What's with the random -ve votes on comments?

LOwenNein on 04/05/2009 - 15:27
Last edited 04/05/2009 - 18:08 by 1 other user

I think it's people who disagree with what the person is saying, but if the person has completely valid points, then why give the comment a negative vote? I've seen more than a handful of comments which were voted -1, which I saw absolutely nothing wrong with, and would generally vote +1 just to even it out.

Also, how can we get people to chill out more in the comments section? It reminds me of a comments section on news.com.au or digg, full of hot-headed people who use the internet to vent their anger. Hopefully OzB can continue being the great, reliable service it has been ever since I started lurking. I just don't want people, including myself, to be put off by the antics in the comments section. Yeah, I know, you can skip past them, and that's what the voting is for, but really, you never used to have to skip any comments. Most were well thought out, and contributed in some way to me, the reader, understanding the bargain a little better.

Think about it.

(Mod — moved to Announcement/Feedback forum)

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  scotty on 04/05/2009 - 18:09

  +7

  Do you think we should list out the users who have voted on comments to introduce a bit of responsibility?

  • 

    mawinmawin on 04/05/2009 - 18:30

    +2

    yes, that would be good. For those who just agree fellow comments can just click +1, and if that displays login name, it is as good as they nest another comment to simply say "+1".
    But what is the logic for -1 ?. May be only mods can do this just to point out it is not adding much value (and may even remove if it violating our rules).

    • 

      scotty on 04/05/2009 - 22:46

      +3

      The logic is that there's limited number of mods on OzBargain and there's no way that we can see all the comments. That's why I called OzBargain "member-moderated" as it's up to you guys to decide what is a good comment and what is bad.

      Also maybe a per-day vote-limit might be useful just to prevent someone going to for a -1 spree.

  • 

    OwenNein on 04/05/2009 - 18:38

    +1

    That sounds like a great idea scotty.

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  Kranbone on 05/05/2009 - 01:00

  +2

  Yeah I agree with this topic entirely. I was given a negative vote on a comment for god knows why. If a comment is valid and adds information or advice, useful advice, why should it receive negative feedback.

  The idea is to provide help and genuine feedback. If a person receives negative feedback whilst contributing they may no longer contribute :/

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  Davo1111 on 05/05/2009 - 04:28

  +3

  Sometimes i give a positive vote to offset the stupid negative vote. I agree with the making people responsible for their comments (perhaps display who voted negative), or even a report button for a stupid neg vote (and people would lose their voting privileges), but i don't like the idea of limiting the number of votes per day

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  GreenLego on 05/05/2009 - 19:24

  +2

  I too agree. I recently asked, what I thought was a valid question, and got negged a lot, and I thought it was very odd.