Helpful/Not Helpful

[Ken Thompson]

What is the purpose of these buttons? I’m a -73 currently. Was a +1 at 10PM last night. I certainly haven’t posted that much. What is the ultimate goal here?

[Ken Thompson]

funny

[Hugh Webb]

I like it.

It strikes me as a good way to keep the discussion civil and constructive.  As a community we all benefit from that.

A potential risk is that it discourages people from making critcal remarks about dumb ideas.

I don’t think this is a big risk though. A critical debunking can be terrifically helpful – especially if it is accurate, witty, and attacks the idea, not the person.

Consistent feedback that a person’s comments are perceived as unhelpful also do at least two important things.

1)For those on the receiving end of negative comments from a poster who is widely rated as unhelpful, it is a useful signal not to take those remarks to heart.

2) For those people who receive consistently unhelpful ratings, it seems to be a powerful mirror. It suggests that person is not as insightful, balanced or funny as they might think they are. Perhaps that person might like to look at what it is that more helpful posters are saying, and how they are saying it, to work out how to lift their game and lift their credibility in the eyes of fellow forum readers.  For those who choose not to do this, and continue to be consistently rated as unhelpful, one has to ask: is this forum right for you?  As a preventative measure, this info is much preferable, surely, to the situation where things escalate and administrators have to reprimand forum members, or worse. Perhaps even BG might still be here if we had had this system earlier?

I guess only time will tell if this theory stacks up.

I suspect many will think I’m too optimistic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ken Thompson]

Well since only you can see your own score total in your profile it is thread specific. So I guess that makes it moderately useful. But there is a bit of childish behavior from some that can skew you overall score. I don’t see the point in labeling a post that describes a trip announcement as unhelpful, or one that merely cites fact

[monkey]

Are we supposed to care about it, or are there repercussions – refund, kick off the forums once reached a certain number of minuses?

I also just thought, it may encourage people to delete their posts, once those have been labelled unhelpful, or stop posting at all. Can’t be too good for the forum in the long run.

There is a practice at other forums to give good points only, i.e. no opportunity to mark “unhelpful” or take a point away. This could be a more mature way to try and influence things in my opinion, to encourage people to be useful. And much more welcoming to boot.

 

 

[Franco Darioli]

Look to me that already some have taken the opportunity to engage in point scoring (…) with other members rather than scoring the message itself.

Troll behaviour but for some that is all they have.

[monkey]

Or maybe they’ve done it “in protest” as a form of rebellion against the system, mark obviously helpful or neutral posts as unhelpful…

[r m]

I’d  prefer only helpful votes over the current setup.

At the moment when viewing a post we now have three options:

• Click HELPFUL, a positive gesture that leads to happiness
• Click nothing, a slightly negative gesture – you read the post but didn’t feel strongly enough to click the above. The post is unhelpful.
• Click NOT HELPFUL, a negative gesture that leads to negative feelings from all around.

Doing nothing and clicking NOT HELPFUL are both saying similar things, it’s just NOT HELPFUL is saying it much more strongly.

Voting NOT HELPFUL in my eyes is the lazy and less verbose equivalent of replying with  “Your post was waste of my time for reasons I am unwilling to explain and I’d rather you hadn’t made it”.

I’m all for negative feedback, as long as everyone knows why they’re getting it. The sort of non-descriptive “Your post sucks.” feedback  isn’t making anyone’s lives better. If you’re lucky maybe you can deduce what people don’t like about what you’re saying, if you’re unlucky you’ll never work it out, and each subsequent post will get down voted and you might just start to get bitter and have negative feelings towards the community.

[Cayenne Redmonk]

We need a funny option too, so somebody that lacks a sense of humor can see funny posts.

[Peter S]

Absolutely useless. Respond by text is superior.

I think it leads to sheep mentality and non-engaging discussions.

It was clearly made to mock Ken.

[Peter S]

I’ll start my activity at the new BPL by going through all Ken’s post and giving them a thumps up.

[Peter S]

Who are you???

[Peter S]

I feel watched!

[Ken Thompson]

Thanks Peter, as of this morning I am back in the positive

[Peter S]

Maybe if I click “helpful” to my own posts before anyone gets a chance, the sheep will follow…

[Peter S]

You are welcome Ken. I’ll sleep better now, knowing I’ve made your Sunday more positive.

[Jerry Adams]

Same here, if it bugs Ken I’ll go through all his posts and say helpful

or maybe not helpful, I’ll have to think about it

[JCH]

My opinion only, but simply clicking “not helpful” seems rather lazy and the mere existence of the button would seem to encourage spiteful behavior..lets see how many “not helpful” votes this post gets :)

if one disagrees with the point made in a post, or questions the accuracy of statements made/”facts” professed, why not engage in a respectful debate?  Post your differing opinion or probe the subject through thoughtful discourse.

In short, I see little value in the buttons, and do not intend to reference them nor be concerned with my “score”.

I wonder what BG’s score would have been were we lucky enough to still have him here?

[Cameron M]

“There is a practice at other forums to give good points only, i.e. no opportunity to mark “unhelpful” or take a point away. This could be a more mature way to try and influence things in my opinion, to encourage people to be useful. And much more welcoming to boot.”

+1. “Thumbs up” only please. Thumbs-down will inevitably be felt by many as a personal attack rather than a comment on content.

[Cayenne Redmonk]

Im guessing somebody was playing with their monkey greasers and accidentally moderated the posts.   -70 is impressive !

[Justin Baker]

On another forum I post on, they have a “Thanks” option to show your gratitude for a post. It’s also a way to acknowledge someones trip report without actually replying to a thread. I think the “not helpful” option should be removed. You post an valid opinion that others don’t agree with, all the thumbs down can make someone feel unwelcome and bullied.

[Michael Gunderloy]

Or you can just use NoScript or AdBlock or uBlock Origin to get rid of likebtn.com and you’ll never have to look at points and scoring buttons again.

[Dean F.]

I see the point of the Unhelpful button, as described above.  It lets you know who is just a troll.  Yet I also agree that it will lead to passive-aggressive warfare between some individuals with personality conflicts.  And of course many will just use it to downvote points of view that they disagree with- such is human nature.  (Any post that includes the words “gun”, “hunt”, or “global warming” spring immediately to mind.)  So I’m conflicted.

One option might be to remove the Unhelpful button, but track some other score, like:

Helpful Score divided by Total Number of Posts

But that might penalize those who socialize a lot on the forums and thus have many posts that no one up-votes.

Another neat one might be

Helpful divided by Unhelpful scores that the Member has GIVEN

This would potentially point out who is going around mass-downvoting people they don’t like.  Or, just make the names of voters public.

Another option might be to let the poster opt in or opt out of having the buttons displayed.  (And perhaps whether you opt in or opt out is switchable on your profile.)  That way you could just leave them off if you’ve just made a social post of some kind, but include them if you have just posted actual advice and want to know if it helped.

Or both- have an opt out function but only Helpful buttons.  Then you might track:

Helpful Score divided by Total Number of Posts that are Scored

as well as

Percentage of Posts that are Scored

Upvotes on a given post would be publicly seen (as they are now), and ideally both of the metrics above would be seen on your Profile page.  I’m not sure if I want the metrics to be public or only visible to the member being rated.  It might be helpful if you think someone is a loon to be able to pull up their profile and be reassured that you’re correct.  Presumably the minimal effort of opening the profile would reduce abuse.  Hmm…  I’ll have to think about that one.

At any rate, opt out should be the default setting, and you can’t go back and opt out once someone has rated the post.  Hopefully people won’t just opt out every time they’re being contrary.

But if the only options are to include or to not include the Unhelpful button then I guess that my vote is to not include it.  But definitely retain the Helpful button in some form.  This is certainly the easiest solution.

 

 

[JCH]

Using AdBlock on Safari…

Display AdBlock preferences, Filter Lists tab, select Fanboy’s Annoyances…Buttons gone.

Returning my head into the sand.

 

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