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[Suggestion] Allowing replies to be downrated
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Post by
CalaelenDT
First off, great work on the new voting system. Most of it seems like a big improvement, and the rest will just take a bit of time to get used to, after having used the old system for so long.
Now on to my suggestion. Myself, and various other users responded to the Feedback thread for the new voting system mentioning that we'd really like to be able to downrate replies, and Koper stated that making a thread for it and seeing what the overall consensus on this matter is would help, so here it is.
The problem with not being able to downrate replies, is that incorrect replies will stay at the top of the reply list, which causes confusion.
You could say that you can just post a reply saying the above comments are wrong, but your comment wouldn't be visible by default if there are already 5 comments, meaning a lot of people won't see it. Additionally, even if people vote up your corrected reply, it'll still be up there competing with a high-rated incorrect reply. How is a new player coming on there to look for information going to know which of those 2 comments has the accurate information?
A great example is the following (high-rated!)
comment
on the Avengers of Hyjal faction page.
Let's break it down:
1
. We have the original comment, very highly rated with +90 rating, stating all bosses grant reputation up to 999/1000 Exalted.
2
. We than have 2 replies with a very good rating (+30 and +27 respectively) stating that Beth'tilac/Rhylith/Alysrazor and Shannox do NOT grant reputation past 20999/21000 Revered reputation.
3.
Finally, we have a new comment with only +5 rating saying that the two comments above him are infact incorrect, and that the original comment is accurate.
This breaks down to 2 people with very good rated replies saying it's A and 2 people, one with the very high rated original comment and one with a low rated reply, saying it's B.
For new users or people who want to quickly check something, this is going to create a very confusing situation.
Therefor I'd really like to see the option to downrate replies, as I can't think of a reason not to allow it. Reputation has already been removed for comments and replies, so there's no incentive to downrate for that.
I apologize for the long post, but I wanted to properly try and share my view on the situation, which I hopefully did.
If I'm the only one that minds not having a way to downrate replies, than I'll obviously have to accept that.
Post by
hatman555
Seems very reasonable.
It's funny because we are trying to make replies quick things that fix information or give maybe a line or do of additional useful information. Yet you don't think about the fact that a reply, like the example Cal gave, can make a good comment confusing.
If replies did a down vote option, would we also want them to have a "outdated option"? Down-vote for sure though.
Cheers,
Hat
Post by
CalaelenDT
I thought about that Hat, but doing that would probably break the whole reply feature.
Example:
- Reply A Coffee should be hot.
- Reply B Someone should make cold coffee.
- Reply C It should be called Ice Coffee.
Now if "Reply B" get's deleted because it's "outdated", you'd end up with:
- Reply A Coffee should be hot.
- Reply C It should be called Ice Coffee.
Which ends up making no sense whatsoever. Which would result in someone putting "Reply C" up for deletion because it serves no purpose. This would cause a lot if not all of the replies below that to go from a useful reply into something completely random and unrelated.
Which in turn defeats the whole purpose of the reply system as the Wowhead Staff had intended it I think.
(Apologies for the terrible examples)
Post by
hatman555
I was kinda just musing about deleting as a thing that would come next if voting was made to happen.
(Apologies for the terrible examples)
Its not a terrible example, just a poor one for the example about deletion.
There really is no reason to delete B, so it wouldn't be deleted. Lets just go back to the rep example. If we down-voted comments or deleted them, comments about those comments would still not make much sense either.
Bosses give rep until 999/1000 Exalted.
30 - No they don't
27 - No they don't stop down-voting
5 - This is wrong, yes they do.
Basically a summary of the example we are dealing with. Lets say we downvoted the bad comments and up voted the good comment.
Bosses give rep until 999/1000 Exalted.
25 - This is wrong, yes they do.
6 - No they don't
2 - No they don't stop down-voting
Now the replies are even more confusing because they are out of order. It seems like the first reply with now a high vote is saying "this is wrong" to the main comment, even tho the second part of the statement does agree with the comment, people see "this is wrong" first.
The other replies which now sit below the comment seem to say the the comment above that is wrong, and make them more believable.
Bosses give rep until 999/1000 Exalted.
25 - This is wrong, yes they do.
If we delete the bad ones, and leave the good one, it makes it more confusing too. Why is there a comment now that says something is wrong, and agree's with the comment.
All in all the problem stems from replies of replies. Any reply that refers to another reply and then is either re-ordered or down-voted makes the system more confusing.
Maybe replies should never be able to change order. Maybe they should always be chronological. Maybe since replies no longer give rep, we should have an option to clear all replies from a comment if a situation comes up like that.
Bosses give rep until 999/1000 Exalted.
See much better with all the comments gone =P
I'm rambling, with you Cal, so don't take anything I say as what I think it should be. I think we are both on the same page about comments, we are just trying to think of the best possible suggestion we can give to the system.
Cheers,
Hat
Post by
Kurasu
I'm bringing up the 'downvote reply' issue here, rather than in the original thread. I'll at least avoid just cut and pasting, but the thought behind it does remain the same. ;)
There are a lot of replies which for whatever reason, are just plain useful (or useless and should be removed). Having a comment like this can push other, more valuable comments off the page. In addition, there are old, green comments which haven't been moderated. If it's not possible to downrate them, how does that need to be done? Reporting on the post itself and letting people handle it? While it'd be good for getting the achievement for reporting, I can't help but think that it would be an incredible strain on the moderators themselves!
Unfortunately, in this case, there may not be an 'easy win' with the new way of handling comments. If they get downrated and reordered, then the examples as above will happen. If they get downrated and *not* reordered, then there will be green comments which are pushed down below the non-green 'me toos' that will invariably come up.
In addition, related but separate, comments often have the ability to 'out-green' their original comment/question. A lot of good information was done in comments alone. Now, because the question they are replying to has been deleted/downrated, the information in those comments is lost to the ether... or at least to the very bottom of the page. This is a pity for people who made good information and got their high-fives for it.
For me, this is one area where the 'old way' was definitely best. That is to say, the comments were actual 'posts' in and of themselves. Wanting the 'old' back in this case is not a matter of 'IT'S NEW AND SCARY', but the only way I can really think of to fix all the above issues in one sweep.
Post by
Peterwp
I also suggest that instead of the date there should be a patch number after the replies, or maybe both. Most WoW players recognize patches instead of dates, for example I have no idea when the Shattering patch happened, but if I see 4.0.3a I know that's Shattering, so I know for example that the thick leather farming places recommended before 4.0.3a are totally useless.
Post by
Thortok2000
I think you should be able to downrate replies and even vote to delete them.
In the examples given of how it might be confusing, I'm not against marking a reply of a reply 'outdated' because what it's replying to has also been marked incorrect/outdated. As there is no bonus/penalty when it comes to replies anyway, purging them all one by one is just fine. As the example pointed out, a final result of no comments at all, including the good/corrected comment having been deleted, works just fine.
The main reason I'm in support of this feature is that by allowing replies to be 'permanent' you set up a situation that is exploitable. The current system only allows bad replies to go away if and only if at least 5 other replies exist AND those 5 replies are rated higher. Otherwise that reply gets to stay visible, permanently.
That's a lot of effort just to make something like "Frodo was here" go away, a bad reply to a good post on a rarely viewed page, that has no other replies. That implies that there even is 5 good replies available to be made - perhaps the original comment said it all and no reply is even necessary, so how are you supposed to come up with FIVE good replies just to make the bad one go away?
There is no reason NOT to have downratable replies, even deletable replies.
Post by
Gremlock
I think you should be able to downrate replies and even vote to delete them.
In the examples given of how it might be confusing, I'm not against marking a reply of a reply 'outdated' because what it's replying to has also been marked incorrect/outdated. As there is no bonus/penalty when it comes to replies anyway, purging them all one by one is just fine. As the example pointed out, a final result of no comments at all, including the good/corrected comment having been deleted, works just fine.
The main reason I'm in support of this feature is that by allowing replies to be 'permanent' you set up a situation that is exploitable. The current system only allows bad replies to go away if and only if at least 5 other replies exist AND those 5 replies are rated higher. Otherwise that reply gets to stay visible, permanently.
That's a lot of effort just to make something like "Frodo was here" go away, a bad reply to a good post on a rarely viewed page, that has no other replies. That implies that there even is 5 good replies available to be made - perhaps the original comment said it all and no reply is even necessary, so how are you supposed to come up with FIVE good replies just to make the bad one go away?
There is no reason NOT to have downratable replies, even deletable replies.
^This
Not saying everyone is a troll but this openly promotes trolling/spamming/flaming with no way to retaliate as a community. With the old system I could at least downrate replies to people that resembled these traits.
Post by
159525
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hoticehunter
First, I agree with needing to be able to downvote replies. It's just kinda silly that you can ONLY upvote them.
Second, the way replies are now just looks weird. I think the old way of seeing replies was a lot easier to read. Now they're just kind of all scrunched together.
Post by
488185
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Ashelia
I think replies should also be able to be downvoted.
I also think replies are still hard to read on this final version; especially when there are a lot of them.
Post by
Schnoodledorfer
Here is a good example
of why it's necessary to be able to downvote comments. You have an upvoted incorrect reply saying that Darkmoon Faire starts on December 12. Few people will see the correction that it starts on December 4, because that's beyond the fifth reply and hidden by default, so it's not likely to be upvoted. You could easily have a situation where upvoted replies form a wall that keeps the corrections mostly invisible if there isn't a way to vote the incorrect ones down.
This shows an underlying problem that always existed here. The correction is really a reply to a reply, not the original comment. The best way to handle that would be with additional nesting, but you probably don't want to deal with that.
Post by
Balgair
I'm also in support of being able to downvote comments - I think the rest of the layout will be alright when I get used to it, at least now I can put the comments in date order again, but replies really need to be able to be downvoted for the reasons stated above. I wouldn't mind the idea of additional nesting tbh but I can see it would probably make things more complex to handle.
Post by
Ashelia
There are some things we're talking about internally, so we should have a verdict on this at some point this week; I really think that downvotes are absolutely necessary because people can spread misinformation easily. I also think names should not be in-line (i.e. more Wowhead-style for replies) and a few other things =) We'll see what we end up doing.
Post by
Bozanimal
If nothing else I'd like the ability to report replies. If there is inappropriate content it needs to be able to be reported.
Otherwise I've adjusted to the new system, and in practice the changes are really quite minor.
Keep up the good work,
Boz
Post by
781136
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Ashelia
Yeah we are already implementing downvotes on Monday.
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