So, you are essentially saying that a person not knowing someone is harassing them is better than them knowing? Your whole post basically screams, if there is no evidence, then there is no reason to be suspicious and as a result, no one needs to do anything about it. The public system doesn't even detect and report abuse!
Meimeitoo, as a user who has clearly been harassed by this system and who knows how many others as well, you are basically saying, it doesn't matter and we will find a way to cover it up before re-releasing it.
No, what I'm saying (there's no essentially or basically about this) is that public systems introduce further dynamics which can be used to even more devastating effect. See. Stalking for example or the use of public discourse in the service of harassment (ex. gaslighting.) The invocation of public identity or an adopted persona does not dissuade toxic users from being toxic users though neither does this justify anonymous up/down rating system for comments (also subject to abuse, though minus the personality-based points of leverage. The attack comes through frequency and intensity) or call for voting on this forum to be brought back.
This...
Getting a handful of downvotes isn't in itself a deeply troubling problem, you could just assume that you're stepping into an emotionally charged discussion and anyone there can be expressing their disagreement. There's no immediate connection to draw. Knowing it's the same people every time: that's no longer background. That's personal harassment (and Kael did not say that they wanted voting to be private from mods, just private from other users.)
...is just to show how the effect of personality can augment harassment to become a severe issue (beyond any conceivable background level of ratings, which anonymous spammers must overcome in order to have the intended impact) through as few as one user consistently following someone's posts with public downvotes.
For a STO example: see the Foundry. There are both public and anonymous ratings but it is the public reviews which can be the most difficult for caring authors to deal with, especially when a troll proceeds through an authors full library to leave abusive or intentionally misleading reviews. Anonymous 1 stars at the same frequency do not have the same impact (they still can be used for trolling, but a fix to that isn't forcing public ratings.)
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
My personal opinion of reactions? We need three.
— Agree
— Respectfully Disagree
— LOL
None of which should affect thread order on the forum.
basically what we got now.
so all you are lobbying for is a name change on vote down but not to remove it?
Well, that's the exact set of reactions they use on Paradox Interactive's forum (I play a lot of CK2 when I'm not in STO and I love reading the Strange Screenshots thread), except they have "Helpful" instead of "LOL". Yes, it's similar, but choice of words makes a difference. Abuse seems to be rare if it even happens, although I'll admit that board is generally better-behaved than this one. So yes, if we're going to have reactions (and that's not set in stone yet), that's what I personally would go with.
I also clearly said I don't want reactions affecting thread placement/order, i.e. sinking/floating threads based on downvotes and upvotes. That I feel has a potential to obstruct the actual use of the forums.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
I'm definitely not in favor of any system that alters the original functionality of the forum. Burying threads or removing posts through reactions has too much potential for abuse.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
And, pray-tell, how do you propose the mods would go about this?! Just continually check every post/user id, to see whether per chance illicit downvoting took place? And what sort of complaint could I lodge? "I think I'm being downvoted, cuz my posts are sinking in the thread. Could you guys please look into this?" Even the grievance I filed against ppl I knew who had excessively downvoted me, it didn't seem to make much of a difference.
Flags for buried posts and, if possible, mod notifications for votes on a single user beyond an undisclosed threshold, not that I'm saying that voting should be brought back (really guys?), only that is naïve to believe that making downvotes public would prevent abuse. That simply does not happen across the full span of social media in micro or in the infamous cases of larger scale online harassment.
You may have misunderstood me. I'm not saying "making downvotes public would prevent abuse." Far from it! (I've been on the receiving end of such harassment, as you call it, myself) I was merely saying that, bad as it was, at least public downvoting put some *minimal* brakes on the perpetrators (for reasons outlined earlier), whereas anonymous downvoting, such as proposed by Kael, would, IMHO, only magnify the problem by an order of magnitude.
I'm definitely not in favor of any system that alters the original functionality of the forum. Burying threads or removing posts through reactions has too much potential for abuse.
Very glad to hear this.
As I said earlier in this thread, this is 'a forum of deep emotions.' That comes with Trek (or basically any fanbased poster base). People tend to be so passionate about the things dear to them, that they either totally hate something, or think it can't do no wrong in their eyes. Some there be that think TRIBBLE is great, others utterly despise it. Nacelle a bit off? "This is not the real Trek!!" Not that everyone thinks in these extremes, btw, but fanbased forums definitely tend to see a lot of both ends of the spectrum (as opposed to, say, a forum about a programming language). Tl;dr: down/upvoting is just not very suited for this type of forum: it merely aggravates an already often highly polarized way of acting out towards each other.
For the time being, I've turned these off. I still think they have potential, but I've just been informed that you can see who's upvoting and downvoting you even if you're not a moderator, which is absolutely a recipe for abuse and bullying, so until I can find a way to fix that, goodbye reactions.
I'm not sure how you can be just informed of this. It was one of the first things I noticed and mentioned by several posters in this thread; in fact, it's mentioned on the second page. Furthermore, shouldn't you have a non-admin account so you can test this stuff?
With regard to public vs. secret voting, this topic actually has a long history.
Not that everyone thinks in these extremes, btw, but fanbased forums definitely tend to see a lot of both ends of the spectrum (as opposed to, say, a forum about a programming language).
That's because everyone knows that tabs are evil and each curly brace belongs on its own line.
EDIT: Why can we still see a "Promote" count in each user's profile? What does this count mean anyway?
anonymous voting? so the same user can go back to downvoting everything like before, but this time i can't know for certain?
and at what point over the next few months after 10k downvotes will it be enough to make you realise your system just doesn't work? the best way to make it work is by not having a downvote feature at all, none. so now those people who can carry their vendettas can do so in even more secure knowledge that they can do so without ever having been revealed.
i said this from the start, it is a perfect place for public naming and shaming. i can't tell anyone about the user who has it out for me, i'm not allowed to as the rules protect them and i follow them, but they have all the rights to abuse me in private now. Just how exactly is this rotten system meant to work to stop bad people abusing the good people?
worse if the moderators can't see the abuse because it is anonymized.. then this forum is likely to go down in flames sunk by users hidden behind many anonymous fake accounts, just because they can and will.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
^MC (echoing something Duncan pointed out), NOBODY said we were going to make it so MODERATORS can't see who's saying what. You would still be able to come to us if you suspected someone was trolling you, and we WOULD be able to see who it was. And Kael can already tell when people have sockpuppet accounts.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
But being able to see the downvotes immediately have a user an idea of who was supporting or against their postings. So we’re someone targeting you intentionally then it was immediately obvious who it was. Reports could be sent and the whole process was faster. I dislike the ideas of downvotes anyway but I dont think people doing so should be able to hide behind anonymity. If you have something to say, say it to my face for all to see.
And, pray-tell, how do you propose the mods would go about this?! Just continually check every post/user id, to see whether per chance illicit downvoting took place? And what sort of complaint could I lodge? "I think I'm being downvoted, cuz my posts are sinking in the thread. Could you guys please look into this?" Even the grievance I filed against ppl I knew who had excessively downvoted me, it didn't seem to make much of a difference.
Flags for buried posts and, if possible, mod notifications for votes on a single user beyond an undisclosed threshold, not that I'm saying that voting should be brought back (really guys?), only that is naïve to believe that making downvotes public would prevent abuse. That simply does not happen across the full span of social media in micro or in the infamous cases of larger scale online harassment.
You may have misunderstood me. I'm not saying "making downvotes public would prevent abuse." Far from it! (I've been on the receiving end of such harassment, as you call it, myself) I was merely saying that, bad as it was, at least public downvoting put some *minimal* brakes on the perpetrators (for reasons outlined earlier), whereas anonymous downvoting, such as proposed by Kael, would, IMHO, only magnify the problem by an order of magnitude.
I don't think it's your words. PWE and some others around here tend to form an opinion and stick to it, right or wrong, until death. People always need to be accountable for their actions! Taking away their online identity at the very least, empowers them and others to abuse the system when the system hides who they are and has no way to alert those who can see the information that there is a problem!
> @lordsteve1 said: > But being able to see the downvotes immediately have a user an idea of who was supporting or against their postings. So we’re someone targeting you intentionally then it was immediately obvious who it was. Reports could be sent and the whole process was faster. > I dislike the ideas of downvotes anyway but I dont think people doing so should be able to hide behind anonymity. If you have something to say, say it to my face for all to see.
And I think that is a valid counterargument. Look, I don't know what option(s) of the several under consideration will ultimately be adopted, but we are going to be discussing it in detail and we'll keep y'all informed of what we decide.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
> @lordsteve1 said:
> But being able to see the downvotes immediately have a user an idea of who was supporting or against their postings. So we’re someone targeting you intentionally then it was immediately obvious who it was. Reports could be sent and the whole process was faster.
> I dislike the ideas of downvotes anyway but I dont think people doing so should be able to hide behind anonymity. If you have something to say, say it to my face for all to see.
And I think that is a valid counterargument. Look, I don't know what option(s) of the several under consideration will ultimately be adopted, but we are going to be discussing it in detail and we'll keep y'all informed of what we decide.
Look, i just want to spend time on the forum just responding to things from other users related to the game rather than messing around with this thing. a forum doesn't need a feature like this, it got on well without it the last 8 years it has been active, it can get on along well without it in the future as well.
if you have to bring this feature forward? then there must be a way to make sure it works without the abuse. otherwise..
^MC (echoing something Duncan pointed out), NOBODY said we were going to make it so MODERATORS can't see who's saying what. You would still be able to come to us if you suspected someone was trolling you, and we WOULD be able to see who it was. And Kael can already tell when people have sockpuppet accounts.
You will be forever digging into things like this with no end in sight. if you think one or to examples are manageable, wait until it hits almost everyone on a regular basis. you wouldn't want it, none of us would want it and neither would the people who put this system in place. there has to be a better way to manage this if this thing is going to be here to stay.
What could start as one or two throwaway accounts could just snowball into something that not even Kael could stop one day. All i am saying is, is to deny any fertile places for these throwaway accounts to breed in and you solved most of your problem without needing yourself, BMR or darkblade to get overloaded with even more destructive nonsense.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
As the majority of folk in the thread pointed out the tweak that kept the up&down options should have gone the other way and the system would have been pretty much fine.
Folk would get feedback of sorts but overall it wouldn't adversely effect the placement of threads.
I had a look at my "stats" and I had one downvote for a post that commented I felt the kar'fi was my best value store ship and a handful of upvotes and lols. End of the day it doesn't really matter what those stats say outside the context of the specific threads they're tied to and in the case of one lol it was a comment that was sarcastic but understood by one mod to be trolling.
I shrug, move on but probably won't stop me throwing sarcasm at things in the future.
For the time being, I've turned these off. I still think they have potential, but I've just been informed that you can see who's upvoting and downvoting you even if you're not a moderator, which is absolutely a recipe for abuse and bullying, so until I can find a way to fix that, goodbye reactions.
Kael....THAT is actually a good thing. You don't want anonymity on stuff like this.
People would think twice before pulling stupid tricks because it would identify them for padding the votes. Or whatever.
You need to quit acting like we are blind and we need to be guided everywhere. Let us bump our heads every once in a while....we learn who to avoid.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I don't see this turned on anymore? Has it been taken down for good or a glitch? If taken down thanks for listening to most of the down votes here for this feature. IMO this is not needed and join the others who think this is not a good thing to have in forums.
For the time being, I've turned these off. I still think they have potential, but I've just been informed that you can see who's upvoting and downvoting you even if you're not a moderator, which is absolutely a recipe for abuse and bullying, so until I can find a way to fix that, goodbye reactions.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
For the time being, I've turned these off. I still think they have potential, but I've just been informed that you can see who's upvoting and downvoting you even if you're not a moderator, which is absolutely a recipe for abuse and bullying, so until I can find a way to fix that, goodbye reactions.
Turning off seeing who is voting up and down just means certain people can abuse and bully anonymously. Turning off the names doesn't make the system better, it makes it even worse.
I think the only compromise I could see to this whole mess would be more like an award system. Every day a user logs in and participates on the forums, they would earn a few (3 tops and they would not accumulate over multiple days) upvotes to spend on topics and ideas they would like to see get more attention. No downvotes at all. Purely a positive system where you earn and encourage the best of the best ideas, threads, posts, etc.
For the time being, I've turned these off. I still think they have potential, but I've just been informed that you can see who's upvoting and downvoting you even if you're not a moderator, which is absolutely a recipe for abuse and bullying, so until I can find a way to fix that, goodbye reactions.
Cool. Thanks for the update. It does have some potential for abuse and cyber bullying and glad they listen to both positive but mostly negative feedback.
So, you are essentially saying that a person not knowing someone is harassing them is better than them knowing? Your whole post basically screams, if there is no evidence, then there is no reason to be suspicious and as a result, no one needs to do anything about it. The public system doesn't even detect and report abuse!
If you wanted to stealth attack someone's Internet points, you'd go and target their buried postings. The ones that have long since faded from public attention, so no one will ever notice them, but you can still hammer their Internet points that way without causing any visible impact.
Of course, that would be an amazingly petty and pointless thing to do.
Which is exactly why being able to see who is downvoting is important. There are some around here, some of which who have already made themselves known, that are that petty.
[quote="starswordc;c-13423631"]And Kael can already tell when people have sockpuppet accounts.[/quote]
yeah, i have to question the validity of that...the only way i can think of would be to check if a suspected suckpuppet account's e-mail address comes from the same IP address as the main account...but given dynamic IP addresses are a thing, so you can just change them on the fly, that's hardly a foolproof way to check
unless i am grossly misunderstanding how dynamic IP addresses work
also, can someone PLEASE fix the damn quote function?
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
For the time being, I've turned these off. I still think they have potential, but I've just been informed that you can see who's upvoting and downvoting you even if you're not a moderator, which is absolutely a recipe for abuse and bullying, so until I can find a way to fix that, goodbye reactions.
Interesting. The only thing that could reconcile me with downvoting was that I'm able to see who's doing it. Not seeing that, means to open up a fine tool for anyone to troll.
Comments
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
No, what I'm saying (there's no essentially or basically about this) is that public systems introduce further dynamics which can be used to even more devastating effect. See. Stalking for example or the use of public discourse in the service of harassment (ex. gaslighting.) The invocation of public identity or an adopted persona does not dissuade toxic users from being toxic users though neither does this justify anonymous up/down rating system for comments (also subject to abuse, though minus the personality-based points of leverage. The attack comes through frequency and intensity) or call for voting on this forum to be brought back.
This...
...is just to show how the effect of personality can augment harassment to become a severe issue (beyond any conceivable background level of ratings, which anonymous spammers must overcome in order to have the intended impact) through as few as one user consistently following someone's posts with public downvotes.
For a STO example: see the Foundry. There are both public and anonymous ratings but it is the public reviews which can be the most difficult for caring authors to deal with, especially when a troll proceeds through an authors full library to leave abusive or intentionally misleading reviews. Anonymous 1 stars at the same frequency do not have the same impact (they still can be used for trolling, but a fix to that isn't forcing public ratings.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Well, that's the exact set of reactions they use on Paradox Interactive's forum (I play a lot of CK2 when I'm not in STO and I love reading the Strange Screenshots thread), except they have "Helpful" instead of "LOL". Yes, it's similar, but choice of words makes a difference. Abuse seems to be rare if it even happens, although I'll admit that board is generally better-behaved than this one. So yes, if we're going to have reactions (and that's not set in stone yet), that's what I personally would go with.
I also clearly said I don't want reactions affecting thread placement/order, i.e. sinking/floating threads based on downvotes and upvotes. That I feel has a potential to obstruct the actual use of the forums.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
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Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
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You may have misunderstood me. I'm not saying "making downvotes public would prevent abuse." Far from it! (I've been on the receiving end of such harassment, as you call it, myself) I was merely saying that, bad as it was, at least public downvoting put some *minimal* brakes on the perpetrators (for reasons outlined earlier), whereas anonymous downvoting, such as proposed by Kael, would, IMHO, only magnify the problem by an order of magnitude.
Very glad to hear this.
As I said earlier in this thread, this is 'a forum of deep emotions.' That comes with Trek (or basically any fanbased poster base). People tend to be so passionate about the things dear to them, that they either totally hate something, or think it can't do no wrong in their eyes. Some there be that think TRIBBLE is great, others utterly despise it. Nacelle a bit off? "This is not the real Trek!!" Not that everyone thinks in these extremes, btw, but fanbased forums definitely tend to see a lot of both ends of the spectrum (as opposed to, say, a forum about a programming language). Tl;dr: down/upvoting is just not very suited for this type of forum: it merely aggravates an already often highly polarized way of acting out towards each other.
I'm not sure how you can be just informed of this. It was one of the first things I noticed and mentioned by several posters in this thread; in fact, it's mentioned on the second page. Furthermore, shouldn't you have a non-admin account so you can test this stuff?
With regard to public vs. secret voting, this topic actually has a long history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot
That's because everyone knows that tabs are evil and each curly brace belongs on its own line.
EDIT: Why can we still see a "Promote" count in each user's profile? What does this count mean anyway?
and at what point over the next few months after 10k downvotes will it be enough to make you realise your system just doesn't work? the best way to make it work is by not having a downvote feature at all, none. so now those people who can carry their vendettas can do so in even more secure knowledge that they can do so without ever having been revealed.
i said this from the start, it is a perfect place for public naming and shaming. i can't tell anyone about the user who has it out for me, i'm not allowed to as the rules protect them and i follow them, but they have all the rights to abuse me in private now. Just how exactly is this rotten system meant to work to stop bad people abusing the good people?
worse if the moderators can't see the abuse because it is anonymized.. then this forum is likely to go down in flames sunk by users hidden behind many anonymous fake accounts, just because they can and will.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
I dislike the ideas of downvotes anyway but I dont think people doing so should be able to hide behind anonymity. If you have something to say, say it to my face for all to see.
I don't think it's your words. PWE and some others around here tend to form an opinion and stick to it, right or wrong, until death. People always need to be accountable for their actions! Taking away their online identity at the very least, empowers them and others to abuse the system when the system hides who they are and has no way to alert those who can see the information that there is a problem!
> But being able to see the downvotes immediately have a user an idea of who was supporting or against their postings. So we’re someone targeting you intentionally then it was immediately obvious who it was. Reports could be sent and the whole process was faster.
> I dislike the ideas of downvotes anyway but I dont think people doing so should be able to hide behind anonymity. If you have something to say, say it to my face for all to see.
And I think that is a valid counterargument.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Look, i just want to spend time on the forum just responding to things from other users related to the game rather than messing around with this thing. a forum doesn't need a feature like this, it got on well without it the last 8 years it has been active, it can get on along well without it in the future as well.
if you have to bring this feature forward? then there must be a way to make sure it works without the abuse. otherwise..
You will be forever digging into things like this with no end in sight. if you think one or to examples are manageable, wait until it hits almost everyone on a regular basis. you wouldn't want it, none of us would want it and neither would the people who put this system in place. there has to be a better way to manage this if this thing is going to be here to stay.
What could start as one or two throwaway accounts could just snowball into something that not even Kael could stop one day. All i am saying is, is to deny any fertile places for these throwaway accounts to breed in and you solved most of your problem without needing yourself, BMR or darkblade to get overloaded with even more destructive nonsense.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Folk would get feedback of sorts but overall it wouldn't adversely effect the placement of threads.
I had a look at my "stats" and I had one downvote for a post that commented I felt the kar'fi was my best value store ship and a handful of upvotes and lols. End of the day it doesn't really matter what those stats say outside the context of the specific threads they're tied to and in the case of one lol it was a comment that was sarcastic but understood by one mod to be trolling.
I shrug, move on but probably won't stop me throwing sarcasm at things in the future.
Kael....THAT is actually a good thing. You don't want anonymity on stuff like this.
People would think twice before pulling stupid tricks because it would identify them for padding the votes. Or whatever.
You need to quit acting like we are blind and we need to be guided everywhere. Let us bump our heads every once in a while....we learn who to avoid.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Hey folks,
For the time being, I've turned these off. I still think they have potential, but I've just been informed that you can see who's upvoting and downvoting you even if you're not a moderator, which is absolutely a recipe for abuse and bullying, so until I can find a way to fix that, goodbye reactions.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Cool. Thanks for the update. It does have some potential for abuse and cyber bullying and glad they listen to both positive but mostly negative feedback.
Tha
Which is exactly why being able to see who is downvoting is important. There are some around here, some of which who have already made themselves known, that are that petty.
yeah, i have to question the validity of that...the only way i can think of would be to check if a suspected suckpuppet account's e-mail address comes from the same IP address as the main account...but given dynamic IP addresses are a thing, so you can just change them on the fly, that's hardly a foolproof way to check
unless i am grossly misunderstanding how dynamic IP addresses work
also, can someone PLEASE fix the damn quote function?
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Interesting. The only thing that could reconcile me with downvoting was that I'm able to see who's doing it. Not seeing that, means to open up a fine tool for anyone to troll.