[Free]

I would like to make the case for deactivating upvotes just one more time. I promise I will shut up on this after this post (ok, after this thread).

What now has happened several times, is that
- posts are upvoted because they contain a picture of a beautiful kitty
- there are many upvoted random posts which don't really contain any useful information
- some people (me included) are annoyed by the random upvotes
- some people make remarks about random upvotes, sometimes even hijacking a thread
- these people get upvotes as well for such comments
- ...

This pretty much renders the voting system completely useless. Many of the posts with exactly 1 upvote seem to be upvoted by one and the same member, who doesn't seem to have a good eye for quality. Looking in a thread for good posts, you can basically skip the ones with 1 upvote (but not always). Hard to believe this is the purpose of the system.

I hold that without the upvotes, people will be less annoyed, won't make remarks about other people's upvotes, and make BBF a friendlier place.

[Antrax]

This is ploy to get your post upvoted, right?

[Free]

Antrax, on 2011-October-18, 07:33, said:

This is ploy to get your post upvoted, right?

That's the ironic part I guess...

[Bbradley62]

I wish we could still downvote.

[pooltuna]

Bbradley62, on 2011-October-18, 07:55, said:

I wish we could still downvote.

I guess we are relegated to emoticons for downvotes now

[JLOGIC]

Bbradley62, on 2011-October-18, 07:55, said:

I wish we could still downvote.

My bad!

[FrancesHinden]

There is (at least) one forum member who created a second BBO id only to be able to upvote his own posts. I thought that was quite revealing, character-wise.

[lamford]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-October-18, 13:14, said:

There is (at least) one forum member who created a second BBO id only to be able to upvote his own posts. I thought that was quite revealing, character-wise.

The principle of voting for yourself is the norm rather than the exception. Members of Parliament are regularly photographed voting (presumably for themselves) at the poll in their own constituency, and this has been the rule since, as best as I can research, 1429. This site also does not discourage more than one registration - indeed I can find no mention of any opposition to it in any of the help files. The principle was addressed with the IPBA awards, where journalists voted for annual bridge awards. It was made clear on the one occasion I voted that one could vote for one's own "best defence" or "best declarer play", and there were journalists with more than one membership - through several publications. Naturally I did not play or defend a hand well, so that temptation did not present itself. Booker prize voters were not prohibited from nominating their own work. I don't know what happens with the final short list, or whether this rule has changed.

I would agree that setting a maximum number of accounts would perhaps be sensible. If that were one, however, the right to vote for one's own contribution would be lost as the software does not permit an upvote of one's own contribution.

I find it amusing that the above forum member once remarked about someone (quite justifiably) calling the director after an (uncontested) auction, as I recall, 1♣ - 1♥ - 3♥* - 4♥ (* slow) when the 3♥ bidder only had 3 hearts, and 4♥ turned out to be the best spot: "Get a Life!" I would suggest that inordinate interest in the upvoting or downvoting of posts might indicate that this advice should be followed.

[Vampyr]

The one good thing about upvoting is that it should eliminate "me too" posts. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of those.

[Bbradley62]

Free, on 2011-October-18, 06:13, said:

I would like to make the case for deactivating upvotes just one more time...

Bbradley62, on 2011-October-18, 07:55, said:

I wish we could still downvote.

Probably making at least one of Free's points... two people upvoted both of these posts... Are you really in favor of deactivating upvotes and of reinstituting downvotes? Too funny...


Edit: typo corrected per lamford's response.

This post has been edited by Bbradley62: 2011-October-24, 14:22

[Vampyr]

Never mind.

This post has been edited by Vampyr: 2011-October-24, 14:41

[lamford]

Bbradley62, on 2011-October-24, 13:21, said:

Probably making at least one of Free's points... two people upvoted both of these posts... Are you really in favor of reactivating upvotes and of reinstituting downvotes? Too funny...

Perhaps you mean deactivating - I now see you have corrected that. But I do not see a contradiction; I presume electors are voting for one or other, not both. Perhaps we should have a single transferable vote ... or the Hare-Clark system ... using the Robson Rotation. That would seem appropriate for a bridge vote. And it does seem there are plenty of "donkey voters" ... with apologies to our Australian forumites, as the phrase seems to come from there.

[jmcw]

Free, on 2011-October-18, 06:13, said:

- ...

This pretty much renders the voting system completely useless. Many of the posts with exactly 1 upvote seem to be upvoted by one and the same member, who doesn't seem to have a good eye for quality.........

Many voting systems are completely useless. Maybe upvotes should get eliminated and downvotes reinstated.

[Free]

jmcw, on 2011-October-28, 20:17, said:

Many voting systems are completely useless. Maybe upvotes should get eliminated and downvotes reinstated.

We already tried downvotes. It resulted in war, even with the upvoting police in power... Even a BB finalist was targeted! So no thanks.

[BunnyGo]

The upvotes have become a bit meaningless lately. There seem to be one of two cases:

1) I read a post, think it's great, see it's been voted up and it's (nearly) always by person A.

2) I read a post, think it's awful, see it's been voted up and it's always by person B.

Not sure what purpose this serves. I actually preferred the days of downvote wars to this...there was at least the hope things would improve. Turning it all off might just be best.

[Bbradley62]

But, everyone saw that flame wars were not the way the system was supposed to work, and we were getting past it... Now that we've had our cooling-off period, I think it would be good to try allowing downvotes again.

[Free]

Bbradley62, on 2011-November-01, 08:36, said:

But, everyone saw that flame wars were not the way the system was supposed to work, and we were getting past it... Now that we've had our cooling-off period, I think it would be good to try allowing downvotes again.

This post would definitely get a lot of downvotes