"Negative" ratings

Thank you, @Momaw Nadon, for reposting that thought over here and starting a new thread.

I do understand why "pessimistic", "disagree" etc. might have been made into "negative" ratings- certainly the forum could turn into a quagmire of griping and complaining about every little thing if negative people post unchecked with no repercussions.

I guess I just feel that won't happen here. There are forums that are prone to griping and this just isn't one of them. Plus, negative people seem to me to be less likely to care what others think anyway. It's we positive folks who care, and who get dinged just for being thoughtful about a topic.

 

Man, I don't think I'd go there. We'd be asking for trouble to have any ratings buttons with political or social overtones to them. I could see the situation deteriorating really quickly- in fact I have seen it, right here on SWNN, and the mods had to lock down the threads.

I come here because people don't tend to express political or social points of view- to bring that into the discussion by having ratings for it would just be a bad idea. I'll rate posts based on their opinions about Star Wars, but not about anything else. Jerks are best ignored- I do it all the time.

 

As I said, I've seen whole threads get shut down so yes, I have seen these things. But I don't dwell on the negatives, it just makes me unhappy. I come here to be happy, and the best way to accomplish that goal is to ignore the BS. In fact, I don't think I've ever even left negative feedback on anyone, ever. It's just not how I roll.

 

I never give neg rep. People have the right to think what they want.

 

If someone is posting racist or sexist comments click the 'report' button in their post in the lower left hand corner. That's what it is for. It's against forum rules to post such things.

 

Well, if I ever did give negative rep, it was a mistake, before I knew someone would get dinged just because I disagreed with them. I didn't really know how it worked until the other day when I got a neg. rep because I was pessimistic. To me, it discourages discussion. I try to be a nice person, I don't want to give someone a red mark just because I have a different opinion, but if someone disagreed with me, I'd like to know. Without getting dinged, of course! It hurts my feelers.

 

I'd just like to add that the Disagree button is a neutral rating. The five neutral ratings I have on my profile are all Disagree ratings.

 

That is something I would definitely be in favor of as disagreeing doesn't mean someone necessarily thinks its a bad thing. There are times when I just disagree with an opinion and want to note that, rather than infer some kind of bad or negative feeling. Generally I has started to not use it unless there are some other circumstance surrounding it.

 

...people get some sort of actual penalty if I give a negative review? Can I have more information? I have only given a couple negative reviews, but I don't necessarily want someone flagged for it. Sometimes there is a positive icon one can click on instead of a corresponding negative. For instance, sometimes I have given "original" instead of "disagree". Someone may pose an idea I haven't heard before that I don't agree with. Much of the hot threads involve TFA, which is all speculation. Instead of "disagree", I acknowledge that their idea was "original".

 

I fully understand what you are saying in your last couple sentences, perhaps moving a disagree to a neutral would then perhaps push people to sanction people that you are speaking of more often with the troll label which might work but who knows. There is such a delicate balance its almost impossible to maintain in a forum with such divergent opinions and backgrounds in its members.

 

Not a friendly one whatever. Put nothing is better.

 

My point is that from my point of view, this cantina is meant to be a friendly place where we come to share not to judge others opinions. You can disagree with people but silently

 

look under each persons name in their post
See Ratings? the last one listed that is green / yellow / red?

any time you give someone a positive rating the green number goes up by one. neutral ratings make the yellow number go up and negative ratings make the red number go up

that is the only 'penalty' if you can even call it that.


dont worry about it WhySoSidious
In the two weeks youve been here you've been an outstanding example of a quality community member.

HAL'sgal as well

we need more star wars fans like both of you here

 

Aww thanks!

 

I don't disagree about your point regarding disagree .

I will say this though, I wouldn't worry to much about ratings that you receive over time. I've been lucky enough to avoid any negative ratings so far, but I'm not going to sweat it when it inevitably does happen at some point. I think most of the users here tend to be positive members of the community, this is evident when you look at the ratings bar for other users. Almost everyone has an overwhelmingly green bar, with small slivers of grey and red. The only real exceptions I have seen in this regard are the bars of brand new users who may have started out posting some controversial or negative posts right of the bat, but if they stay around and keep posting, that always changes. A few red ratings here and there doesn't really affect things much as for how other view you in the forums.

As for the users that have more red ratings than others, they tend to be the ones who are less tactful in how they voice their opinions. For instance, one of the most divisive topics among SW fans is the PT. I'm not really crazy about the PT, however even when I voice my dissatisfaction with it, I strive to do so in a balanced way that doesn't demean or alienate other fans who like the PT. I've seen some of the other users here who just trash the PT mercilessly, sometimes implying those that like it are dumb for doing so. Those users tend to have a higher number of negative ratings, but even then, their positive ratings tend to far outweigh their negative ratings by a great deal.

I personally don't mind the pessimistic rating being negative, I think the problem with the rating is that some of the posters here abuse it by applying it to anyone who voices any kind of concern or potentially negative critique regarding the new movies or other aspects of SW. For me, a pessimistic rating would be reserved for someone who posts something along the lines of, "All of the new movies are going to be terrible and the legacy of SW will be forever sullied!", and other similarly outrageous and pessimistic posts. I definitely wouldn't give such a rating to someone who says they are worried about the new film because they aren't crazy about JJ Abrams body of work though.

Another thing to keep in mind with ratings is that you can't rely on all of the posters here to be reasonable all the time, whenever we venture onto the internet, there is a good chance that we will run into other people who are less than reasonable or polite. The ratings system is actually a pretty great thing overall because it allows us to lightly police the forums ourselves. Those who abuse it are always dealt with by the mods if they continue to do so, after all, they can monitor every rating you give out, and see if you are targeting other users or abusing the system in some other way.

One last thing to consider is that not all ratings are given personally, I know I've accidentally given out ratings that I didn't intend to, especially when browsing the forum on a mobile device. I always manage to correct the mistake as far as I know, but I wouldn't be shocked if I had missed a mistake at some point while browsing the forums. In fact, I did have one negative rating at one point, I had a trolling rating given to me on a post where I was simply complimenting another forum member. The rating didn't make sense whatsoever, but I didn't let it worry me. Shortly thereafter the rating was removed and replaced with a positive one, if I were to wager a guess, it would be that the first negative rating was given as a mistake, and then corrected by the forum member once it came to their attention.

Edit

While I was writing this post someone gave me a trolling rating on another post where I wasn't trolling, but it doesn't bother me any .

 

Thank you!

Thanks for the correction. I guess I would just vote for moving "Pessimistic" and "Dislike" to neutral. "Off-topic" and "Trolling" are really the only types of posts I would view as negative enough to earn red numbers. (Being OT really isn't that bad, either, but I guess to keep the forum readable people should learn not to do it).