Negative votes.

• 

  ozhunter on 24/08/2011 - 01:56

  +1

  There will always be people who vote neg for dumb reasons, though a couple of negs in the those examples were justified.

  If negs are really stupid, the community use negs the comment, in which the negative vote against the deal gets revoked.

  If people don't get negged for breaching the rules, that would just cause more people to not follow the guidelines.

• 

  andy19363 on 24/08/2011 - 07:13

  There has been much comment on this topic. There are many, including myself, who no longer post deals because of it. The negative vote has become virtually meaningless, unfortunately.

• 

  h4lcyon on 24/08/2011 - 08:51

  Haters, they are everywhere in life.

  Now that OzB is so popular it's unfortunately bound to attract a few.

• 

  andy19363 on 24/08/2011 - 08:54

  http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/37925

  http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/39817

  http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/36267

  couple of example threads (now I'm more awake :)….)

• 

  scotty on 24/08/2011 - 10:53

  Negative votes are indeed a recurring topic here :) Let me say that so far what OzBargain can do is providing an automated method where democracy wins.

  • Members can vote negative on a deal (conditions apply, i.e. comments, negative vote limit, etc)
  • Other members can revoke that negative vote by voting sufficient number of -1's on his/her comment

  So ideally the only negative votes left would be those that other members who also support. So trolls and those without an convincing argument would be revoked by the crowd. But note the keyword there, and we don't live in an ideal world :)

  @andy19363 — we did try to take away negative votes at one stage but have to roll it back due to feedback. Sorry can't please everyone.

  • 

    andy19363 on 24/08/2011 - 11:12

    we did try to take away negative votes at one stage but have to roll it back due to feedback.

    I know :)…. I remember it well
    That was in the good old days when negs were actually informative, as opposed to a way of just 'putting the boot in', as most negs seem to be these days.

    I understand the difficulties this topic raises, and do appreciate all of the work that goes into trying to solve them :)

• 

  PlagueistheCheap on 24/08/2011 - 12:57

  +1

  It seems OzB has become a place where ppl post nearly anything on here just to get positive votes too. Alot of really useless posts end up on here that really shouldnt. So you cant have one side of the argument without the other. Just a fact of life. In general though if there are a few negs they have always been far outweighed by the amount of positives.

  • 

    andy19363 on 24/08/2011 - 13:14

    depends on what you mean by 'useless'…
    if you mean spam/scam or other inappropriate postings, than they should be dealt with by using the report button.
    If you mean things that can be found cheaper elsewhere…fine, neg the deal, (although one neg would suffice…. as opposed to all the 'me too' stuff that happens now), but link to where it can be found for less….. makes the vote far more useful.
    Similarly…. if there are problems with the product or retailer…. neg would be appropriate… but give some detail why…..
    "retailer x…. nuff said" tells me nothing about why I should be wary of the retailer….

    I have no probs with negative voting, as long as it serves a purpose ie informs the community. The way things are, I'm not convinced the majority of negs do that.

• 

  amkssg on 24/08/2011 - 16:32

  +1

  All these shows hoe OzBargain has evolved over time.
  I think it was a far better community when I first joined 2.5 years ago.
  There was much less trash and sockpuppeting and therefore there were far fewer rules on posting deals, and of course far few people who spend their days finding for deals to neg for completely pointless reasons just for the thrill of it.

  • 

    scotty on 24/08/2011 - 17:33

    +1

    … a far better community when I first joined 2.5 years ago

    When a community grows, it just becomes, hmm, complicated. At the same time, things are also moving at faster pace with more deals posted (from fellow members and merchants). However improving OzBargain for the general community is always on our agenda, which is why an open forum is here for discussions.

    trash

    Trash deals? Neg them or Report them? You can also turn off merchants in your deal listing preference so you don't see the crap posted by Store Reps (until it reaches front page).

    sockpuppeting

    Sockpuppeting has always been there. I'll say we spend more than 50% of the time developing moderation tools and automated detections to minimise them. I can say we actually have less sockpuppeting problem than 2.5 years ago.

    far fewer rules on posting deals

    Any specific deal posting rule that you are not happy with?

    far few people who spend their days finding for deals to neg

    I believe the percentage of neg-abusers would have stayed the same. Moreover with community revocation of negative vote, I would see this lesser a problem than 2.5 years ago.

    Yes I guess we can continue to develop patterns to prevent repeated abusers to vote negative again. There is still a lot of work to do in the backend of OzBargain.

    • 

      amkssg on 24/08/2011 - 18:54

      Nah, that wasn't what I was getting at.

      I was just trying to say to the OP that you can't expect OzB to be the same as it was previously. Voting patterns and reasons do change especially when you get newer members who not necessarily have the same views with older members with regards to what constitutes a deal, or should be negged or reported.

      It part of the evolution of the site, and I must say, Scotty and the mods have been doing a great job.

      • 

        scotty on 24/08/2011 - 19:37

        Sorry for the misunderstanding.