit on the number of times we can use the dislike button? We can like an unlimited number of comments, but not dislike? That doesn’t make any sense at all... Why even have it as an option if you limit it to what seems like 5 dislikes a day?
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Welcome to the participation trophy generation, where any negative feedback is forbidden.
 
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techfreak23 said:
Okay, so a button for liking makes sense, but a button for disliking doesn't? You would prefer to ONLY quantify positive responses, but not negative? That's why the downvote/dislike button exists. It doesn't matter if YOU receive a direct response to your argument. The website, MacRumors in this case, cares about the numbers there, not whether you feel satisfied in an argument. They can't easily quantify positive/negative on comments, which is why one of the staffers stated that it is primarily for comment visibility, just like on Reddit.

Also, by your logic, every Like should be accompanied by a positive comment as to why they liked it or agreed with it in the first place. If I dislike your comment/post and don't reply, it's because your comment didn't warrant a full response from me. If I felt as though I needed to give a reason, I would reply, just like in this case...

Edit: The internet wasn't designed to be a "safe space" for anyone. If you don't like all of the negativity or can't deal with it, get off of the internet buddy. You'll be much happier in life.
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I really hope that by negativity you really mean stupidity, right?

Did you ever read Dale Carnegie? When I was reading his books I was thinking to myself: How can somebody make money by writing about the common sense? It did not take me very long to realize that the common sense is the most elusive thing in the world.

It is very easy to be negative. Hell, I can be very negative just because I am cutting down on carbs and eating salad all day. We are only humans. It seems though that the ultimate wisdom lies in positivity. Negativity is not even "evil" it is just plain dumb and weak.
 
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If I try to disagree, I just get a page that says
Oops! We ran into some problems.
The requested page could not be found.
 
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I'm a member of a car forum that by most any forum standards(much less car sites) is as polite and welcoming as you will find.

It has an anonymous upvote/downvote system that's pretty much equivalent to the like/dislike option. There is also a non-anonymous "Thank You" button that counts as an upvote but also puts the name of the person doing it in a bar under the post. Bunches of downvotes don't really earn you a lot, but enough upvotes consistently(not balanced out by downvotes) gets you a nice shiny "Top Contributor" line next to your posts with stars depending on just how top of a contributor you are :)

Make a an informative or otherwise poignant post, and you can pretty much be guaranteed an onslaught of thank yous and upvotes.

Unfortunately, it's also a bit of a popularity contest in that it's pretty obvious that certain posters get "stalked" and have a couple of downvotes on everything they post. They could post "I have a field full of 100 MGs behind my house. Show up with a trailer and you can take whatever one you want" and get a couple of negatives(granted none of the people who that happens to would ever do something like that, but still...).
 
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I7guy said:
I think making the background color of the button something more neutral (than red) would take some of the sting out, while getting the point across.
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Red for dislike is fine, but how about changing the "Love" icon to ... green or something other than red. Or change the dislike... but they should be different colors.
 
throAU said:
People need to take a step back and stop being so sensitive about an emoji pressed by a random stranger on the internet.
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I have come to understand the dislike disagree button is a great thing. Instead of replying to a post with "I couldn't disagree more"....I can now use the disagree and launch into an explanation directly.

edit: really did mean disagree
 
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arn said:
Reasoning behind the disagree button

- It's only on news stories
- News stories have a ranked "top" comments under the news article.
- Without negative feedback, it's impossible for a comment to get removed from the page.
- Disagree gives some feedback mechanism and some balance to the voting system for news stories.
- If you feel like someone is abusing it, let us know.

arn
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@arn, would it be possible to consider disallowing people to react with a 'disagree' reaction unless they provide an explanation outlining what specifically they are disagreeing to and why?

>> Something like a popup to explain what is the issue with the comment, if you select Disagree, and that explanation could just become a response to the comment they are disagreeing with as normal.

As @ErikGrim would likely add to this and agree, there have been times when we have both been at the receiving end of disagreements and have been befuddled as to what or why was someone disagreeing with what we said. Asking about it does naught. So, we are left with a point deduction without even knowing why. 😅
 
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KaliYoni said:
I think a lot of disagreers will just use gibberish or random text.
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I did think of that, and I did not have the heart to type out the only way I thought of to avoid that.. because to avoid that, all I can think of is to make it a moderated enterprise whenever someone wants to use the Disagree button (and I say this only because it comes with a penalty). But I also do not appreciate the extra work it would put on the mods. So.. did not type that previously, since I am wondering what could be done about it without adding work for the mods.
 
I7guy said:
I think making the background color of the button something more neutral (than red) would take some of the sting out, while getting the point across.
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Good idea but I think this is a complete generational and social media no-go on any button the presents dislike or disagreement. You see this on any platform for social conversation anywhere.

it’s as if after getting all our brains hooked on dopamine addiction spikes to likes that mediums worry a massive hospitalizations or suicides will occur with any use of or too much use of dislikes. I’ve noticed this for years now.
 
throAU said:
Welcome to the participation trophy generation, where any negative feedback is forbidden.
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I love this comment. I just used dislike because well to prove your point really. Please don’t go cry in a corner or do negative self hurting actions to you or anyone else because of my dislike button. Y do I say this?

FB trialed internally a dislike and quickly abandoned it.
Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Vine, probably even as far back as MySpace no dislike button existed. Now I want to find that Netflix special on social media scientists that worked to create such apps and the whole marketing etc behind it all. By the time the realized the effect and choice to quit, somehow out of all their (core programmers and scientists) intelligence They didn’t figure this one out ….
 

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First off it is "disagree" not "dislike", to me these have two completely different meanings and/or uses. Disagree means simply that, I disagree with the content of a post. Dislike (if it existed) leans toward the emotional versus the logical, much like the "angry" emoji we are left with on non-news articles.

Chiming in for leaving things as they are with the removal of the total "disagree" allowed per day and allowing "disagree" on all posts.
  • Disagree, just like/love likes, saves us from "+1" or "I agree" empty posts.
  • Disagree allows me to register my opinion when another member as already responded in the way I would have, why would I post the same thing again when I can disagree the original, like the response. Post count is not the only way to gauge the activity in a thread.
  • Disagree does not equal an insult, it is as simple as "I don't agree with your post". Personally I try to back as many of those up with a post as possible but sometimes like/disagree are all that are needed at that time or all I had time for.
  • Disagree should be allowed on all posts. Being forced to use "Angry" face again leaves the impression of an emotional response. I can disagree with a post without being angry about it.
  • It is unfortunate that some use the reaction system as a way to lightly troll other members but you will always have this and IMHO it is better to have them troll via emoji that you can ignore versus posts which probably will not forward discourse and will increase the load on the mods.
  • On the disagree daily limit, I understand that some here would spend a couple of hours disagreeing with another members entire backlog of posts but I say let them waste their time doing that as it would be easy for the mods to label them as "abusers" and take appropriate action.
It has been my experience that when most active members here are engaged in debate the use of the emoji reactions tend to be limited to the positive ones from other members supporting their side of the debate. Negative reactions tend towards heavier use when posts become less relevant to the topic or more snarky.
 
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