Post that is longer than it should've been, but its turned into an argument as to why we need a rude/spam button in conjunction with the current one.
Why the dislike button doesn't hinder debate, and stops threads being derailed.
But if your going to be case specific, derailing a thread like that is near impossible as people will just ignore the existing conversation and post something on topic to the thread's purpose.
You’re arguing that people won’t be aware why their posts got disliked and you argue that threads won’t get derailed by people making posts to explain why.
Don’t argue for points that don’t exist, you know that threads will get derailed if you explain why you respectfully disagree with everything, I mean that’s why you made this post here not there right? You expected there to be more than just one post.
http://tf2maps.net/threads/post-dislikes.28573/page-7#post-379293
Oh, and furthermore you’ve already got 2 more respectful disagrees, would then they have to have responses explaining why. So, effectively if we removed the dislike button, and started responding to everything we would simply dislike, threads would get derailed.
So, keep in mind I’ve only proved that threads will get derailed by posting objecting opinions.
So, lets talk about the foundation of your argument.
You’re arguing all debates will be stopped with this button, and that people will be clueless why they got disliked, the foundation of this argument is the image macro.
But that foundation is bullshit, you were completely aware why it got disliked so much, you’re linking it to your argument by creating scenarios that aren’t going to happen, which is that meaningful posts with “disagree” ratings will receive no responses. Your post doesn’t apply because it wasn’t disliked for being meaningful, it was disliked for being low-effort/spam/irrelevant. It wasn't replacing a debate either or explanation either because none was needed.
What's happening is what I believe was the intent of the button, that users can see their posts are disliked by users without derailing threads, your argument is that this will substitute debate (which it hasn't) and that debate regarding "irrelevant" posts wouldn't derail threads (which it does).
Why is it important that users tell posters they dislike posts?
For me I’ve used it often to show that people shouldn’t needlessly post, and believe that showing my disapproval with the button can influence people to not do so in the future.
- Do I want to put in more effort to tell someone their post is spam in response to a 12 second effort post? No
- Do I want to keep seeing spam derail threads? Fuck no.
- Does the button provide a way for me to tell users that their post is spam and to be more mindful in the future? Yes
That's why I'm liking the button so far.
But there's its other uses, the key one being that its a button that can be used to easily show disagreement with someone, in a situation where my opinion is already fairly obvious and wouldn't contribute anything more.
So, this is why I’m going to suggest that we need to have a rude/off-topic button.
There are clearly two goals of the button currently:
- Voicing disapproval of content
- Voicing disapproval of content's effort
And currently mashing them two goals into one button is not getting the message that users want to send to posters loud and clear.
Tl;dr
- Responding to spam derails threads
- The dislike button discourages spam incredibly well
- The dislike button hasn't actually stopped meaningful discussion
- The dislike button sends mixed messages regarding either the effort of content or content itself
- We should create a button to let users tell users that their lack of effort and/or attitude is being dissaproved
