Ah, hadn't realized they hadn't been back since you asked...
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Withdrawn from sale on MR
- Thread starter retta283
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Sorry that I took so long, long day at work. In any event, I think that the most reasonable thing to ask for would be to revert back to the way the forum worked in August 2019 before the last big Xenforo update. Since people seem to be dubious about reaction farming perhaps it is best to leave the reaction score alone (and perhaps I had read too much into that myself...)
I do quite like the suggestion posed by @Analog Kid but I wonder if having three semi-yes answers and one no answer could dilute the poll. Myself I would probably just put a poll forward asking "Remove all forum reactions except for Like" with a yes or no answer. However, given that this is entirely preliminary we'll go ahead with these four questions and then the mods can decide from there what they want to make of the data. Thanks for the opportunity, I didn't want to start a poll right off the bat without the sanction of the mods which you have politely provided here.
I don't think you're talking about me and maybe this person is farming reactions but I also post short generic replies sometimes but not always to MR articles. Sometimes I'll just be on for a few minutes or just find something interesting. It could be something like "Oh wow I agree that orange iMac looks impressive!". I post that because it's what I think at the moment. I don't think all posts have to be detailed or have some educational value. I've seen negative posts that were short although I try to avoid doing that myself because it attracts bad attention. I'd rather detail the dislikes I have instead of saying "___ is just a trash computer"
Well I think people who are making negative comments might get some dislike reactions. Does that help the score? As to negative responses I think that will happen regardless of any score because that's just the internet. Go to X brand forums and say X brand is trash and watch the fireworks... The key is knowing when it's a trap and when it's an actual person with a real opinion that might be interested in a civilized debate on the technical aspects of the topic.
It would be very interesting to have a LLM training for stuff like this. I don't think I'd be against that unless it was for some evil purpose.
I didn't think so but I didn't want my reply to sound like I thought that. Not sure if that makes any sense 🤦♂️
I said this on a similar thread, the idea of expecting (or requiring) people to leave a post explaining their reaction is not really well thought out.
An extreme example to make my point, if someone posts something that gets 1000 dislikes, do we really need 1000 identical replies explaining why? That does not sounds like very fun reading.
I personally would like to go back to the simple thumbs up and thumbs down reaction, as it worked well and was not as ambiguous as the current system.
I haven't posted too many polls before, can the polls be ranked voting?
Because if not, the polls might skew in favor for an option that most people would like least.
For example using the poll suggestion from @Analog Kid I personally would like to go back to the simple thumbs up and thumbs down, which would match #4, but would much rather have keep it unchanged (#1) rather than eliminating it (#2) or what I consider the worse option, allow like only (#3).
If no rank voting or multiple votes allowed, I bet that most on the forum would probably be okay with #1 and #4, but the vote might be split between them, leaving the possibility that the #3 or #2 might lead in the poll, but the majority wouldn't support it.
An extreme example to make my point, if someone posts something that gets 1000 dislikes, do we really need 1000 identical replies explaining why? That does not sounds like very fun reading.
I personally would like to go back to the simple thumbs up and thumbs down reaction, as it worked well and was not as ambiguous as the current system.
I haven't posted too many polls before, can the polls be ranked voting?
Because if not, the polls might skew in favor for an option that most people would like least.
For example using the poll suggestion from @Analog Kid I personally would like to go back to the simple thumbs up and thumbs down, which would match #4, but would much rather have keep it unchanged (#1) rather than eliminating it (#2) or what I consider the worse option, allow like only (#3).
If no rank voting or multiple votes allowed, I bet that most on the forum would probably be okay with #1 and #4, but the vote might be split between them, leaving the possibility that the #3 or #2 might lead in the poll, but the majority wouldn't support it.
Agreed. For the record I am not suggesting any changes other than getting rid of angry face and opening disagree to all articles. I could bend on some other things like the color of disagree but other than that I'm generally pleased with the current implementation of emoji reactions.
P.S. - I would also like the disagree limit to be lifted. I suggested once that if not for all members then make it a contributor perk as someone willing to pay to be a member has more stake in the community functioning well and would be less likely to abuse it.
Agreed, his posts are within the rules. I do feel that these posts add to the bloat of MR and, as others have suggested, can make it harder to engage in meaningful conversation over the noise of meaningless posts. I'm not suggesting that we eliminate all joke, memes or levity from the site but some members here create a massive wake.
Some members here have suggested using the reaction score to increase/decrease visibility of posts, god forbid this ever happens here as we would only ever see one members posts and this place would cease to be of any use or enjoyment.
Yup, ignoring is absolutely an option but a little piece of me rejects the silencing of voices, feels too censoring, so I just tolerate it. That being said I will complain about it on occasion and where appropriate.
The thing is, this "farming" in order to achieve a high number of reactions is only one of the issues. Another, and in my opinion very problematic is when one or more members are continually (and, yes, deliberately) spewing out meaningless posts while quite visibly racing to get to what for some weird reason known only to them they view as the Holy Grail, reaching the pinnacle of the list of Top 50 Posters, which is posted in a statistics thread every six months.
This kind of behavior just makes a mockery of what used to be a fun MR activity and I think that is a darned shame.
For what it's worth I have had a change of heart with regards to the likes themselves, I do think they serve some utility that the emoticons do not. I think a much better position is to simply remove the emoticons which would revert the site's functionality back to how it was in August 2019.
Dislikes are a complicated one, because they are only in news threads. They have been implemented across the entire forums before and it lead to disaster, leading arn to shut them off. I suspect it would go that way if it was attempted a third time. I think leaving them in news threads would be okay, even if it's not my personal favored route.
I would be curious to know about ranked voting as well. This could skew the results a bit when there are multiple 'yes' answers to making a change but only one solid no answer.
I would have just two questions in the poll:
1) Eliminate the Use of Reactions Altogether
2). Remove All Forum Reactions Except for "Like"
I am glad you point this out. It's not reaction farming per se (and my mention of that should've implied this in the OP) but a habit in general to be the first to reply to any given post, or to be absurdly agreeable and not actually contributing anything thoughtful. There are people here that have hit 1,000 or 1,500 posts within 2-3 weeks of joining, I have seen it. I do not like calling people out but that is insanely prolific, enough so that I have wondered if there is another motive to it.
With regards to your second post that just appeared as I write this, I think I am inclined to agree. I'm confused by what people think of the dislikes because I'm not sure if people are asking for them to be left alone in news threads or extended to the whole site which I believe would be a disaster. I would like to streamline the poll as much as I can while still satisfying a wide range of opinions, so any further feedback on this is greatly appreciated. I had said I would be fine with polling those four questions but if we can narrow it down that would be great.
Are you saying that you think having ranked voting would skew the results? I was saying the opposite, that it would be necessary to not skew the results.
Ranking votes prevents vote splitting on somewhat similar choices.
Allowing multiple votes could also fix this as well.
I have been a MR member for a while, and don't remember the downvote issue, at least on non-PRSI forums.
Now that PRSI forums are gone, I think it is time to try it again on all forums. It is a nice tool, and is a good way of avoiding posting an unnecessary post when a reaction could be used.
Although, that isn't what this thread is about, so I will leave it at that.
I was agreeing with you about the ranked voting, sorry that I worded it in a way that made it seem otherwise. I am trying to avoid vote splitting. Ideally I want a yes or no question but it may not be enough to cover everything.
The first time they tried the down votes was all the way back in 2011, there was a mega thread of people bashing each other over it and it lead to a massive rise of hate spewing in the forum. I was only really reading posts back then but I recall seeing some of the trolling.
I believe the second was when they first rolled out the current system and it only took a few days or weeks for them to settle on leaving it for news threads only. I don't remember the details even though I was very active at the time, we were all unsure of what to make of those changes if I recall.
FWIW, I'm in agreement with @Weaselboy that @retta283 raised the question and should take the lead in steering the poll. I couldn't help myself from commenting, but take or ignore what I suggest as it warrants.
I'm going to try not to harp on this, but I'm will make another plug for using "agree" rather than "like". I raise it again only because the button currently says "like", so there's a chance we're using "like" generically to refer to "the positive blue action".
I don't think the distinction between "like" and "agree" matters as much if there's no "disagree".
I guess I don't remember the plague of dislikes as vividly as others... While it probably leads to more harmony if we followed the "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all" philosophy, I do think polite disagreement has a place.
To that end, I think "disagree" is the word to keep, not "dislike" which carries emotion and the potential to offend. And I don't think they should be limited to news threads because that drives some of the "I can't disagree so used angry/haha instead" reactions.
It's not always feasible in long fast moving threads, but I'll typically see if someone else has raised my objection before even clicking disagree. If someone else made the point, then I'll agree with the objection instead. I'll use disagree in the cases where the comment I'm reacting to has one point and I'm either disengaging from a back-and-forth or I find what I'm responding to so offensive I'm like to respond irrationally.
I don't mind if I say one thing and someone disagrees. What's frustrating is if I say "Trees are green and the sky is yellow" and someone disagrees. What part are they disagreeing with? I'd like enough engagement to have the opportunity to learn from the disagreement. If your goal isn't to share information then why respond at all?
I dunno. One person's opinion here...
I'm going to try not to harp on this, but I'm will make another plug for using "agree" rather than "like". I raise it again only because the button currently says "like", so there's a chance we're using "like" generically to refer to "the positive blue action".
I don't think the distinction between "like" and "agree" matters as much if there's no "disagree".
I guess I don't remember the plague of dislikes as vividly as others... While it probably leads to more harmony if we followed the "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all" philosophy, I do think polite disagreement has a place.
To that end, I think "disagree" is the word to keep, not "dislike" which carries emotion and the potential to offend. And I don't think they should be limited to news threads because that drives some of the "I can't disagree so used angry/haha instead" reactions.
It's not always feasible in long fast moving threads, but I'll typically see if someone else has raised my objection before even clicking disagree. If someone else made the point, then I'll agree with the objection instead. I'll use disagree in the cases where the comment I'm reacting to has one point and I'm either disengaging from a back-and-forth or I find what I'm responding to so offensive I'm like to respond irrationally.
I don't mind if I say one thing and someone disagrees. What's frustrating is if I say "Trees are green and the sky is yellow" and someone disagrees. What part are they disagreeing with? I'd like enough engagement to have the opportunity to learn from the disagreement. If your goal isn't to share information then why respond at all?
I dunno. One person's opinion here...
(putting on marketing research hat)
I think any poll needs to include a "no changes" choice. Otherwise, the only way to register satisfaction with the current system–or indifference to the other poll choices–is to not vote. That means the poll cannot provide an accurate snapshot of the feelings of everybody who is interested in participating in the poll.
Further, there doesn't seem to be much overlap in frequent commenters in the front page news stories and frequent commenters in this forum. So I don't think the results of a poll that doesn't include both types of frequent MR commenters will be truly representative.
I think any poll needs to include a "no changes" choice. Otherwise, the only way to register satisfaction with the current system–or indifference to the other poll choices–is to not vote. That means the poll cannot provide an accurate snapshot of the feelings of everybody who is interested in participating in the poll.
Further, there doesn't seem to be much overlap in frequent commenters in the front page news stories and frequent commenters in this forum. So I don't think the results of a poll that doesn't include both types of frequent MR commenters will be truly representative.
I do agree. I think just going back to likes only would be a good thing, I often see people using the haha emoji to laugh at people they're having disagreements with etc
I have let @Weaselboy know what I want to poll and it should hopefully go live later today. Thanks everyone for the feedback in this thread and helping me narrow down what I think is reasonable to ask for.
How many of those 1.1M are actually regularly active posters, though? Between those who create accounts and never make a post, those who've been active but since disappeared, etc, I would imagine when you strip it all out those who actually, regularly, post in the forums would probably boil down into hundreds, certainly no more than a few thousand?
The poll is live as you requested. Set for ten days.
T
Thanks again. Will be very interesting to see how the results pan out.
There is no perfect answer that everyone will agree on. But my take:
1. Keep the like and love
2. Give a thumbs up to the laughing emoji
3. Make the wow into a question mark
4. Get rid of the angry emoji
5. Keep the disagreement emoji but limit the usage to 5 per day - down from 10 per day.
1. Keep the like and love
2. Give a thumbs up to the laughing emoji
3. Make the wow into a question mark
4. Get rid of the angry emoji
5. Keep the disagreement emoji but limit the usage to 5 per day - down from 10 per day.
Thanks for going to all of this trouble in order to facilitate this discussion, @retta283 and @Weaselboy.
And I have availed of the opportunity to cast a ballot. Once again, my thanks.
I have distilled all my rambling views into: Yes, MacRumors should revert to Like as the only reaction.
Having only "like" reaction is a groupthink mentality. The message being "we are only care if you agree with us. Disagreement is not appreciated."