RIP Negative Voting

Here lies Negative Voting
Victim of suppresive rules
Finally sucumbed to apathy
The year of our lord 2010

I don't really bother voting positive or negative any more. There's a thread on voting in here somewhere that ran to quite a few replies and I think after it was done, those of us who bothered voting negative in the past stopped bothering. It was plain that voting negative wasn't welcome, and who were we to demand it?

I used to research many deals that looked great, mediocre and terrible and post alternate prices and sources and vote accordingly. My aim was both to give people informed opinions if the deal was bad and make it clear there was a significant saving to be had if the bargain was good.

But people invariably attacked me for doing so. Cries that I was being mean, or that this deal was good because it was slightly more convenient for a very small segment of the population even if it was more expensive than other options, or that I should only be able to vote negative if I posted more deals myself (ironically in response to me showing better deals than the deal posted)… these cries were all common.

So I stopped bothering, and it looks like anyone else who used to do the same stopped too. I just went through all the "New Deals" postings for November with my filter set at -100 to make sure I didn't miss any - there were no negative votes this month, not counting any on mod-removed deals. Well, I didn't see any, although I examined it by eye while scrolling through 50 pages of deals so it's possible I missed one or two.

So the neg vote appears to be defunct. May as well remove it altogether.

Don't get me wrong, ozbargain is great. I visit it daily and buy things listed here regularly. I'm just saying - why bother having the negative vote function if no-one uses it?

Mod: Negative votes still count and still function in the previous way as they automatically remove deals. Users just can't see them.
This is a work in progress and is being discussed http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/33831

Comments

  • +5

    Yep. For a while the mods seem to have been too eager to remove negs. Sometimes the neg is over the top and should be removed, but some legitimate negs are overturned. I can't help but think it's to make the place more attractive to Reps to come along and post.

    You aren't alone with your thinking.

  • +2

    Not brown nosing the mods, but I've always found their revocation of negatives to be fair.

    As for the community that rebukes others for reasonable negatives … well, that happens all too often. So I'll have to agree with you to a certain extent.

  • +4

    Friends, Romans, countrymen; lend me your ears.
    I come to bury Negative Voting, not to praise him.
    The evil that men do lives after them;
    The good is oft interred with their bones;
    So let it be with Negative Voting. The noble Moderators
    Hath told you Negative Voting was ambitious:
    If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
    And grievously hath Negative Voting answer'd it.

    (Carry on gentlemen, I'm just being a bit of a nerd.)

    • -1

      Friends, Romans, countrymen; lend me your ears.

      What's in the bag esq? ;)

  • Is it because negative votes are now being hidden?
    http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/33831

    • +1

      Well, that certainly explains it.

      And as discussed below, makes the neg vote pointless. I was under the impression that their being visible was to serve as a warning to potential buyers. Apparently not.

      • Negative votes remove the deals from the new deals page. The fact that you couldn't see any deals with x amount of negative votes just means that its working. The majority of these neg deals are spammy or plain bad deals.

        The positive vote has an effect by putting them on the frontpage after x amount of votes.

        I suggest reading the other thread for more insight. I'll put a note at the top of this thread.

        • As the OP says, I set my level to -100.

          Any examples of deals with negatives that haven't been mod removed would be appreciated.

          And from the link:

          For logged in users, they can only see whether they have voted negative vote themselves. They can’t see who have voted or how many have voted negative. It’s like Bury on Digg, but I am just trying to get the logic/workflow right with minimum changes to the user interface.

          Are you saying that's incorrect?

        • @tantryl — the change simply means you cannot see the actual number of negative votes.

          Here is one URL you can try — a list of deals that have at least one negative votes:

          http://www.ozbargain.com.au/deals/negvoted

          Note: currently this page is available to everyone although mainly used by mods to check on deals that might have issues. And don't be too stressed if you see the deals you posted appear there :)

        • Thanks scotty.

          So… what's the purpose of the negative votes, if not to let people know that there are people who think the deal isn't good?

          How many of those in the link were knocked off New Deals due to the default setting -3?

        • what’s the purpose of the negative votes, if not to let people know that there are people who think the deal isn’t good.

          That is certainly something I think people will miss — i.e. using negative votes as warning. I am still juggling on how to show them in the way that is informative, but not bringing in too much work for the moderators handling angry users' revocation requests.

          How many of those in the link were knocked off New Deals due to the default setting -3?

          Just 3 from that page. The nasty ones (spams, dupes) got removed by the moderators. The rest are dodgy deals (including one by myself :)

  • You can't see anyone else's negative vote, only your own.

  • +1

    You need a holiday brother tantryl, this is affecting you way too deeply! ;)

    • +1

      Haha, I'm not sure if that's the best idea. I go insane when I'm deprived of OzBargain. It's my facebook equivalent!

      • We can call it detox! Cold turkey Wonga, that's the only way bro! ;)

  • +1

    i dont object to not knowing who has negged, but surely the original neg vote count could be left as it was?

    • This could be an idea. And I have to instruct the moderators to ignore requests to release user-names of neg voters when angry users demanding to know why his/her deals get neg-voted?

      • i dont think it will come down to mob justice that bad lol

  • Still have to ask why we have a so called vote? , when in reality its quite the opposite.

    Agree with Wonga its kind of addictive, personally i am weaning myself of it!

  • I still vote negative, just not here as much as I used to be after changing jobs where they expect me to do something called work instead of cruise OzBargain.

  • I reckon the main problem was making deals disappear when X number of negs are received - it gave the neg too much power, causing a growing list of rules and ifs-and-buts to be attached, when it should perhaps just be the yin to the positive vote's yang, or not exist at all, or be presented as something other than a 'vote'. But as a coder I know it can be a pain to make that sort of change; easier to apply new rules to the existing setup and hope that sort things out.

    And the issue of getting savaged by the crowd for being a bit contrarian, well that exists everywhere :-/

    • Sorry I am more of a backend coder (than user-interface guru), but how do you visualise different grades of Yin and Yng?! :)

      The negative votes are also a lot less "powerful" as guest users are now browsing at -3 (the figure is easily tunable). It does inserts noindex in the header when it goes below certain threshold so bad deals don't get indexed by Google/Bing.

  • Just another side to this debate, we had guidelines, about how to use a negative vote, but so many ignored those guidelines, saying I dont like the deal, to hell with the community I'm going to slam it.

    We introduced Reporting, so there wasnt so much need or negative voting on spam sockpuppeting etc. The mods would be alerted quickly to these.

    But many still used negative voting as a popularity quest rather than if you didn't like it, just leave it alone. Make a comment put your point of view etc

    Positive votes percolated the good deals to the top. You could set your preferences to suit.

    But many just saw some slamming a deal, (sometimes correctly) and just did simple dittos' or I agree. If that was the case all you needed to do was positively vote the negative voters post.

    If it doesn't add, then desist. If you really thought there was some more reason to add a to negative vote, at least have the courtesy and intelligence to explain why. Funnily enough, to do that, would mean people paid more attention to the deal and what was wrong with it, which really was what we all want to know.

    We (mods) just got fed up trying to educate everyone, one post at a time, and some thick minded, and determined posters many times, that the voting system was different here.

    So now Scotty is trying something. Yes if you read carefully he's trying this. Will it work? Maybe, Maybe not.

    Do all mods agree with this? Nope**, but we are all willing to see if it works. Some of us predicted the tantrums like some above, and felt it wouldn't

    But after all the mod "tantrums" we agreed that we should let Scotty try this out with our blessings. Without that we will never know the best solution to a complex issue. And it is complex.

    So we agreed to give it a go. If it works - then that's great, if not, then we learn and can try something else, whatever we will get something better here.

    So try it, give feedback on instances where it does or doesnt help. That way we either refine it or move on to something else.

    ** making this comment reflects the mods situation not necessarily mine .. so keep guessing LOL

    • Thanks ozpete for your comment.

      • +1

        Thanks scotty for ozbargain… you rock.

    • I tried very hard to make it clear that it wasn't intended as a complaint. The "who were we to demand it?" and "Don’t get me wrong, ozbargain is great. I visit it daily and buy things listed here regularly." comments weren't sarcasm.

      I really do think I have no right to demand it, and ozbargain is great.

      • Not taken that way by me - We need discussion on this, but ideas/opinions on other ways helps

    • Agree 100%. I once confronted someone who gave a negative vote because the person did not like the product (posted by someone else) despite it's a good deal. And that made me really furious. Some people just don't care.

  • I like the old way that it used to be. Most posts, i dont read all the comments but only the negatives. If the negative is not worth, usually mod or people comment the post. Hmm, good old days !.

    • Yeah agreed. I liked seeing if a deal had negatives then opening the deal and checking the reasoning behind the negative. Now it's just all a mystery so maybe keeping the neg votes visible is a good idea. But I do understand the workload of the mods was pretty crazy so interested to see how this method goes.

      In any case, thanks Scotty and mods for a great site!

      • Agreed as well. The old style was more informative on deals.

    • yea i would like to read negatives too..i mean come on mods, we are not dumb.If ppl put invalid reasons, we can judge…why not just reverse the system where too many neg will result ban/hide the deal then?

      when ppl research about something i am sure they want to know the negative sides…since the pros will already be advertised STRONGLY..

      • +4

        Don't say come on mods. We don't just remove things willy nilly. Either we see the neg or someone reports it and we need to decide whether it follows the negative voting guidelines that were drawn up based on community feedback. Nothing to do with being dumb but we need to apply some community guidelines. The negative votes remove deal and also put a posting ban on the domain, so it's important that the votes are legit.

        If we do reinstate visible negative votes, what I would like is to take the neg vote decisions and put them more into community hands where if someone put a illegitimate reason for voting neg, then depending on the number of negative comment votes next to the comment would remove the vote.

        • That actually sounds like the best solution thus far. I would definitely like to see that being put on trial. Only problem is what threshold should there be for such a system? In my opinion, 5 negative comment votes should be sufficient.

        • I agree - thats a great idea neil

        • I think we discussed this and perhaps some sort of ranking system where some users voting counts more heavily than others.

          e.g. Perhaps users who have made x amount of comments or posted x amount of deals, maybe time based on member have more heavily weighted votes

          Flipside, new users have lighter (if thats the word) weighted votes.

        • I'm not a fan of that idea. People will exploit the ranking system and post rubbish, or spam, in order to get their rankings up. This will be burdensome on the mods to monitor. And I think new users and old users deserve the same amount of credit. Ozbargain should be an egalitarian community.

        • Well, not purely based on comment count or user time. Something akin to a Karma system like the one on Whirlpool. Some combination of positive votes received on deal + positive votes received on comments and whatever else.

          I think if it was egalitarian, then new users, possible spammers would sign up and do the opposite. No idea if it's even possible to code this in. Just a thought.

        • Ahh we're on the same wavelength now. I didn't think of the possibility of gaining negative reputation. As a whole, I would prefer to see your idea in place rather than the current approach being experimented.

        • what if we do something like buckscoop:P but negative votes tends to put negative heatness?

          like 1 positive add 10 points, 1 negative -5 points…

        • +7

          Indeed a good karma system is needed so each member can be assigned with a "trust" value. There are many things that a trusted users should be able to do without bugging moderators (who should really be, hmm, moderating). For example fixing up the title, marking a deal as expired, making minor edits to point out the highlights, etc — those would be things a "trusted" community regular should be able to do.

          So the mods can just focus on the fun parts like investigating on the baddies and scammers :)

          Now, how the "trust" value is calculated — that's something yet to be discussed. It would be something you earn with good reputation, and something you loose for being a troll or making smart*ss comments.

          As of negative comments automatically revoking the negative votes — it's already there, with a tunable threshold. How about we try these next week?

          • Bringing back the visible negative votes
          • Auto-revoke negative votes with votes in comments

          As of weighted votes by trust/reputation, that will be for another small project next year. I'll be busy in the evenings until Sunday so don't expect any change before then.

          And thanks for the discussions.

        • +5
          • Bringing back the visible negative votes
          • Auto-revoke negative votes with votes in comments

          Yay to both of those suggestions.

  • Aren't we making the system too bloody confusing now though? It used to be nice and simple.

    If people vote neg for a stupid or unjustified reason then they get a warning. Repeated invalid negs gets a visit to the penalty box. When was the last time someone went to the penalty box for anything other than sockpuppeting?

    The system used to be pretty simple and it seems the very tiny minority were creating issues with it. If 5% of people can't do it right, does that really mean the system is broken? I would say not.

  • If people vote neg for a stupid or unjustified reason then they get a warning. Repeated invalid negs gets a visit to the penalty box.

    takes up a lot of (unpaid) moderating time and effort

    • Does the current system where mods seem to be the only people who can effectively remove postings take less time and effort?

      • I suspect so, as they are now not getting tangled up in debates about negative votes….

        • I'm leaning this way also. How's the new system going, mods? More work with less results? Less work with more results? About the same?

        • +1

          @tantryl, Less (or no) work regarding negative votes. I haven't revoked a vote since the new system went into place. Unfortunately, the lesser work of the negative votes this week has been balanced out with removing nowsupplier deals as well as the fake Dan Murphy deal posted 6 times. ;)

  • Why not put an update on the home page saying what's happening because I'm sure others who don't go to the forums are wondering where all the negative votes are?

  • how about another vote box so we have
    + positive
    - negative
    and
    * meh

    • Actually this leads to something, akin to

      Hey check out this deal (+)
      Watch out and read my comments why (-)

      Maybe this positive and negative vote has too much energy on it.

      One point we all need to just keep in mind is that the negative vote can take out a deal. No vote leaves it alone, while the positive keeps it alive.

      As not all deals are "popular" but can still appeal to some here the need to justify a positive vote isnt as important as justifying a negative vote.

      Sure it brings a deal up higher the more votes and over others that dont get votes but the deal is not lost.

      Looking at many of the popular deals, they tend to be technology products software or food (mostly of the "junk" variety), with the odd bank deposit rate thrown in

      Before we started cracking down on the negative votes we also got the Mac vs PC type battles so predominant at Whirlpool, where votes were based on personal preference, and nothing to do with the deal per se.

      Again is this all part of the negative vote concept that people have rather than the intent of it being a self moderating warning that there is an issue with the deal. Keeping in mind we have the report button to be used.

      Just thoughts to consider…

      • +1

        thats what i thought positive and negative were
        (+) check it out
        (-) dodgy deal
        and sometimes people want to click negative when it is not that great a bargain i.e. only saves $2 from static ice, that would be a "meh" deal, to tell other people it may be cheaper but its not that great a deal but not worth a negative. and people have somewhere to click ;)
        myself, i just do a no vote ;)

        • Great point berserkk.

          I have to admit that due to the binary system I was looking at things in either bargain or not bargain light, and tending to consider those no different to the usual price anyone using a price search engine could find as negative. This could be a cause of others thinking it was too harsh because they assumed things that were mediocre as automatically positive.

          The "meh" option is very appealing to me.

        • Yeah, the meh is there in the no vote already. All that is needed is another button that turns green when pressed and achieve the same outcome as people just not voting. This would at least satisfy the people that have to click something!

          Interestingly this meh option is already a voting option separate to a no vote. I once revoked a vote because I thought the deal was dodgy after trying it out, turns out it was my own stupidity stopping the deal from working, but this non-positive non-negative vote still shows up on my votes page.
          So maybe just a third button to get people to this state would suffice?

  • +1

    Just going back to OzPete's post further up the page - I guess I'm still struggling to understand what was wrong with the old system. Furthermore I never really understood why a comment was needed to explain a negative, when none was required to support a +ve. What is the rationale behind providing a bias for positive votes?

    I always thought that the +ve vote on a deal was to be used, if you thought it was a bargain. Conversely a -ve was to be used if you thought it wasn't a bargain. Nice and simple. But OzPete mentions the following:
    "But many just saw some slamming a deal, (sometimes correctly) and just did simple dittos’ or I agree. If that was the case all you needed to do was positively vote the negative voters post."

    So not only do we have the bias for +ve votes, but here we have a clear suggestion that the -ve button shouldn't be used. I guess I'm still trying to understand : why is using the -ve button bad?

    In my view, under the old system you would think twice about posting a new deal… if it wasn't a bargain, it would get -ve votes and drop off the page. Seeing 1, 2 or more negative votes and reading the comments, encouraged other members to investigate and verify/dispute the claims.

    With this new system, I think we will see more and more average deals being posted… more deals that aren't actually bargains.

    • Just one question to you before I go on.

      What is an average deal?

      Can you clearly define this?

      Have you seen deals that you were not interested in get high votes?? I have..

      Too many negatives killed a deal. Now if everyone was on same wave length then there would be no issue, but we all have different perceptions.

      Initially people negged a deal and we had no understanding why. We found some deals that every mod thought should have been acceptable, being killed and we had no idea why. So we thought lets get people to explain why.

      A killed deal means its NOT available to people who come along later. People found that they missed deals because others didn't think they were deals - a sort of if I dont like it then others can't have it… a perverse censorship and in some cases the deal was ok, the poster just didn't explain it right… or made a small error, and the negative vote was to indicate the error

      Then we found that some negged deals because they had their own bias against a brand eg Mac/PC so we introduced guidelines

      Others negged deals because someone negged their deal, and so on. So we changed the guidelines again.

      So problem is that we humans are never "average"

      You also said

      Seeing 1, 2 or more negative votes and reading the comments, encouraged other members to investigate and verify/dispute the claims.

      Problem there was the deal was then hidden, so even if someone refuted the claims, the deal would not be seen, and like I said, without the need to explain a negative how could anyone refute or verify a claim.

      Not easy or simple unfortunately

  • This is taking too long to sift through all the new deals now - I used to skip deals with a few negs.

    Scotty mentioned this further up the page:
    "
    As of negative comments automatically revoking the negative votes — it’s already there, with a tunable threshold. How about we try these next week?

    • Bringing back the visible negative votes
    • Auto-revoke negative votes with votes in comments
      "

    I agree, bring back visible negs. But to make it easier on mods, have a way users can agree/disagree with negs. The negs get removed if enough people think the negger was "whack" for negging. Then sinbin serial whack neggers.

  • +2

    Tantryil is right.

    There's no longer any point to voting positive, if you can't vote negative. I don't bother clicking the plus sign, because I know it doesn't mean anything.

    If you're going to allow people to vote deals up, you're going to have to accept that people will want to vote deals down. And if they disagree, if they debate among themselves, if they dispute the value of the negative vote, that's a sign that the voting system is doing its job, not a sign that the system is broken.

    • ????.

      How can you have a "discussion' when the deal disappears from general view because of the vote??

      That said, I have found most of your negative posts have been done the right way. You give clear and detailed reasons why. I doubt if us mods have even needed to delete your vote and you have stimulated discussion…

      But there is a bigger picture we have to deal with

      the issue has been we have just had so many "dumb" votes on deals like "meh" "-" "no deal" , not available in my town, etc

      • I think it's safe to say that the majority of the community agree with the issue you have mentioned. So, wouldn't the best solution be what Neil mentioned - the ability to vote on negative comments which revoke negatives on deals. We would be moderating each other and hopefully that reduces the workload on the actual mods.

        I'm all for a simple system, but I think the current changes have gone a tad too simple and compromised our hunger for an informative deal.

      • you used to say if stock level is less than 100 or something is not a deal as well…last time i voted -ve for a deal posted with stock level of 15, and not everywhere has a store but you said its not valid.

      • Wouldn't the solution to this problem be to lower the negative vote threshold for a disappearance and to punish suspend/ban people who give nonsense negs? And not to discourage negative votes by conscientious contributors?

  • There needs to be a distinction between the neg button and a 'report' button. Right now the two have merged into one button, thus forcing people to be extremely hesitant about negging a deal. It needs to be a simple positive if you think the deal is good and neg if you think its bad, with a separate report button if its spam/advertising/misleading/etc.

    And set the rules to prevent deals from being posted if they have more than two 'reports', as opposed to negs.

    • +1

      um….there is a separate report button…….

      • I know, but the neg button is being treated like the report button, instead of merely an expression of opinion regarding the bargain.

        • Actually the intent of negative voting is similar to that of the report button, and it was meant to assist in moderation of the site, the problem was that people brought concepts from the rest of the "world" here and saw it just that, an expression of an opinion.

          Problem is that the site auto moderated a deal with too many negative votes.

          So if there were too many I dont like X visitors to the site before the I like X visitors, then the post would not be seen.

          Those looking for X were effective robbed of a deal that they would be interested in. Also the irony was that opinions by the dont likes got hidden with the deal.

          Compounded with this is the different level of expectation on what constitutes a deal. And many bargain hunters here have strong opinions on what they think this is.

          With so many different interests by visitors as the site has grown the complexities have as well.

          These include, the issue for mods to have to regulate the negative voting according to the way it works here.

          Like most of us, people read the "instructions" after the product doesn't work

  • Just to note that due to "community feedback", visible negative votes are BACK.

    Automatic revocation base on comment votes still applies. Therefore I wish the moderators can be more "hands off" regarding to vote disputes, and see whether the "democracy" would work it out.

    • great work scotty, or is it asylum manager?:p

      although viewing a thread offline there was 1 neg, logged in there was 3..

    • Now that the negs are back, it is just me or there is a sharp decline in the number of negs in the past 50 deals posted.

      • id say its just you, ive read 3 negs that i think a mod would remove

        • Nah, i actually meant the number of deals with 3-5 positive votes and 0 negs. Less negs in general on sub-par or average deals.

    • -ve votes to revoke an invalid vote, maybe could also put an auto msg of "auto-revoke by democracy" too…will look so cool

    • Whats the ratio of negs on a neg comment, before it gets revoked by democracy?

      • 6 I believe….

      • Sorry the number is still in flux as the moderators are still working out the right number…

  • lol, probably because people have gotten used to not bothering with the effort in voting negative, since it wasnt going to be seen

  • did a test on scotty deal:P please test if it works:P

  • 5 -ve on users comments allowed per day? weird~~

    • It's always been the case. Just a safeguard against neg spammers.

      • but some users comments are ridiculous…

        yea i was going to vote so much -ve on some comments under the hack of bookdepository

        obviously i only know there is 5 limit then

        • save them for reversing inappropriate negative votes. Negging comments seems a little of a waste of time to me. Giving a positive to a comment says publicly "I agree with you" but, as it's anonymous, negging a comment really doesn't make any difference to either the commenter or the voter.

  • You know what would be great though
    like have a positive negative count
    as in how many + votes and - votes a user has given throughout their membership.
    it would be great to see the neg ragers

    IMHO i don't think i have given - more than 10 times throughout my time here
    great to know stats though

    • Actually you can see a member's voting history by clicking on their main profile.

      e.g., your total of 0 negative votes for deals which remain published suggests how positive you are:

      http://www.ozbargain.com.au/deals/33258/voted

      it would be great to see the neg ragers

      Not that difficult to see the neg ragers, as you'll often find a page full of red boxes in their voting history. :)

      • ish's vote history: http://www.ozbargain.com.au/deals/33258/voted

        Davos vote history http://www.ozbargain.com.au/deals/14721/voted

        You can see on mine (the 5th deal down - i voted neg :) )

        • LOL, sorry for misunderstanding my post
          i meant like overall, like as in voting on other people's comments

        • ish’s vote history: http://www.ozbargain.com.au/deals/33258/voted
          i only negged vote once, but it was for someone else

          Davos vote history http://www.ozbargain.com.au/deals/14721/voted
          haha lol, i usually give a + for 1st timers/reps because to make them feel welcome

        • ohhh you mean personal comments?

          mmmm at this stage nothing it automated, however it would be nice to see each others total rep (and who i've been given rep from). But as it has no "practical" value to the site, apart from interest. I dont see it happening soon :/

        • With Davo on this one. I think there's minimal value to this feature. I suspect that is also one of reasons negative comment votes are hidden from normal members, as they don't really provide any advantage other than to encourage retaliation.

Login or Join to leave a comment