Yada Yada / The Off Topic Arena

I fully understand that. There is no way for me to force people to leave a reason for a dislike/disagree. There are many features I would like the forum to have that just aren't there. Forcing a person to leave a reason why they disagree/dislike or an "Are you sure" type of verification box before leaving a neutral or negative rating would be one of those features I would like to add.

Off-topic (since we are in the off-topic thread): I would also like a side conversation (or off-topic thread within a thread) option that throws an expandable smaller sub-thread/reply chain under posts so that users can stay in the same thread while going off-topic while not bothering other users. Kinda how Reddit does it. That sh*t forum software I tried before this one had that feature...unfortunately the rest of the software was (and still is) complete sh*t. It is certainly doable on this software....but by someone much better at coding than I am.

I was just joking around about the "I give up" part. I get why you don't like them. Nobody enjoys getting dislikes or disagrees on a forum without knowing why, especially on posts where you were just giving an opinion that was asked for by someone else. It's a forum, there is supposed to be conversation. I personally find it kind of lazy to just hit the disagree button without giving a reason. So I get that side of it. I suppose I meant for it to be more of a "agree to disagree" type of thing, as it was when I gave AlwaysRT a disagree. I had already stated my reasons why I disagreed with his post, ad nauseam, in that thread and others and the reason for the disagree was already well established.

I think that 25 posts to leave a disagree might not be enough. Might raise it to 100-200 posts. We'll see. Since only the OP of a thread can receive one it might not even be worth the extra effort.

 

It is something that has been discussed many times on this forum, many more times on other forums and several times on one forum for owners/admin of forums I frequent.

There seems to be 3 views from forum members and staff on the topic in every forum that has had these ratings available at one time or another:

1. Some think the ratings are a bad thing as they think forums are for discussion and disagree/dislike ratings discourage this. (And/or they feel that the ratings are being used in a trolling manner.)
2. Some think the ratings are a good thing for forums as it cuts fluff posts down. It also keeps people in touch with reality and let's the poster know that they might not hold a popular opinion. (And/or the person leaving the rating just doesn't want to reply/get in a debate with the poster over a specific topic.)
3. The vast majority just don't give a sh*t if the ratings are there are not.

I understand all three points but I personally lean to #2 myself. (I've argued for these neutral ratings to stay for quite some time on this forum.)

Admins of other forums seem to have taken 1 of 3 actions to deal with the complaints:

1. Remove the neutral ratings.
2. Keep the neutral ratings.
3. Keep the disagree/dislike ratings but make them positive ratings.

I personally think option 3 is a nice compromise for most forums but I don't feel it will work on DI for a few reasons. Or maybe it would. Dunno.

When I removed the three ratings it wasn't just some random decision. I read what other admins were dealing with and listened to all sides of the argument. (Yeah, I didn't way more time than I should have on it.) I felt they were causing more problems than they were worth on the forum.

We probably shouldn't get too excited and resort to bickering and personal attacks over a few 12x12 pixel emoticons though. There are more important things in life.

 

Let's try to keep this thread off-topic please.