Hey "Forum" why so stingy with the Up-Votes?!?

[Korgoth]

As per the title why is this forum so stingy with the upvote per day amount.

 

Some days I want to upvote 10 posts, another day 0. Why should it be limited? I can only upvote each post once anyways.

 

The Dream Pod 9 forums uses the same interface/forum software as the HERO forum, so maybe it's an odd/default setting for this forum software? If so could it please be change.

[Duke Bushido]

I have absolutely no idea.  You'd have to ask Simon.

 

I'd recommend against doing that, though.

 

 

For what it's worth, I don't think anyone here takes these ratings too seriously.  There aren't as many regulars left as there once where, and we all know who's who, who we enjoy talking with and about what.  The ratings just aren't that important.  I mean, I just looked at mine and noticed I'm pushing 2900, and I'm a complete jackass!

 

Figure that a ton of folks here really only participate in certain kinds of discussions-- politics, jokes, etc-- and the data determined by glancing at the ratings is meaningless in terms of trying to determine if this person is a "real contributor" or "super nice" or just what.

 

So consider perhaps looking at it the way I do:

 

I have around 10 of these every day, and only around 10 (I swear to you, every time I try to figure it out, I forget I'm supposed to be tracking them before I run out, but ten feels like a safe-ish guess) every 24 hours.

 

So I should try to really only give them out as a really _special_ kind of "Wow!  Thanks!  I am in a better place for having read that!" kind of acknowledgement.  It doesn't slight anyone (unless you've put up the Downvote or the frowning "sad" face, which each deduct from poster's rep count.

 

 

I mean, it _could_ be just a default that was never toggled to something else, but even if that's the case, it just kind of drives home that we don't really put a lot of stock in it (Heck-- a year or two ago we had a lot of fun on a thread dedicated to down voting each other.    ).

 

Anyway, welcome aboard!  You'll like it here: we have Canadians.

 

 

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

Woo-Hoo!

 

           

 

I just got another downvote!       

 

(if one of you guys will show me how to pretend to be bothered, I promise I'll try     ).

 

 

The hazards of not crowd-sourcing opinions, I guess.   Or of being a jackass.   

 

At least one of these is correct.   Has to be, right?

 

 

 

It's still cool though.  We still have Canadians.   

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

15 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Woo-Hoo!

 

           

 

I just got another downvote!       

 

(if one of you guys will show me how to pretend to be bothered, I promise I'll try     ).

 

 

Try pretending you're really constipated, and make an appropriate face.  😣

[Duke Bushido]

11 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Try pretending you're really constipated, and make an appropriate face.  😣

 

 

Uhmm...   That's my O face, and I think it might not be appropriate!

 

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

[Spence]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Woo-Hoo!

 

           

 

I just got another downvote!       

 

(if one of you guys will show me how to pretend to be bothered, I promise I'll try     ).

 

 

The hazards of not crowd-sourcing opinions, I guess.   Or of being a jackass.   

 

At least one of these is correct.   Has to be, right?

 

 

 

It's still cool though.  We still have Canadians.   

 

 

 

Hey, we both have the same number of downvotes   Great minds must think alike

 

Mine all come from the same person, from what I can tell is was mostly from pettiness.  For amusement I started to return the favor but then forgot about it. 

[Duke Bushido]

I tend to get mine from people who don't like it when I find a trending negativity to be hilariously petty instead of "the right thing to do, dammit!" 

 

 

Indeed!  Great minds think alike!  

 

of course, soft minds run together......

 

We should be careful.   

 

There was a misquote I heard some years ago that I absolutely love:  "Great minds like a think."

 

It's right up there with Pinkard and Bowden's "Hey, won't you play another somebody done somebody's song wrong."

 

Humor that I can really get behind.   

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

My sister-in-law has a knack for distorting common expressions, but in a way where you can see the logic in how she got there. My favorites:

 

"Shoot Bill" instead of "fire at will."

 

"Hindsight is 50-50."

 

and

 

"It ain't over 'til the fat lady's dead."

[Ninja-Bear]

Where do you see the down votes you got? I know I got at least one. And I’ll admit that while I think I didn’t give one, I might have. And if indeed I did, I really hope that it was justified and not a petty downvote. No guarantees though 😆.

[Hugh Neilson]

I'm not sure whether I ever used downvotes.  To me, it's not "I disagree", but "This does not belong on these Boards".  For example, posts that attack the poster instead of the argument.

 

I don't think about upvotes often enough either, though. 

[death tribble]

I have had a few downvotes but it does not bother me much.

 

But as Duke Bushido says people will vote or not and you cannot predict what will or will not get a vote.

 

And I know what Gwarh means about 10 one day and 0 another. It used to be 5 only and it was a matter of discipline as to what got what when. 

[Scott Ruggels]

This ain’t Reddit, so I only pass the upvotes out if I agree strongly, actually laugh, or a thank you for information. It’s alternate communication, not ass pats. 

[Duke Bushido]

On 1/3/2021 at 7:39 AM, Ninja-Bear said:

Where do you see the down votes you got? I know I got at least one. And I’ll admit that while I think I didn’t give one, I might have. And if indeed I did, I really hope that it was justified and not a petty downvote. No guarantees though 😆.

 

 

You don't, at least not as part of a convenient dashboard (which I take as more proof that whoever set up these fora initially-- presumably Dan, but I don't know) didn't find upvote / downvote ratings any more important than I do).  The only reason I happened to notice is because of this very thread.  Up above, I wasn't kidding when I said the ratings thing doesn't matter to me: I know who I have fun discussing X with, and who I enjoy discussing Y with, and have a rough idea what things are which persons "buttons" and I _try_ to not push them.

 

That's about it.  If you've ever noticed, when you're out here reading and posting, you can't even see your own numbers.  (Right now, I can see Tribble's and Scott's above me, but not mine).  You can log out, find a post by you, and see them that way, or you can go to your profile  and see them (and really, I rarely go to my profile, what with all those handy buttons at the top of the page to go directly to where I want to go on the board).

 

_However_, for the sake of this conversation and an answer I gave earlier, up above, I _did_ open my profile to check my numbers, partly because the question made me curious, and partly because I was really expecting a way-lower number, and I had hoped that I could use that information and my continued enjoyment of discussing things with you folks as a reassurance to the original poster that "crackers don't matter."  I had a bug-eye moment when I saw what the total was.

 

 

Anyway, when someone reacts to one of your posts, or quotes your posts, or does one of those "at so-and-so" thingies, you get a little pop-up (and kudos to whoever designed that: it's the first non-obtrusive, easy-to-ignore pop-up I have ever seen on a forum.  Good work; have and Attaboy as a sign of appreciation     ) if you're currently on the board, or, if you're just logging in, you get a different notification message--

 

anyway: when that get happens, I do get curious-- not about the vote itself, as I _genuinely_ do not care if someone who doesn't actually know me has decided to dedicate himself to absolutely _vilifying_ me to entire world: For one, he's not bothering some other person who I may actually like or someone whose skin may be a lot thinner than mine. For another, there is no better "reward" for that kind of pettiness than getting yourself worked into a tizzy so powerful that you are willing to waste time-- even one precious second of the only life you will live on earth-- being 'that kind of guy.'  All in all, I find it to be quite balancing, and sort of a proof that your own existence isn't that important to you, either.  So if you're not important to _you_, who the Hell do you think you should be to _me_?         

 

Gah--!

 

I'm sorry, N-B: when something is really funny, it's easier for me to get side-tracked into enjoying it.  My apologies.      Back on track:

 

Just a day or two ago, I had looked at my actual whatever-it-is-you-call-that-green-number-under-your-avatar.  Last night, as I was cruising the board before I logged in, I noticed that number had gone up by 1.  I found a thread I wanted to reply to and logged in, at which time I got a notification that I had three notifications.  I clicked the little bell at the top of the screen and got the notifications:  three different people had reacted to three different posts.  As my little green number had gone up by 1, clearly there had been two positives (a "thank you" or a "like" or a "laugh" or anything that was not a "sad" or a "downvote," both of which deduct from that number) and one negative.

 

I also noticed that one of the replies was both in one of the MHI threads-- about the book itself, not the game-- _and_ was by someone I had never heard of.   Since the entire "it was a hoax / it was a travesty / it was a fraud / it was real / it was the people proving what they want / your-nonsense-here situation that invariably becomes the focus of any thread dealing with the author of that book brings out the pettiness of people unable to accept that time moves forward without cessation, and the person posting the reaction was someone I had never heard of, it was really to determine both where the downvote was _and_ just how many craps I gave. 

 

The other two were Lord Liaden and Spence, both in current threads that I was still participating in, so I opened both of those threads in the hopes that they had posted and added someone to the conversation.   .   Why?  Why, when I claim that crackers don't matter?!   Well, it's true: crackers _don't_ matter.  However, those are both people I enjoy conversing with, and the _silent_ notification you can pull from the written one is "someone whose opinion, even when different from yours, usually proves quite insightful is currently interested in and may have added to a conversation that you are currently enjoying."

 

What's not to love?!      Honestly, that's the part of the ratings  / voting system that _is_ important to me!    

 

 

On 1/3/2021 at 8:45 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

I'm not sure whether I ever used downvotes.  To me, it's not "I disagree", but "This does not belong on these Boards".  For example, posts that attack the poster instead of the argument.

 

Hugh, this is one of those times when I am in _total_ agreement with you, Sir!

 

it didn't take long, way back when, to realize that you only get-- I don't know: let's say ten (see my comments on this up above) or so of these every 24 hours. I started to get _stingy_ with them!  "Oh, these things are important!  Super important!"

 

Then two things happened:

 

We had a couple of people who were- to be generous-- potentially bipolar, who would swing from participating in every conversation to just attacking and downvoting every post that disagreed with their own.

 

That was Thing One, and I confess, those couple of guys were the only people I ever wasted a slot on-- not for me, mind you: I can't over-stress how much I am not bothered by "this guy doesn't like me!"  I've got twelve younger siblings, for Pete's sake!  I don't have any feelings left!  They were burned out _decades_ ago!  But Thing One did lead me to use downvotes on occasions when one of these two guys would just tear into someone else without any provocation.  I think I'd passed out about 4 downvotes when I thought "this is stupid.  If they don't bother me-- a typically upbeat, social, outgoing and well-adjusted person, why do I think someone who clearly has a legitimate psychological problem is going to be bothered?  And whatever kind of thing might be helpful to such a person, _this_ isn't it!  I mean this _really_ isn't it!"

 

So I quit.  This was actually hard to do.  Obviously, none of you were part of my youth.  It's a pity, because we'd have had _so_ much time to game together!   

 

I used to get in _lots_ of trouble at school as a kid.  I got in my first fight in third grade, and by the time I got out of high school-- well, I couldn't tell you how many there were, but Sam (yeah: I was in front of the principal often enough that he got tired of me calling him Mr. K__ and we moved to that first-name relationship) showed me my "discipline file."  It was impressively thick-- nearly two inches.   We had a long talk that particular afternoon, because he wanted to know how I could end up in so many fights and not actually _start_ any of them. The only reason I hadn't been expelled was because _no one_ had ever seen me start a fight. 

 

It's pretty simple.  I'm an anti-bully.  The high school councilor tried to use the phrase "hero complex," so I spent days in the library looking into that (because I have that problem, too), and proved to him that he was completely wrong.  I have no need to be a hero or to be acknowledge or anything like that.  What I have is a complete unwillingness to let someone attack someone else.  Maybe it's because I've been a de facto parent my entire life, and just in the habit of looking out for those I consider to be close to me or under-defended against an attacker; I don't know.  But seeing someone else get attacked for no reason (seriously:  if you're getting your butt kicked because of something that you did, I don't care if you're Steve Buscemi and the guy jumping you is Mike Tyson, you had it coming) just flips a switch in me, and that made it really hard to swear off the downvotes.  What finally did it was the realization that the guy (well "guys;" at the time there were two of them) I was pegging with downvotes really did show evidence of actual _problems_.  Downvotes weren't going to do anything to stop the behavior, and the implied insult of them might make it worse.  (for what it's worth, I haven't see one in _years_, and the other in months.  I hope they got help, or at least found healthier places to hang out.  I've read that online social media can lead to and worsen depression and other problems in some sorts of people.)

 

 

Hell, there's a still a few semi-regulars-- folks that drop in, make a big splash, then disappear for a while-- that trigger me.  I got one of my [gothic voice] Permanent Demerits[/gothic voice] for refusing to be insulted by one known to bully those whose opinions differ from his own.   Oddly, he's got an extremely high green number.  Given the backhanded insults-to-posts ratio, he's also the greatest proof on this board that crackers absolutely do _not_ matter.   

 

 It's not a hero complex; it's an anti-bully complex.      Remember, kids: bullying is wrong, and you will be punished for refusing to allow it to continue (I know: I've been in trouble for standing up to it my whole life).   Now go out there and write those articles and blog posts and news stories complaining that we don't understand why it continues even to this most-enlightened of all days.   

 

 

 

 

Quote

 

I don't think about upvotes often enough either, though. 

 

 

I didn't, either!  

 

Then, the same time I realized that downvotes had only two outcomes:  worsening someone who might actually need help, or as a tool to spread animosity (or a tool of actual bullying), I also realized that a limited number of votes of any kind imbued them with a special property.  Think about it with a comic book example (this should be awesome, considering that the majority of things I know about comics came from spectating conversations on these boards   )

 

In all the universe, there are like eight people who can use Thor's hammer (apparently.  Unless it's ten thousand.  or Two.  Or whatever the story needs at that moment.)  There are ten (maybe) votes I can spend in a day.

 

I opted to use them as a means of saying "This content is worthy."

 

I also use them as "thanks for participating in something we are all enjoying," but I make it a point to spend _all_ my allotted points.  Those that don't go as "I really appreciate this" go to posts specifically to say "This is worthy.  Please keep doing this.  Be a solid example."

 

 

That's why I don't have them on tap all the time:

 

So many worthy people here.

 

 

 

 

 

[Brian Stanfield]

21 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

crackers absolutely do _not_ matter

 

I would totally agree here, except that I once saw Ernie solve the problem of "not eating crackers in your bed" by eating crackers in Bert's bed instead. Some crackers (albeit very few) really do matter to some beds.

 

But in the spirit of your overall message, we do in fact tend to take ourselves waaaaay to seriously in these discussions, and probably do deserve to sleep in the beds we make for ourselves, crackers or no. 

[Duke Bushido]

Welcome back, Brian!

 

It's _glorious_ to see you out and about again! 

 

There's a big laugh coming your way, as soon as my buttons are recharged again. 

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

That's why I don't have them on tap all the time:

 

So many worthy people here.

 

 

 

Indeed, therein lies the challenge.  And I got Brian for you as well (that's one of two he deserves, though).

[Spence]

12 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Where do you see the down votes you got? I know I got at least one. And I’ll admit that while I think I didn’t give one, I might have. And if indeed I did, I really hope that it was justified and not a petty downvote. No guarantees though 😆.

 

Go to your profile and right under the green Community Reputation there is a "see reputation activity" link. 

You will see your reputation totals.  It won't directly link you to the posts though.

[Hugh Neilson]

Thanks, Spence - now I can confirm I have never given a downvote (received 7, I suspect from the same posters others have described above).

[Duke Bushido]

12 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Thanks, Spence - now I can confirm I have never given a downvote (received 7, I suspect from the same posters others have described above).

 

My thanks, too, Spence!

 

I was never aware of that, so I went back and checked.  I can confirm that even if you have given downvotes (see the relevant post above), when you go back and remove them, they are removed from your activity as well.

 

Excellent!

 

 

 

(also:  I'm ahead of Hugh:  I've got _eight_ downvotes!     (though I know that four of them were from that thread where we were just downvoting each other for fun and games).

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

Seven downvotes given to me. I suspect at least a few of them may be left over from a poster a while back who developed an extreme antipathy toward me, apparently due to two or three of my expressed views. But that person was subsequently banned, and I don't know if their votes either down or up remain in that circumstance. Can't say I care much either way, though.

 

I've also never given a downvote. I don't consider them useful to resolve a conflict, as they usually just promote more resentment. If I think a poster has crossed or is about to cross a line, I either try to diplomatically draw attention to it in a post of my own, or if something firmer seems called for, send them a Private Message. That last has been pretty rare. We have an overall respectful and responsible group here.

[Duke Bushido]

11 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Can't say I care much either way, though.

 

That's the spirit!   

 

 

 

 

11 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

I've also never given a downvote. I don't consider them useful to resolve a conflict, as they usually just promote more resentment.

 

I have already confessed that I have done it.  I regretted it upon coming to the realization that-- well, what you said.   I learned that you can go back and undo it, so I did.  

 

Have made a point not to do it since, though.

 

Although I confess that I _love_ finding them, and upvote / liking the thing that got downvoted, even if I _rabidly_ disagree wirh that thing, just to balance out the downvote.     

 

 

11 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 if something firmer seems called for, send them a Private Message. That last has been pretty rare. 

 

 

Does--

 

Does that mean I'm special?  That I belong do an exclusive group?!

 

I feel so blessed.  Id like to thank God, and the Academy, and Rolo- my personal trainer, and the good people at Folgers......

 

 

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

I’ll also say though that I do enjoy getting recognized by my peers. 

[Duke Bushido]

33 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I’ll also say though that I do enjoy getting recognized by my peers. 

 

Hey!

 

That's Ninja-Bear!  _the_ Ninja-Bear!

 

I know that guy!

 

 

 

 

[L. Marcus]

I only act as a peer in designated areas, like rest rooms.

[Pariah]

It's just like Whose Line Is It, Anyway? Everything's made up, and the points don't matter.

 

But it would be nice to upvote everything I like, as often as I like. Even the Book of Face allows that.