Like this poor guy for example. WHY?
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/70207#comment-872583
Do the mods have any stats on negative comment voting habits? Are particular people maxxing out their neg quota every day? Is it a small bunch of people doing it? I bet a million dollars they don't post anything, deals OR comments.
Sounds great, thanks
Good idea, people just comment negative even for asking q or sharing experience.
There are always a group of people that defy the laws of logic in any forum that has a voting structure.
It would be nice to obliterate them, but unfortunately it's just a part of typical internet behaviour nowadays.
Some people neg just because they can. Others don't use it for the right purpose — they neg just to show their disdain or disagreement.
I interpret a neg towards a comment as someone showing disagreement and vice-versa.
An example would be this comment, http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/70070#comment-870227
Why not introduce an additional "Disagree with opinion" button so that people do not vote minus just because they personally disagree with a comment? Or get rid of comment voting altogether? What purpose does it serve?
What purpose does it serve?
The only useful purpose is to assist in removing the other waste of time…. namely inappropriate neg votes on bargains….
+1 votes — thanks? appreciation? kudos?
-1 votes — as you said, it would revoke neg votes on the deals. It also hides the comments from guest users. It's a form of self-moderation, but obviously did not work as intended. More tuning coming.
It was also meant to be part of signals to calculate someone's reputation. Still thinking about it though.
On deals voting is OK but on comments it is not useful but as others have said merely serves self-presentation purposes and to bolster up egos. Just don't allow it and let everyone decide for themselves whether they want to read comments or not (whatever they are - free speech unless illegal, discrimnatory etc. where the moderating bit comes in).
That way it is much easier and there is no revenge voting.
The negative vote on Gallifrey's comment, might be someone trying to be funny but is exactly the point of all this.
Often I (and others I have noticed) upvote to attempt to counter this, but I wonder if that just hides the problem?
I would say it also applies to this one
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/70135#comment-871282
That post is 'technically' meant to be in the forums, however, it's basically a good deed from Blizzard
The annoying part is when someone gets adds a useful insight, and then it gets voted down!
was tempting to neg you….
LOL, that red '-' just calls out to me! ;)
I'm 110% behind the OP on this topic, the idiotic negs you see when guys have explained something, shared knowledge, or even just given thanks for same are getting out of control!!!
Remove the anonymity of comment voting IMHO, then chickenshits will think twice if they have to own up to unreasonably neg-stalking comments! ;)
Yes to this! Exactly the same as deals.
Then if enough other people neg your neg, it gets removed. Of course they have to tell you why they neg….
I agree, anonymity be gone! I don't mind negs, but anonymous negs on comments really creates a toxic atmosphere.
anonymity be gone!
Yeah, it would most likely decrease the number of negs(of that comment)
but then you'll get like "online rivalries" which is rather useless
but then you'll get like "online rivalries"…
You get them now, they're just slightly more ambiguous.
It doesn't take a 'rocket surgeon' to work out who is neg-stalking every comment you make site-wide for a day or two after you've disagreed with some people! ;)
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
Rocket Surgeon
Users used to be able to see who voted on their comments and it caused a huge amount of fights. Not sure we'd want to go down that road again.
Accountability/transparency is never a bad thing IMHO Neil! Just mod the hell out of the bunfights if they're not kept to civilised debates! I reckon 90% of the unwarranted comment negs would disappear overnight! ;)
Yes, transparency is great and I can see why you think that but it was tried in the past. Users would fight would each other in the thread or complain to moderators. We spent a huge amount of time moderating these issues instead of getting rid of Spammers/sockpuppeting etc. This was a couple of years ago.
Stewballs - in theory you are right, but modding the hell out of things, we are then declared to be on a power trip…
Reality is some want control, except when it controls them….
Just like the ref in football, you have to be a little sick in the head to do it.
Oh and BTW as mods we can see the positive and negative votes, and for the past 6 months I've been having one member vote down my comments and posts. And its taken that long to finally be able to call them on this. Why did they do it? because they thought I had moderated them incorrectly sometime in the past. The point being its a hard thing to call even when you have the info..
But thanks for trying to think of a way to fix it.
Yes, I hadn't really thought through the logistics of implementing the moderation aspects until you guys raised them! :)
But thanks for trying to think of a way to fix it.
No probs, I like to help out when I can. I'm an 'ideas' man…most of them can be a little half-baked though! ;)
most of them can be a little half-baked though! ;)
But you at least offer ideas, that way we can look at them. :)
Without ideas we dont get solutions.
Like this poor guy for example. WHY?
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/70207#comment-872583
The 'sold out' part was helpful as it lets other know none is available(or unless he doesn't want others buying it before he can get some for himself)
Then he just stated all other HN stores won't price match, which is basically telling everyone to not even try. Would of been better if he just described his experience.
I hardly think negs are getting out of control with the current limit of 5/day.
Argh have we all turned into a bunch of wingers?? Its about the Bargains people! Now go find some!!
Neg for you! :p
*random neg
Does anyone know what a neg vote means?
In moderation you get answers like, I can neg who ever I want for whatever reason, and trying to stop someone is called censorship.
And then as mods we are supposed to read every post, every neg and be fair in our decisions when often if its the red team that we moderate, then we are seen as being on the blue team..
As m0nkeycheese says
Argh have we all turned into a bunch of wingers?? Its about the Bargains people! Now go find some!!
what a whinge, all just for a neg. The guy who got the neg probably doesn't even care.
Scotty, please do not decrease the negging power, the worst thing will be seeing a neg worthy post and being unable to neg it.
the worst thing will be seeing a neg worthy post and being unable to neg it.
If you do things right you are unlikely to have negging power stripped. Otherwise, it's no worse than having people abusing the negging power. Great power comes great responsibility?
The community often tends to take care of unfair comment negs themselves. If you're not already doing it, and see an unfair neg, simply vote it back up.
Yeah. But there is clearly not enough people doing this. The reason I posted this is the neggers seem to outweigh the "good Samaritans" by a reasonable margin
I disagree with this, should I neg? Maybe, if it's by a large margin, the neggers might be right, and you along with the other positive voters could be in the wrong. It'll never be 100% perfect, but at the moment, the commenting system is pretty good imo.
Something slightly off topic but related, is where someone makes a valid comment with an invalid deal neg vote.
I haven't got time to find an example now, but in essence someone says something useful like "it has been announced that this product is about to be superceeded by XYZ", which could change peoples' decisions, but then they neg the current deal which may be really good. People then have to neg the comment to get the invalid deal neg revoked, and then the potentially helpful comment can get lost.
I don't think it happens often enough to worry about, and it's only really a problem when people make uneducated deal negs, but something to consider when thinking about making changes.
Just looking at the list of neg voted deals:
Those are just examples of neg votes appreciated by others, in deal posts that are generally well-received. It's good to see counter-arguments in those deal posts, as long as the debates are civil and constructive.
Well according to our current guidelines the Officeworks neg vote is invalid, as we say dont compare local stores with overseas stores…..
Back to my point do we really know…. :)
I think it all comes down to people being too sensitive getting negative votes. The point of actually showing negative votes (not just having the ability to vote, which we trailed a while ago) is to alert others potential issues.
You can buy the same thing cheaper elsewhere, is a useful message for those shopping for that specific product, where a negative vote (amongst many other +1 votes) would be able to make it stand out. Despite some might think it is inappropriate to compare local retailer with an overseas one (which we do all the time with other deals).
Those examples aren't quite what I meant, because their comments justify their negs. I'm talking about cases where the comment is useful, but unrelated to why they negged the deal. I'll see if I can find an example for you.
Either way, it doesn't happen often. If deal negs are used appropriately in the first place it shouldn't happen.
Evil
I am in agreement with you, I see enough to know. My little friendly dig at Scotty was based on the fact, that even neg votes getting positive support doesnt mean that they are right.
This is a problem with the neg system.
Currently a "neg" is basically getting a baseball bat and hitting the OP in the face.
It can be satisfying but is done for the wrong reason.
This is why I always say that negs needs to be for preset reasons that you tick, not for whatever reason you decide.
But how do you stop people negging and just picking any random reason?
Just revoke the ability to neg if they abuse it.
I don't think putting in fake reasons just to neg will be very popular, if it is then they won't have that ability for very long…
In my opinion every single neg on ozbargain can be put in a category.
For example saying that its cheaper elsewhere REQUIRES a box with a link to the cheaper place, otherwise you can't neg.
I think it would be a great system.
Just revoke the ability to neg if they abuse it.
So it comes down that
As you can see I'm trying to figure out a system that people are happy with and at the same time simple enough to understand, design and implement (from my engineering perspective, that is). We already got neg voting guidelines.
Although, having set valid categories for a neg vote may help. Given that they have to always comment anyway to make a negative vote. However this is only applicable for deal negatives not comment negatives.
We have seen a big drop off on the "me to", "ditto", "…" type negative votes since cracking down on this type. Even seen negative comment votes achieving the same.
Categories make it very easy to know when someone is purposely trying to hurt the OP or destroy the deal.
Without it mods have to keep a record of incorrect negative votes, will have to think about and talk to other mods about if the negative vote breaches guidelines and will just in general take a long time.
Basically it would just make it easy, knowingly break the rules and get your negative power revoked, its very difficult to say a member knowingly did this without having checkboxes.
Most people don't read the rules so removing neg powers because it doesn't follow guidelines will make it difficult for new members.
Having it in your face as a requirement to voting negative gives you a 100% guarantee that they can't say they didn't know the rules etc, simply because making up a fake reason to vote negative is something that all mentally healthy people know is wrong.
Also just in response to mods having to check votes and using up too much time, this is actually easier then it is now!
The community can report these negative votes, they can vote them down and if this still doesn't happen, the mod can very clearly see if the negative vote is valid, and if not take appropriate action.
You can easily expect a lot of downvotes for negative voting incorrectly, this would remove the negative vote anyway and mods don't have to do a thing. This happens because even a new member to the site can see the negative voter is doing the wrong thing.
Scotty, another method would be to work out an algorithm similar to reddit, where the more downvotes you give, the less effect it has.
http://amix.dk/blog/post/19588
It's quite advanced, probably not worth the effort
Still interested in my original question.
And just to recap I'm talking mainly about the random, unexplainable negs against helpful comments where no comment is made justifying or explaining the neg. They often come in 2 or 3s which just makes them even more mysterious.
10 people are responsible for 80% of the negs. None of them have ever posted any deals and they rarely comment, likewise they rarely +1 comments. Bet you a weeks wage.
A weeks wage, hmm I'll take that bet. ;)
I can breakdown the user negs, if you give me a small sample size. Say 1 deal.
The deal you mention in your original post has:
36 comments
Total of 30 positive votes against comments
Total of 8 negative votes against comments
7 users voted 1 negative vote each
1 user voted 2 negative votes
Rough stats:
5 have 1-5 deal posts
1 has 5-10 deal posts
1 0 posts
4 have around ~300 comments
2 less than 100
1 greater than 1000
So 8 negs, almost 1 to 1 ratio.
All have posted deals.
I would say 29% of those users rarely comment. 57% are average commenters. 1 needs to get outside.
I'm PM you my details for payment. ;)
I do believe we ran total stats for neg comment votes, and those at the top while they had a lot of negative votes almost all had a larger amount of positive votes. LoopyLou, the negative votes on comments don't always make sense. Not sure what to make of it but it's not always the same users.
Impressive, maybe I am a bit old and bitter after all :)
Thanks for the run down!!
What about the wages?
I know this has been an ongoing issue and old thread.
I had sent a Talk To The Moderator providing feedback to improve this voting system. Was redirected back here to provide feedback.
I see a lot of people abuse the votes system just because they don't like what people say about the product or find the deal unappealing. The purpose of making comments are generally to share information, tips & tricks, reviews, likes or dislikes about certain products or companies. I do not see these as negatives so it is completely inappropriate to allow people to vote as negatives.
Personally I don't like this voting system in the comments. Comments are comments, whether good or bad once are posted are there for everyone to see. As long as posting comments are in accordance with the guidelines of this site. Guideline says disagreements and debates are encouraged as long as people show respect & tolerance to each other. Unacceptable behaviours are abuse, name calling, malicious comments and foul languages. Some comments are constructive or just simple questions and yet they got lots of negative votes. Really ludicrous.
I suggest removing the voting system in the comments. Instead, have a Like or Dislike (no I'm not a Facebook fan) voting for the deal itself. This draws the line clearly, it will be about the deal or bargain, not about individual person(s).
I take it as an agree / disagree, which I think is all that it's meant to be.
You have a clear point. But the thing about the Internet is things can be mis-interpreted. There are no voices as in if you make a sarcastic comment without a wink odds are you're going to get negged. This has been a common issue for a lot of in particular online forums and clearly why there is an implementation of at least having a valid reason by comment to neg a deal. If your comment does not clearly disclose you're negative vote towards a deal resulting in it being a valid point. You can report the comment and let a moderator decide the action and outcome. This can also be automatically overturned by the amount of Negative votes on that users comment.
I think the voting system is a great idea. Not only for the way deals are than formulated to be on Front Page; RSS to the Facebook Page but to than be recorded in the Stats as per the new deal for Grays Online. That will be one of the top voted deals. This is something that should definitely be appreciated and without the vote count where is the motivation to search for these deals, then post them without a reward, a commission without referral or affiliation. But as a act of kindness to the community. A large amount of users contribute a huge amount to the site by posting amazing deals. But you than have those who contribute nothing and judge everything. You cannot win.
There are a lot of opinions on this issue. But for now I think it's in the best advantages to keep the system how it is.
This is really getting to me. I have seen a heap of cases recently with a stack of negative votes and another stack of positives just to get a comment back to level where it should be. I have a suggestion.
As far as I can see neg only serves two real purposes:
1: Revoke a negative vote on a deal which is unfounded.
2: Hide pure flame/abuse.
Issues 1 is a special case. You can leave this system exactly as it is. For all other comments, cap the comment level at 0, negative status is not possible, no matter how many neg votes are recorded.
This way, positive score still means that most people agree/like/whatever, you can still downvote, but you can't downvote into oblivion.
The report link then becomes the correct way to handle abuse. Perhaps this will overly burden the moderators, I'm not sure, but please consider this option (if only for the forums).
The report link then becomes the correct way to handle abuse.
The report link has always been the way to handle abuse, foul language, off topic, etc etc
There is no point to the negative vote on comments…… Other than removal of inappropriate neg votes. However…. there seems to be little interest in the community doing that these days…..
The negative votes on both comments and deals serve very little purpose these days other than providing tools for trolls…. very few people read and adhere to the guidelines…….
I agree, but there was talk above of self moderation, so I was being generous and suggesting it might help out a little there.
I really don't think it helps anyone for a comment to be published as 'negative'. Highlight the good comments, positivity and happiness all around!
absolutely….. could not agree with you more…..
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/86727#comment-1136823
there we go…
inappropriate negs on deal and mob negging on comments pointing it out…
I wonder how many deals have been missed out on because people no longer want to post deals?
I certainly don't post deals any more….
All fixed. ;)
I know Andy knows how to use the report button but just to remind others this is the best way to notify moderators. Statistically speaking, a good percentage of all reported inappropriate comments attached to negative votes are revoked by the community. So there is some self moderation going on here.
As for the negative vote against a comment, the general consensus is if it's a stupid comment, a wrong opinion, or some other comment that someone may disagree with. None of the above is against the commenting guidelines so there are multiple reasons to give negative (or positive votes).
Personally, I respond to comments mostly but sometimes give negative votes for generally rude comments.
For all other comments, cap the comment level at 0, negative status is not possible, no matter how many neg votes are recorded.
This way, positive score still means that most people agree/like/whatever, you can still downvote, but you can't downvote into oblivion.
Not sure I understand what the difference between seeing 0 or -4.
The report link then becomes the correct way to handle abuse. Perhaps this will overly burden the moderators, I'm not sure, but please consider this option (if only for the forums).
This should always be the use of the report button. Don't worry about overburdening the mods. The more reports the better.
I really don't think it helps anyone for a comment to be published as 'negative'. Highlight the good comments, positivity and happiness all around!
I guess for me with a site like Reddit, negative and postive votes work really well for promoting funny or informational comments where as negative comments are hidden. This is generally the idea here.
As for the negative vote against a comment, the general consensus is if it's a stupid comment, a wrong opinion, or some other comment that someone may disagree with.
What is a 'wrong opinion'? Also, the general consensus is often not the general consensus (in my opinion) as those who use this is such a way are a sub section. For example, a comment such as this:
"I find this this product is not useful to me because I have product Y, which achieves the same result for my purposes"
Will regularly be neged by anyone who just likes the first product. For me this is bad for everyone involved.
Not sure I understand what the difference between seeing 0 or -4.
I think there is a big difference to the morale and spirit. Even seeing just -1 all the time on perfectly reasonable and often informative comments upsets me (and others according to this thread). It is also very demoralising if you take some time to write a thoughtful/researched response and this is all you get.
I think there is a big difference to the morale and spirit.
I agree….. There are people who will neg others comments purely because of who they are, irrespective of any content of the post…… This has become a nasty place and people have been given the tools to be so.
Years ago, this was a helpful, supportive community….. the neg was a useful tool to pass on information and highlight poor deals….. now it is purely a weapon for the attention-needers and keyboard warriors….. It serves no other purpose.
There will be some who will remind us of the time the neg vote was removed…. "people did not like it"….. The people who did not like it were the very vocal minority who didn't like having their toys removed.
As in all areas of behaviour modification…. the principal of 'praise good, ignore bad' gets good outcomes. good posts become highlighted, (be they 'positive' or 'negative'), all else becomes background 'chatter' that people may wish to read or not, (personally I have no interest in whether others "don't like the colour" or "can't see the bargain here")
Anyone like me who ran out of ammo (negative votes) too early in this thread?
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/98410?page=1#comment-131737…
A telling comment…..
if you're going to quote the comment, atleast quote the full comment
Anyone like me who ran out of ammo (negative votes) too early in this thread? I think we should have at least 10 rounds each day. It's not as if we're in a war and have to ration them coz we're cut off from supplies :p
come across like a typical ozbargain comment
Anyone like me who ran out of ammo (negative votes) too early in this thread?
see how the tone of the comment changes?
Don't think it makes a difference….
Still highlights the view of many that the neg vote is a weapon, rather than it's intended purpose, which is as a tool for information sharing
I agree the added context makes it worse if anything.
It makes a considerable difference, 1 is clearly humorous which is a key factor is ozbargain participation, the other is just an an angry keyboard warrior
I don't think anger came into it….. it's just unnecessary… using negs in this way doesn't inform anybody about anything….. and, as later in the thread, someone points out….
But doesn't negging hide their (reps) embarrassing comments?
yes it does, to all except those logged in
The neg vote used to have purpose….. not as a tool just to arse-kick other members.
Lately (and from a quick search it's been an ongoing problem) users have been abusing their right to disagree with an opinion.
A negative vote against a comment I think should stand for something that is a troll post, something irrelevant and completely off-topic, is a personal attack (this should be reported as well). Not agreeing to someone's opinion about a product/service/deal does not warrant negative voting. (https://www.ozbargain.com.au/wiki/help:voting_guidelines :Inappropriate use of Negative Votes)
Lately I have noticed users using the negative vote for no reason at all. An on-topic discussion is going on about the product/deal/topic and someone contributed some valid points, and suddenly there's a random negative vote against it.
I respect that voting is a form of expressing one's opinion. But I think allowing the users to hide anonymously behind their negative vote is spoiling the vibe this community has.
Of course 'others can come and put positive vote to counter the negative voting'. But that is an inappropriate use of the positive voting as well. You are trying to counter the negative vote, but you might have a neutral opinion about the comment itself.
@Scotty, is there a way we can tackle this? Is there a specific reason why negative votes don't display the usernames for it. I think a negative vote from a reputed member has the same effect as a positive vote from a reputed member. For example, if Person X who we all know is knowledgeable about say products A positively votes a deal, it kind of works as an assurance for the rest of the users. "Ah if he has voted it positively, this deal must be good". The same would work if Person X now negatively voted about a product we all know he is an expert about. "Hmm, if he doesn't like this deal, I guess I might stay away from it as well".
Cheers
Is there a specific reason why negative votes don't display the usernames for it.
See earlier comment
Hmm yeah, I can see that opening up a flood gate for personal fights. Could we then remove comment voting all together, both positive as well as negative? Reports can take care of bad comments and deals? Let a comment accumulate X amount of reports before it sends an alert to the mod team.
A deal can keep it's positive and negative voting, specially with the existing guidelines already present (explain why you are neg-voting a deal).
I don't think there's a 'sort by top votes' in the comments section, so one would still have to go through (skim through) all the comments to see which one has the highest vote.
Just a suggestion.
Cheers.
Negative votes should not be allowed either on comments or deals, I think the + tells the story
I think that just like the voting on deals, you shouldn't be able to downvote if you haven't participated in the conversation
I think that neg voteing comments from people negging the deal and community revokeing negs should be two separate things.
Say someone negged a deal with a valid reason and his reason in comments people don't like, there should be a separate revoke neg voteing option insted of combining the neg actual comment and revoke neg in one thing as it is now, that way people who only dislike the comment rather then dissagree with the neg on the deal can only neg the comment.
my point is it's too easy to neg vote comments for the simple reason of cause i can. putting the revoke neg option in say a little drop down menue on every comment next to the name or somewhere will not prevent it entierly but since it's separate most people that neg for the fun of it would bother.
just my idea.
I think everyone is taking negative votes way too personally.
I negged a deal because I believed that it was an inferior model of a particular phone. Granted the price for the "inferior" model was cheaper than I could find otherwise, so in that case it was a deal. I probably shouldn't have negged.
However, it seems that one of my other comments in the thread was negged by people even though the comment itself was correct. I simply answered "single" to the question "Is it dual sim or single sim?".
People are touchy. So am I, I 'spose.
my 2c on negative votes on comments:
I think it is very important and very valuable. If someone asks for advice, and another person gives advice that he thinks is helpful, but it turns out that advice is terrible, then that person is going to get negged to oblivion. This is a good thing. It tells people not only that the information has been questioned and found to be dubious or incorrect, but also shows the extent to which people think it is incorrect (by the number of neg votes). If this didn't happen think of all the noobs that would get caught out by trying to delete system32 to get rid of that pesky virus lol.
There are ways to make people more accountable for their neg votes, but these usually add a layer of extra effort to placing a neg. For example you could make people give a reason for every neg. But then less people would neg because it takes more effort, and bad information would exist "un-negged" for longer, which is not a good thing.
Also people take negs too personal. If you get negged it means someone disagrees with what you have said. It doesnt mean they hate you. It means you may or may not have made a mistake, or it might have even been negged by accident. Sometimes it does get overused, but the benefits of having neg votes far outweigh the cost of not having them, in my opinion.
To what scale?
…I agree, just a play on your username ;)
hehe
Currently there are 2 people voted -1 on that comment and 1 voted +1. Not sure whether it is a case for "negative votes against COMMENTS getting out of control".
However yes I do agree that there are individuals abusing the -1 votes, which is currently a privilege every single user have on OzBargain (except max 5x -1 votes per 24 hours, and no neg votes for those in penalty box).
My plan is to move the capability to vote -1 (on deals as well as on comments) to become a privilege, which will only be granted to users with enough reputation. Well, some backend model and algorithms need to be designed and thought through, code needs to be written and tested, etc. But from recent discussions I'll try to put that on a higher priority.