I suppose that I could send a private message instead, but I would feel a little bit creepy sending a private message of appreciation to someone I don’t know.
I have sent several messages like that; to the best of my knowledge, they have always been taken well. Every message I’ve received like that has made my day; I suggest lowering your estimate of how creepy it actually is.
I do agree with you that such messages are murkier when at least one party could interpret it as romantic, and while that murkiness can be resolved it takes additional effort.
Downvoting as an expression of mere disagreement is somewhat frowned upon; so do people upvote to agree and comment to disagree?
That tends to be the pattern I notice for posts/comments that seem to be well-made; generally, more disagreeing / correcting comments than downvotes, and many more upvotes than comments that only express approval.
Downvoting as an expression of mere disagreement is somewhat frowned upon; so do people upvote to agree and comment to disagree?
That tends to be the pattern I notice for posts/comments that seem to be well-made; generally, more disagreeing / correcting comments than downvotes, and many more upvotes than comments that only express approval.
What I was wondering was a bit different:
Imagine a forum with no upvotes and downvotes. (It might still have a “report as spam/abuse” button, moderation, and the like — I don’t mean that it’s completely unfiltered.) It will have some level of people posting comments of agreement and ones of disagreement.
Now, imagine a forum identical to that one, but with upvotes and downvotes added. Some people who otherwise would comment on others’ words, instead use a vote button. (And some do both.)
In the second forum, there may be fewer total comments — because many people who would post “I agree!” or “Me too!” or “No way!” or “Shut up!” will instead use the voting mechanism. But does the addition of a voting mechanism absorb proportionately more expressions of approval than disapproval?
(It may be that what I’m thinking of here is the old Usenet annoyance at people who posted merely to agree with another poster — “posting ‘me too’ like some brain-dead AOLer”, as Weird Al put it. Voting mechanisms let us tell people not to post “me too” posts, but maybe some “me too” posts are more rewarding for the person they’re responding to.)
I’ve long wanted a ‘me too!’ facility in forum posts—where you actually get to put your name down as agreeing, rather than just voting. It’d be compact enough to avoid the waste of devoting an entire post to it, and would lend the personal touch of knowing who approved.
It could even coexist with votes, being reserved for cases of total agreement - ’I’d sign that without reservation”
In seriousness, I was thinking that allowing us to see who has upvoted our comments/posts would probably be helpful and encouraging, although hiding who has downvoted would help protect the voter’s integrity and help avoid downvotes being taken as a personal insult.
The risk would be the development of identifiable cult followings, undeserved reciprocation of upvotes, and similar.
I think it’d be helpful to have a small textbox to add a short comment to a poster where I can put “I agree!” or “Fallacious reasoning” or “inappropriate discussion” that only shows up in the poster’s view so there is some feedback besides Up/Down, yet doesn’t clog up the thread.
I’ve never seen that function in a forum though, so perhaps the programming is simple.
I have seen other forums that use this mechanism. They list which users “liked” the post right underneath the post itself. Those forums did not have a karma system, though, and it might seem that the systems are somewhat redundant, but I, for one, would process the two types of feedback differently in my meat-brain.
In short, I sign the above comment without reservation.
It may be that what I’m thinking of here is the old Usenet annoyance at people who posted merely to agree with another poster — “posting ‘me too’ like some brain-dead AOLer”, as Weird Al put it.
One of my first reactions to the relevant part of the OP was thinking of this phenomena and feeling some sympathy for the Usenet old hands. I’ve been on forums were “me too” posts are common, and while they can sometimes be nice I also think that they can get annoying/distract from useful comment.
The norm I’ve noticed around here is to upvote for agreeing and general warm fuzzies, but not to downvote for disagreement alone. Downvoting seems to be reserved for thoughts that are not merely incorrect, but broken in some way. (logically fallacious, for example)
For my own posts, I find I appreciate an upvote as if it were explicit encouragement. I’m wondering if this mental reaction is common, and if so, whether it’s limited to the males here. (as a pseudo-”score”, I could see this being the case) Perhaps the karma system produces more warm fuzzies for the average man and little-to-nothing for the average woman. With karma being the primary form of social encouragement, that could make for a very different experience between genders.
Request for anecdotal evidence here.
For my own part, I like the karma system precisely because it provides a way to indicate appreciation without cluttering threads with content-free approval posts. That is probably the usenetter in me speaking. (tangent: I miss the days when usenet was where all the interesting conversations happened. Oh well.)
I may be a somewhat atypical woman, but I appreciate upvotes. I do find it frustrating if I post something I think is substantial and it only gets upvotes. I’m here for conversation, not just approval.
I just don’t understand the downvote/upvote thing, especially if the norm is/should be for broken thoughts.
When I get downvoted (or upvoted), I often don’t get a comment explaining why. So it’s unclear where I’m broken (or what I’m doing right). That’s frustrating and doesn’t help me increase my value to the community.
It’d be nice to have downvoters supply a reason why, in order to improve the original.
A downvote without explanation can basically be translated as “Lurk Moar, Noob”
When I downvote without explanation it’s because I want less of what I’m downvoting AND I don’t want the forums to be cluttered with explanations of what should be obvious.
But does the addition of a voting mechanism absorb proportionately more expressions of approval than disapproval?
I think so, and the evidence I was providing was an estimate of what percentage of ‘negative’ responses (including corrections as negative) were comments vs. downvotes, and what percentage of ‘positive’ responses were comments vs. upvotes.
Note that there are strong alternatives to the absorption model, since the activation energy is lower to vote than comment.
I have sent several messages like that; to the best of my knowledge, they have always been taken well. Every message I’ve received like that has made my day; I suggest lowering your estimate of how creepy it actually is.
I do agree with you that such messages are murkier when at least one party could interpret it as romantic, and while that murkiness can be resolved it takes additional effort.
That tends to be the pattern I notice for posts/comments that seem to be well-made; generally, more disagreeing / correcting comments than downvotes, and many more upvotes than comments that only express approval.
What I was wondering was a bit different:
Imagine a forum with no upvotes and downvotes. (It might still have a “report as spam/abuse” button, moderation, and the like — I don’t mean that it’s completely unfiltered.) It will have some level of people posting comments of agreement and ones of disagreement.
Now, imagine a forum identical to that one, but with upvotes and downvotes added. Some people who otherwise would comment on others’ words, instead use a vote button. (And some do both.)
In the second forum, there may be fewer total comments — because many people who would post “I agree!” or “Me too!” or “No way!” or “Shut up!” will instead use the voting mechanism. But does the addition of a voting mechanism absorb proportionately more expressions of approval than disapproval?
(It may be that what I’m thinking of here is the old Usenet annoyance at people who posted merely to agree with another poster — “posting ‘me too’ like some brain-dead AOLer”, as Weird Al put it. Voting mechanisms let us tell people not to post “me too” posts, but maybe some “me too” posts are more rewarding for the person they’re responding to.)
I’ve long wanted a ‘me too!’ facility in forum posts—where you actually get to put your name down as agreeing, rather than just voting. It’d be compact enough to avoid the waste of devoting an entire post to it, and would lend the personal touch of knowing who approved.
It could even coexist with votes, being reserved for cases of total agreement - ’I’d sign that without reservation”
Me too.
In seriousness, I was thinking that allowing us to see who has upvoted our comments/posts would probably be helpful and encouraging, although hiding who has downvoted would help protect the voter’s integrity and help avoid downvotes being taken as a personal insult.
The risk would be the development of identifiable cult followings, undeserved reciprocation of upvotes, and similar.
Identifiable cult followings is an upside. We WANT people who get upvoted by the same people over and over to be noticed for this, and to notice it.
I think it’d be helpful to have a small textbox to add a short comment to a poster where I can put “I agree!” or “Fallacious reasoning” or “inappropriate discussion” that only shows up in the poster’s view so there is some feedback besides Up/Down, yet doesn’t clog up the thread.
I’ve never seen that function in a forum though, so perhaps the programming is simple.
I have seen other forums that use this mechanism. They list which users “liked” the post right underneath the post itself. Those forums did not have a karma system, though, and it might seem that the systems are somewhat redundant, but I, for one, would process the two types of feedback differently in my meat-brain.
In short, I sign the above comment without reservation.
One of my first reactions to the relevant part of the OP was thinking of this phenomena and feeling some sympathy for the Usenet old hands. I’ve been on forums were “me too” posts are common, and while they can sometimes be nice I also think that they can get annoying/distract from useful comment.
Usenet old hand speaking: Me too!
The norm I’ve noticed around here is to upvote for agreeing and general warm fuzzies, but not to downvote for disagreement alone. Downvoting seems to be reserved for thoughts that are not merely incorrect, but broken in some way. (logically fallacious, for example)
For my own posts, I find I appreciate an upvote as if it were explicit encouragement. I’m wondering if this mental reaction is common, and if so, whether it’s limited to the males here. (as a pseudo-”score”, I could see this being the case) Perhaps the karma system produces more warm fuzzies for the average man and little-to-nothing for the average woman. With karma being the primary form of social encouragement, that could make for a very different experience between genders.
Request for anecdotal evidence here.
For my own part, I like the karma system precisely because it provides a way to indicate appreciation without cluttering threads with content-free approval posts. That is probably the usenetter in me speaking. (tangent: I miss the days when usenet was where all the interesting conversations happened. Oh well.)
I may be a somewhat atypical woman, but I appreciate upvotes. I do find it frustrating if I post something I think is substantial and it only gets upvotes. I’m here for conversation, not just approval.
Hrm. I think I agree on the frustration bit, but I’m unsure what to do about it.
Datapoint: I almost didn’t post this because it felt too me-too-ish. If you hadn’t been responding to me, I probably wouldn’t have.
I just don’t understand the downvote/upvote thing, especially if the norm is/should be for broken thoughts.
When I get downvoted (or upvoted), I often don’t get a comment explaining why. So it’s unclear where I’m broken (or what I’m doing right). That’s frustrating and doesn’t help me increase my value to the community.
It’d be nice to have downvoters supply a reason why, in order to improve the original.
A downvote without explanation can basically be translated as “Lurk Moar, Noob”
When I downvote without explanation it’s because I want less of what I’m downvoting AND I don’t want the forums to be cluttered with explanations of what should be obvious.
I sometimes downvote without explanation if the post was highly upvoted and I thought it was merely decent.
I’m a woman, and I feel exactly as you do, so it isn’t limited to males.
I think so, and the evidence I was providing was an estimate of what percentage of ‘negative’ responses (including corrections as negative) were comments vs. downvotes, and what percentage of ‘positive’ responses were comments vs. upvotes.
Note that there are strong alternatives to the absorption model, since the activation energy is lower to vote than comment.