poll Should NP downvoting be anonymous?

[redemo]

Simple question. Do you think downvoting and upvoting should be anonymous on Namepros, yes or no?

 

[Paul]

If it is isolated to a handful of bad actors, maybe another option is to create some policy around what is considered "abuse" of the system.

Then, if specific accounts are seen as abusing the system take appropriate action.

Currently, we do restrict people who abuse it, but that problem seems to be a lot rarer than people think. Most of top downvoters are also the top upvoters--and, with a few exceptions, they don't really seem to play favorites beyond expected biases (for example, individuals who might not like a particular company).

The biggest issue is that it doesn't take much to discourage a newbie--as has been quite reasonably pointed out by a number of people in this thread. It's just not fair to immediately lambast a newcomer with downvotes when they haven't had any time to get to know the community.

We're hoping to put the data in Elasticsearch in the near future so we can draw more concrete conclusions, with the goal of eventually opening up that data to the community.

 

[bmugford]

Currently, we do restrict people who abuse it, but that problem seems to be a lot rarer than people think. Most of top downvoters are also the top upvoters--and, with a few exceptions, they don't really seem to play favorites beyond expected biases (for example, individuals who might not like a particular company).

The biggest issue is that it doesn't take much to discourage a newbie--as has been quite reasonably pointed out by a number of people in this thread. It's just not fair to immediately lambast a newcomer with downvotes when they haven't had any time to get to know the community.

We're hoping to put the data in Elasticsearch in the near future so we can draw more concrete conclusions, with the goal of eventually opening up that data to the community.

Well, I think not being anonymously downvoted below 0 is at least a reasonable start.

Brad

 

[Chieff]

Hi everybody,
this issue with the anon downvoting will be solved by the forum management someday.
In the meanwhile I opened a new thread - calling it Solidarity Thread - meant to be a partial solution to this issue, being meant to be a place where cases of unfairness caused by anonymous downvoting get flagged up and fairness restored through the community itself, without involvement of the mods
Genius isn't

Everybody is invited to participate




@johnn, @Samer, @MasterOfMyDomains, @QUAD DOMAINS, @bmugford, @Amit V, @Lox, @D Haynes, @DomainBanana, @Chieff, @biggie, @Bob Hawkes, @kor

Hi @Peter45

Thanks for tag

To be frank this won't do much good

The real problem is downvote brings negativity to community engagement and free speech

I see this as a bug its upto the owner of the forum to decide

We're won't be removing them, but we would like to solve the anonymity issue.

Since @Paul have a different idea I don't think speaking about this will bring changes

 

[bmugford]

Well, I think not being anonymously downvoted below 0 is at least a reasonable start.

Brad

It is still happening.

People, especially new members, are being downvoted for no reason.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/ca...he-price-of-this-domain.1310342/#post-9005358

What's the plan @Paul?

Brad

 

[Paul]

Do you have a time frame on this, because this issue has been going on for an awfully long time?

Well, on which part? Temporarily disabling votes should happen fairly soon; we just have to come up with some balanced quick replies. We don't have a timeframe for re-enabling votes and deanonymizing them, though--that'll take longer.

What could the argument be against deanonymizing everything?

The strongest argument revolves around the discrepancy between how we intended for votes to be used and how they're actually being used. We had intended to use them as a way to let the community have a hand in ranking content. Just because content is within our rules doesn't necessarily mean most people want to see it. This could eventually mean more sorting options, too; for example, when I'm reading a discussion, I prefer to know which opinions are controversial, as I find that those are often the most valuable.

However, the point system is being gamified more than I would've liked. You don't really get anything by having a higher impact score; there isn't really any incentive to solicit upvotes or discourage downvotes. Yet, people are still getting rather angry and competitive with points, and that's even affecting newcomers. Nothing actually happens if their content gets downvoted--it's purely a morale issue.

This shouldn't be too surprising, and it stems from the post quality system being designed for use with features that are still in development. However, it also means that if we start deanonymizing votes, we're going to create an angry mob of people harassing each other for downvoting. Many of the top downvoters are the same people who are vocally complaining about downvotes; what happens when they all see each other downvoting content? Are they going to understand that they should be adjusting their own behavior, or are they going to get angry at each other and insist that their own downvotes are warranted? Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a beast. It's arguably irresponsible for us to immediately deanonymize everything and unleash an angry mob.

Note that this is my interpretation of what I believe to be the strongest argument against my own opinion, so I may not be presenting it in the most convincing manner. While I would prefer that everything be immediately deanonymized, I do acknowledge the merits of this counterargument.

 

[bmugford]

Well, on which part? Temporarily disabling votes should happen fairly soon; we just have to come up with some balanced quick replies. We don't have a timeframe for re-enabling votes and deanonymizing them, though--that'll take longer.

Well, a time frame on any aspect that improves the situation.

I don't think people, especially new members, should be welcomed to the forum with anonymous (and unwarranted) downvotes.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

However, the point system is being gamified more than I would've liked. You don't really get anything by having a higher impact score; there isn't really any incentive to solicit upvotes or discourage downvotes. Yet, people are still getting rather angry and competitive with points, and that's even affecting newcomers. Nothing actually happens if their content gets downvoted--it's purely a morale issue.

This shouldn't be too surprising, and it stems from the post quality system being designed for use with features that are still in development. However, it also means that if we start deanonymizing votes, we're going to create an angry mob of people harassing each other for downvoting. Many of the top downvoters are the same people who are vocally complaining about downvotes; what happens when they all see each other downvoting content? Are they going to understand that they should be adjusting their own behavior, or are they going to get angry at each other and insist that their own downvotes are warranted? Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a beast. It's arguably irresponsible for us to immediately deanonymize everything and unleash an angry mob.

Note that this is my interpretation of what I believe to be the strongest argument against my own opinion, so I may not be presenting it in the most convincing manner. While I would prefer that everything be immediately deanonymized, I do acknowledge the merits of this counterargument.

I understand this point about anonymity, but I also don't know what is possible on the development side.

Surely, there have to be some options between leaving everything as-is and opening the floodgates.

Not being able to be downvoted below 0 is a good start.

Let me ask some questions -

1.) Is it possible to leave everything as is, but only disable anonymous voting going forward?

2.) If it is possible, can you disable only one or the other, AKA could you leave anonymous upvoting and disable only downvoting?

3.) How many people would you say are "abusing" the downvote system at this point. I mean are we talking 5, 10, 100, or 1000 people?

4.) How about creating a policy that defines what is abuse, then taking action on specific accounts that are abusing the system?

Brad

 

[Paul]

Not being able to be downvoted below 0 is a good start.

That was the original plan, but we realized it causes all sorts of problems since it creates a dependency on the order in which actions occur. There are various ways you could still effectively downvote anonymously no matter how we try to prevent it.

1.) Is it possible to leave everything as is, but only disable anonymous voting going forward?

Technically yes, but it's non-trivial. That would take a lot longer to implement, and, from a technical standpoint, this is one of the least viable solutions.

2.) If it is possible, can you disable only one or the other, AKA could you leave anonymous upvoting and disable only downvoting?

This has a bunch of logical issues that would effectively allow people to bypass it no matter how we go about it. Furthermore, it would prevent people from removing upvotes--there's a permanent, append-only log of votes and quick replies, so they can't really be retracted; a retraction of an upvote is implemented as a downvote.

3.) How many people would you say are "abusing" the downvote system at this point. I mean are we talking 5, 10, 100, or 1000 people?

It depends on your definition of abuse. Keeping in mind that there's no distinction between a downvote and the retraction of an upvote, and that some quick replies and legacy reactions are treated the same as downvotes:

• There have been 176055 downvotes. (Remember, this includes legacy reactions like "Dislike", vote retractions, quick reply retractions, negative quick replies, etc.)
• The top three downvoters account for the following shares of downvotes:
  • 12.5%
  • 7.1%
  • 3.9%

The tl;dr is: not many.

It's common enough for someone to complain that they're being targeted by a single individual or small group of individuals who are downvoting them en masse, but usually their fears are unfounded. Typically, the downvotes will be from a diverse set of members who found fault with their posts, often in a thread that has garnered a lot of controversy.

This is one of the issues with anonymous downvoting: it's easy to dismiss the negative feedback you're receiving as being from a single individual who's out to get you, when, in reality, you probably missed the mark with some of your posts.

4.) How about creating a policy that defines what is abuse, then taking action on specific accounts that are abusing the system?

The moderators already do that. I'm not sure that there's a well-defined policy, but in the few cases of continual abuse that I've seen, it was blatant.

 

[bmugford]

It depends on your definition of abuse. Keeping in mind that there's no distinction between a downvote and the retraction of an upvote, and that some quick replies and legacy reactions are treated the same as downvotes:

• There have been 176055 downvotes. (Remember, this includes legacy reactions like "Dislike", vote retractions, quick reply retractions, negative quick replies, etc.)
• The top three downvoters account for the following shares of downvotes:
  • 12.5%
  • 7.1%
  • 3.9%

The tl;dr is: not many.

Yeah, the definition of "abuse" is certainly subjective.

However, I would say that (3) people being responsible for 23.5% of all downvotes is an issue.

Are these same accounts leaving a proportionate amount of upvotes as well?

Is there any rhyme or reason to where the downvotes are primarily going, like the same people, topics, etc.?

This is one of the issues with anonymous downvoting: it's easy to dismiss the negative feedback you're receiving as being from a single individual who's out to get you, when, in reality, you probably missed the mark with some of your posts.

That is fair, but there are multiple examples of unwarranted downvotes, especially for newer members.

It's not a great welcome to the forum.

Brad

 

[Paul]

Are these same accounts leaving a proportionate amount of upvotes as well?

All three have left significantly more upvotes than downvotes, but they still leave more downvotes than the average person does.

Is there any rhyme or reason to where the downvotes are primarily going, like the same people, topics, etc.?

A significant portion of people see the world in black and white, and when controversy arises, those people tend to take hardline positions and be quite vocal. They leave a lot of upvotes and a lot of downvotes, and they're probably more inclined to express anger and hatred in posts as well. This is, of course, an overgeneralization, and not all the top downvoters fall into this category. This is also distinct from the people who hold a strong opinion on a handful of issues--they're not going to have as many downvotes.

This has always been a challenge, and it's not an issue that's limited to votes/quick replies.

That is fair, but there are multiple examples of unwarranted downvotes, especially for newer members. It's not a great welcome to the forum.

It tends to be different people each time, though, with some exceptions.

 

[bmugford]

A significant portion of people see the world in black and white, and when controversy arises, those people tend to take hardline positions and be quite vocal. They leave a lot of upvotes and a lot of downvotes, and they're probably more inclined to express anger and hatred in posts as well. This is, of course, an overgeneralization, and not all the top downvoters fall into this category. This is also distinct from the people who hold a strong opinion on a handful of issues--they're not going to have as many downvotes.

That brings up another question.

Are the top downvoters skewed because it might be mainly related to something like political / off-topic threads?

That is kind of a separate section in my mind than general domain / business discussions.

Brad

 

[Paul]

Are the top downvoters skewed because it might be mainly related to something like political / off-topic threads?

I don't think political or off-topic threads actually count for this. I'd need to double check, though. That's one of the benefits of the new system.

 

[D Haynes]

That was the original plan, but we realized it causes all sorts of problems since it creates a dependency on the order in which actions occur. There are various ways you could still effectively downvote anonymously no matter how we try to prevent it.


Technically yes, but it's non-trivial. That would take a lot longer to implement, and, from a technical standpoint, this is one of the least viable solutions.


This has a bunch of logical issues that would effectively allow people to bypass it no matter how we go about it. Furthermore, it would prevent people from removing upvotes--there's a permanent, append-only log of votes and quick replies, so they can't really be retracted; a retraction of an upvote is implemented as a downvote.


It depends on your definition of abuse. Keeping in mind that there's no distinction between a downvote and the retraction of an upvote, and that some quick replies and legacy reactions are treated the same as downvotes:

• There have been 176055 downvotes. (Remember, this includes legacy reactions like "Dislike", vote retractions, quick reply retractions, negative quick replies, etc.)
• The top three downvoters account for the following shares of downvotes:
  • 12.5%
  • 7.1%
  • 3.9%

The tl;dr is: not many.

It's common enough for someone to complain that they're being targeted by a single individual or small group of individuals who are downvoting them en masse, but usually their fears are unfounded. Typically, the downvotes will be from a diverse set of members who found fault with their posts, often in a thread that has garnered a lot of controversy.

This is one of the issues with anonymous downvoting: it's easy to dismiss the negative feedback you're receiving as being from a single individual who's out to get you, when, in reality, you probably missed the mark with some of your posts.


The moderators already do that. I'm not sure that there's a well-defined policy, but in the few cases of continual abuse that I've seen, it was blatant.

Shit the bed! So one user has almost 20000 down votes??! And they have significantly more upvotes?! How do people find the time hahaha amazing.

 

[bmugford]

There have been 176055 downvotes. (Remember, this includes legacy reactions like "Dislike", vote retractions, quick reply retractions, negative quick replies, etc.)

• The top three downvoters account for the following shares of downvotes:
  • 12.5%
  • 7.1%
  • 3.9%

Just for reference purposes, how many total upvotes have their been based on the same metrics?

If possible, what are the percentages of the top 3 upvoters?

Brad

 

[Peter45]

Most people who feel hurt by their impact score going down are also going to feel hurt by downvotes.

Thank you Paul but downvotes without penalization hurt less than downvotes with penalization.

For you to deny this banality, it seems that you are playing games Paul

 

[Lox]

@Paul
Before my downvote aka "you're my cat" test... your post was "credited" w 3 upvote, 1 thanks

After, I hit 5x downvote & 1 dislike. (And redo)

Why I'm allowed to "credit" your post w only 5 downvotes? Why not 100? (IMO 1 downvote is enough for any ATM meow.)

Regards

 

[Peter45]

You don't really get anything by having a higher impact score
Nothing actually happens if their content gets downvoted--it's purely a morale issue.

In general an higher IS facilitates your interactions within the community, a.o. by giving more weight to your postings.
An higher IS makes you prima facie a trustworthy user.

For someone to deny something that evident and talk about a purely moral issue, again, by all due respect, it looks like someone is playing games.

 

[Peter45]

Yet, people are still getting rather angry and competitive with points, and that's even affecting newcomers. Nothing actually happens if their content gets downvoted--it's purely a morale issue.

There are people here reading these lines who were and are being treated as trolls because of those "points"

Congratulations Paul

 

[Kenny]

There actually is a place where nP expectations are defined.
It is a little dated, and perhaps the mods could update it, but here it is.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/expectations-for-respect-and-constructiveness.845259/

It is also linked in my sig, the outstanding saying from one of the legacy mods, Jeff.

Be Cool - Be Polite - Be Professional

Pretty good way to do business (and this is a Business Community Forum) in my opinion.

Concerning the annon downvoting thing, I understand there must be serious complications to revising / repairing / eliminating it or after all the complaints it would already be fixed.

I personally have never downvoted a post, and I doubt that I have disliked a post even 10 times in the 19 yearsI have been a member here.
If I had a problem with a topic or a post, and I thought it important enough to me, I would post my opinion in that thread.

Hiding behind the wall and never expressing what your problem is with a post is not only cowardly, but no-one understands what YOU think the problem may be.
And thus, if you are using this as a teaching moment, the poster, as well as the community will never learn.

And that is what nP is about.
Helping other members of the community grow as domainers.
Especially new members.
Some people dont seem to remember, back when they first joined how much every remark, positive and negative impacted them.

We are here to help each other.

“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know absolutely nothing about.
Be kind.
Always.”
-Robin Williams

Peace,
Kenny

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

What does everyone think about this idea?

The upvote and downvote buttons are disabled until you have at least 1 public quick reply (e.g., Thanks or Disagree). If you remove all of your public quick replies, then your votes are removed upon removing your last quick reply.

Moving forward, this would mean that everyone who adds or removes points from a post would be represented by at least 1 public quick reply.

Would that be a better solution?

Note: This change would not be retroactive (i.e., it would not affect points that were already added/removed prior to this new feature).

 

[Future Sensors]

What does everyone think about this idea?

The upvote and downvote buttons are disabled until you have at least 1 public quick reply (e.g., Thanks or Disagree). If you remove all of your public quick replies, then your votes are removed upon removing your last quick reply.

Moving forward, this would mean that everyone who adds or removes points from a post would be represented by at least 1 public quick reply.

Would that be a better solution?

Note: This change would not be retroactive (i.e., it would not affect points that were already added/removed prior to this new feature).

It's another plan that could very well work, as long as it is clearly communicated. Preferably with a tooltip directly next to the buttons where the precise operation is clearly described.

However, it is now becoming a little bit unclear to me, as I have also seen other proposals in the past. Do these proposals still apply as an option as well, or are they no longer applicable?

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

Do these proposals still apply as an option as well, or are they no longer applicable?

Most proposals have been independent of each other, but we’re trying to find a solid solution, so proposals could be combined.

We have another proposal, as well, that may work best on its own or in combination with previous proposal(s), but first we’re looking for feedback on them individually.

Preferably with a tooltip directly next to the buttons

The up/down buttons themselves would probably explain, whenever pressed prematurely, that the user must choose a public quick reply first before they can be used.

Thanks for bearing with us while we figure this out.

 

[Future Sensors]

We have another proposal, as well, that may work best on its own or in combination with previous proposals, but first we’re looking for feedback on them individually.

You could do some A/B testing with several proposals, j/k.

Thanks for bearing with us while we figure this out.

Always.

 

[NameInbox]

You could do some A/B testing with several proposals, j/k.


Always.

It's alredy works or so
As I can see

People are not downvoted* me and I can't do* so

p.s. *Downvoting works, but it's not change Impact on profile(see att)