What is the point of the down vote button? I am active on the 'UK stocks near breakout and springs' thread. People seem to down vote everything on there, what ever is said. I have seen it in Paul's SCVR as well.
Please can we have just an up vote and a report inappropriate button
many thanks
Lloyd
I am an ecologist that gets to play with Owls, Snakes, the odd Beetle, and maybe a newt or two. Of course this doesn't really pay very well, so I invest. more »
I have to say after looking at my losses today this particular thread has at least made me laugh.
I’m not sure EC. You run a pretty tight ship here. Yes, there are ‘crazies’ but they pretty much behave themselves.
I don’t like the down arrow because it has a tendency to cause people to conform to “crowd think” and make some people with something interesting to say keep it to themselves. I do like the down arrow because it’s often is a great shorthand to avoid “crazies” plus it gives some sort of general ‘crowd opinion’ on investing issues - I find this useful
Going to add - I voted this down but as my 5 year daughter would say “only for the lolz”
I genuinely didn't know that existed! I had to switch to the old site to find out what you meant though and saw you've sent me a message to prove it!
Don't suppose you know how to access this feature in the new site, I just can't seem to find it...
I think this is excellent as we can encourage people, instead of continuing on in 'spats' (which I can be guilty of myself), to 'take it offline' so to speak :)
I really don't understand the up votes for this reply as I think the 'only for the lolz' mentality is precisely the problem with the down vote button.
For no other reason than to inflate one's own ego, a cheap shot is taken at someone else through contemptuous use of the 'down vote'.
This then ruins it's effectiveness as a useful community tool as described by others.
Bullying or humiliation is not an effective ‘community management’ tool nor a method to inculcate positive disagreement behaviours. It leads to people feeling enabled to make sanctimonious put downs to uninitiated people....a village neighbourhood watch approach akin to that in hot fuzz. And some more sensitive souls feel alienated and even insulted by it. A report function moderated centrally is better...although I do think Stockopedia’s moderation is poor as they close people down for disagreeing or pointing out real issues rather than being abusive...but then I’m one bad day away from being banned as allegedly I have harassed people (jokers!).
I’m a disagreeable person. Sometimes with pure intent yet still voted down as I don’t conform. And sometimes for devilment as I realise some of the down voters are a bit agitated. It’s all very silly. If there were no down votes I’d be less compelled to play negatively to the gallery and sometimes transform my ‘pure intent’ into devilment.
TBC I feel amused rather than chastised by down votes and it really doesn’t worry me if you keep them. But i do think the general decorum would be improved by removing them.
In addition, Paul Scott shouldn’t trigger his devout followers with emotional or acquisitory outbursts...it gets the emotions of many too worked up and leads to a lot of rabid chuntering.
I’ll probably get a lot of down votes for the above comments. Bring it on. Lovin it :)
I’m sorry you don’t understand the up votes for this Forbsy. I think they came from people like me who can’t resist pressing big red buttons marked danger or in this case indulging in the admittedly childish behaviour of casting a down vote to a post entitled REMOVE THE DOWN VOTE BUTTON. This isn’t, I admit, extremely witty or clever but it is almost irresistible...
You've harassed no one, just expressed a difference in view.
My best attracts plenty of red presses, I'll continue to wear them like a badge of honor.
Let hope they don't remove the red button.
BSV
The quality of posts and comments on Stockopedia is far better than on any other bulletin board, such as ADVFN and LSE. Perhaps one reason for that is the presence of the down button; if so, removing the down button might lead to quality deteriorating. Just a thought!
Content creators, create value. Inappropriate use of the down vote discourages content creators from doing so, thus reducing the added value from the community.
Why indulge in childish behaviour on a subscription based website for 'serious' investors?
If you want to behave like a child this is a better place for you:
I'm surprised that this would be considered a priority for development. I also think that the idea that the downvotes are a form of bullying to be quite bizzare.
Personally I think it is a (mildly) valuable feature and there was a good example today on the SCVR.
There was a post that merely included a ticker and a hyperlink to an external site.
It received a number of downvotes.
The posted politely replied why and was equally politely given views that people may not want to see external links with no indication of what they are about and whether they are worth clicking on.
In the absence of the downvoted button - anyone wanting to point this out would have had to post something along the lines of "please tell us what it is about if you expect us to click it". Some wouldn't do that, simply because they don't post and perhaps don't feel comfortable enough on the forum to tell others what to do. Others may not have posted because it is easy for such a post to seem aggressive.
And in fact such a post could seem aggressive and turn into a mini flame war (as we have seen earlier in the week at SCVR on the subject of posters not indicating what company/subject they are talking about in the comments section.
On other sites up and down votes are often used to flag I agree/disagree with your viewpoint - this can sometimes become quite obstructive. On Stocko however there are not too many discussion along the lines of "I am right you are wrong" so it is not really an issue.
I would be for keeping the feature and I certainly would not want developers time diverted from more important priorities to focus on removing it.
And on that I'm right your wrong ;-)
hi Bluesky - you remind me of my Dad - he loves disrupting lunches and dinners, challenging anyone especially in regards to grandiose statements. Over the years I've grown to respect that - Dad's the one poking at peoples inflated 'balloon' statements of their achievements, lemonade stall style posturing as they slug their fluorescent homemade lemonade (yarn) while the other guests say nothing (and posturing continues)..so yep we need that at the dinner table. Hope that brings a smile. P.
In the past I've found down votes can be a decent indicator of group think and other forms of bias - something posted against the prevailing trend of views has tended to attract the down thumb without any real engagement with the issues raised by the post.
Thanks, Phil,
Yes, it did bring me a smile. I'm sure Dad has come to respect his son over the years also.
Good luck with your investments.
BSV
Completely agree, and I'm delighted to see that its pending release. The thumbs down is frequently used as a way to abuse posters with a different point of view.
On balance I would agree that removing the down vote button whilst keeping the report button is the best option.
If Stockopedia is considering revising bulletin board procedures, might I suggest that it includes a declaration where any poster or author has to declare if any payment or remuneration has been received from a company to write about that company
I think that this would provide transparency and increase confidence about the board’s content.
If you remove the thumb down button you may as well remove the up thumb button as well. This post is currently 22 down, if you removed the downs it would be 16 up, which is fairly meaningless.
Some forums show who is doing the voting.
Removing the down thumb vote will suit some posters such as trolls and spammers. It will not highlight issues with posts and members.
If you are going to revise the bulletin boards, then adding an ignore feature would be a good idea, so you can blank out all the comments from certain members.
"COUNT ALL VOTES, COUNT ALL VOTES, COUNT ALL VOTES"
Sorry this might be the wrong thread and the wrong continent!
