Balancing Like with Dislike

1) Shouldn't there be a Dislike option along with Like?

2) I feels giving people two opposite options to express their opinions on posts will be better. Cause even if someone don't like a post, they can't express it without commenting on it.

3) Giving both Dislike and Like option will also show what is the basic general opinion of people on various posts.

General feeling is shown well enough from a lack of likes. Adding negative reactions would just make it easier for people to be toxic, especially to authors

Dislikes are effectively a soft moderation tool for larger-population sites where content filtering is important. QQ is very much not that, so it'd just add toxicity.

How will dislike add toxicity? I don't understand.

Positive review = like
Negative review = dislike
Neutral review = nothing

How come toxicity came here?

00loner said:

How will dislike add toxicity? I don't understand.

Positive review = like
Negative review = dislike
Neutral review = nothing

How come toxicity came here?

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Dislikes lead to things like brigading- people coming into threads just for being competition to the threads they like and mashing dislike without even reading the thread at all.

You might be someone who would only use dislikes in a fair minded, honest way, but you inevitably have to cope with human tribalism. People don't do dislikes purely because 'ah, I see, this was a bad story, I should warn other people away from this post'.

Viewing likes and dislikes as positive and negative reviews also does not work because likes and dislikes are just one empty data point each. Having likes makes sense- it's a way to support basically going '+1' without wasting an entire post on it, expressing your appreciation at all without bloating a thread- my not very popular in the grand scheme of things thread for my one shots and short series would be not 6 pages, but somewhere in the range of sixty or more if every like was expressed as an actual post.

Meanwhile, if I wasn't getting those likes instead, I'd have no idea which of my story ideas were more and less popular.

Dislikes add nothing of real value by contrast. 'I hated this' is just toxicity unto itself if there's not critique involved. You need an actual post to go 'eh... I disliked this because it's poorly spelled and has bad grammar' or 'this was disturbing and should have been tagged' or whatever'. Lots Of People Disliked Button this meanwhile tells you nothing of use as a reader and is just harmful for the author.

Terrabrand said:

Dislikes lead to things like brigading- people coming into threads just for being competition to the threads they like and mashing dislike without even reading the thread at all.

You might be someone who would only use dislikes in a fair minded, honest way, but you inevitably have to cope with human tribalism. People don't do dislikes purely because 'ah, I see, this was a bad story, I should warn other people away from this post'.

Viewing likes and dislikes as positive and negative reviews also does not work because likes and dislikes are just one empty data point each. Having likes makes sense- it's a way to support basically going '+1' without wasting an entire post on it, expressing your appreciation at all without bloating a thread- my not very popular in the grand scheme of things thread for my one shots and short series would be not 6 pages, but somewhere in the range of sixty or more if every like was expressed as an actual post.

Meanwhile, if I wasn't getting those likes instead, I'd have no idea which of my story ideas were more and less popular.

Dislikes add nothing of real value by contrast. 'I hated this' is just toxicity unto itself if there's not critique involved. You need an actual post to go 'eh... I disliked this because it's poorly spelled and has bad grammar' or 'this was disturbing and should have been tagged' or whatever'. Lots Of People Disliked Button this meanwhile tells you nothing of use as a reader and is just harmful for the author.

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I think you are complicating this simple topic. Dislike might just reduce toxicity rathen than adding it. People might add dislike rather than replying in a manner that will violate a rule or add toxicity.

You realize we tried having dislikes for like a week after XF2 changeover and no one liked it. Also it doesn't really work in Xenforo.

00loner said:

People might add dislike rather than replying in a manner that will violate a rule or add toxicity.

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If people make a rule-violating comment report them and laugh when they're banned. If they're nothing but toxic ask them to stop or use the ignore function. It's much easier to moderate actual comments than reactions.

00loner said:

I think you are complicating this simple topic. Dislike might just reduce toxicity rathen than adding it. People might add dislike rather than replying in a manner that will violate a rule or add toxicity.

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Except dislikes do not actually "voice" dislike, they are merely a single very unnuanced way of expressing it. People who feel very strongly about disliking something will normally pair that up with a comment. What this does is give people who would otherwise just move on with their lives a way to express their dislike. Your suggestion would complicate the already pre-existing method in use.

00loner said:

I think you are complicating this simple topic. Dislike might just reduce toxicity rathen than adding it. People might add dislike rather than replying in a manner that will violate a rule or add toxicity.

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you can pretend humanity isn't complex if you like but you want to 'balance' like with dislike just because you assume it would be good off nothing.

I have explained why it would likely be bad. Waving your hands and saying 'you're complicating it' just makes you look stupid rather than like I'm actually overcomplicating things to point out how people demonstrably act when such options are available.

EDIT: like. the simple topic here is 'the current status quo works fine'. We don't have dislike and we don't need it. You think 'balancing' positivity- likes- with dislikes- so negativity!- will improve things. Flailing when people point out why that won't be the case doesn't help your case any.

You're the one proposing a change. Even just being a coinflip as to whether dislikes would make things better or worse means its probably not worth the site's effort to do, since the change requires work whether it helps or not.

If it does basically nothing that's still a losing move.

The only issues I can see about the current system is it tends to be really hard to express any form of dislike/distaste/disappointment on a thread without it spiralling in arguing or derailment.

In some cases this site seams to fall into a bit of a echo chamber with no one willing to say anything negative.

Mattamars said:

The only issues I can see about the current system is it tends to be really hard to express any form of dislike/distaste/disappointment on a thread without it spiralling in arguing or derailment.

In some cases this site seams to fall into a bit of a echo chamber with no one willing to say anything negative.

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Constructive criticism is always welcome.
If you can't provide constructive criticism then you don't need to express your dislike.

Good example:
I didn't like your characterization of 'character' in the last chapter. You seem to be writing them as more of a Mary Sue then they should be for no apparent reason.

Bad example:
This chapter sucked you should delete it and start over.

Adding a dislike button does not give any feedback as to what you actually didn't like about the chapter and is essentially little better than outright saying the bad example.

Silvercrystal said:

Constructive criticism is always welcome.
If you can't provide constructive criticism then you don't need to express your dislike.

Good example:
I didn't like your characterization of 'character' in the last chapter. You seem to be writing them as more of a Mary Sue then they should be for no apparent reason.

Bad example:
This chapter sucked you should delete it and start over.

Adding a dislike button does not give any feedback as to what you actually didn't like about the chapter and is essentially little better than outright saying the bad example.

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I somewhat disagree with this on principle. In a similar way to why I disagree with Youtube removing it's dislike button. Not many people want to waste significant fractions of their day on something they'll ultimately dislike and having a handy like-to-dislike ratio can help people make informed at-a-glance judgements on if they should waste the time. Yes that's not always perfect and on polarizing subjects it can be hit or miss depending on who is engaging with the content the most but QQ doesn't necessarily have to worry about the overarching issues with such a system. 1. Because most importantly QQ generally doesn't allow polarizing subjects as a matter of dis/course. (Rule 8 being the big one) 2. You have to be a member to upvote as well as the overall size of the site you don't necessarily have to worry about a botnet making hundreds or thousands of socks to downvote someones content into oblivion. (nevermind that would quickly get all the socks/users using those socks banned) 3. Malicious downvotes can fairly easily be recognized because the moderation of the site are actually people, rather than canned responses from AI that politely tell you to get fucked and cry about it.

Now saying all that. I don't think QQ needs a downvote system. The site is small enough and not devoted to rabid contentious discourse and hot takes needing to be ratio'd like that. It's a site for lewds, generally if you dislike something it's going to be the fetishes on display that are going to get the most vocal dislike, followed closely by your standard story foilables (Bad characterization, story telling, worldbuilding, etc.) Any thing after that, you're just disliking to be a hater, and QQ doesn't really need that at the moment, if ever.

Also it'd make more work for the mods who are for the most part chill, making more work for them and maybe making them not chill in the process is the exact opposite of what the users should want.

Likes don't mean that you like or endorse something, anyway. There doesn't need to be a dislike system because by having a single button, all it really boils down to is a 'react' function that's useful for finding something later or acknowledging you've seen it. Having more than one would add nuance and additional meaning to the reactions, but if you're actually trying to express an opinion or feedback the better way would be to do so in text.

CrunchySharpie said:

In a similar way to why I disagree with Youtube removing it's dislike button.

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It didn't remove its dislike button. It just removed the ability for you to see how many dislikes something has, presumably because viewers making their own decisions based on that information was bad for watch-time statistics (naughty user, making decisions for yourself! Obey the algorithm, peon!).

CrunchySharpie said:

I somewhat disagree with this on principle. In a similar way to why I disagree with Youtube removing it's dislike button. Not many people want to waste significant fractions of their day on something they'll ultimately dislike and having a handy like-to-dislike ratio can help people make informed at-a-glance judgements on if they should waste the time. Yes that's not always perfect and on polarizing subjects it can be hit or miss depending on who is engaging with the content the most but QQ doesn't necessarily have to worry about the overarching issues with such a system. 1. Because most importantly QQ generally doesn't allow polarizing subjects as a matter of dis/course. (Rule 8 being the big one) 2. You have to be a member to upvote as well as the overall size of the site you don't necessarily have to worry about a botnet making hundreds or thousands of socks to downvote someones content into oblivion. (nevermind that would quickly get all the socks/users using those socks banned) 3. Malicious downvotes can fairly easily be recognized because the moderation of the site are actually people, rather than canned responses from AI that politely tell you to get fucked and cry about it.

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I disagree with the youtube comparison because, importantly, QQ is above all else a forum first and a content aggregate second. Personally I very rarely look at the likes to dictate whether or not something is good, and indeed likes are at the bottom of the post on the default UI. There's not a like based algorithm, it's all bumps. You cannot even SEARCH threads or posts based on their like counts.

RedStarMini said:

You cannot even SEARCH threads or posts based on their like counts.

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You can sort threads by like count of first post. Might be new with XF2.

magic9mushroom said:

You can sort threads by like count of first post. Might be new with XF2.

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I double checked but I don't see an option for that on my end with advanced search

RedStarMini said:

I double checked but I don't see an option for that on my end with advanced search

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That's because it's not in the search function. It's under "Filters" when viewing a board.

Terrabrand said:

Dislikes lead to things like brigading- people coming into threads just for being competition to the threads they like and mashing dislike without even reading the thread at all.

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Correct. I recall how the old City of Heroes forums (which were in a similar style as this one, if a much different subject matter) allowed downvotes, and yes; what you got was unpopular people getting mass-downvoted by other people with a personal grudge against them. So I have to agree with the people who predict that implementing them here would have that kind of result.

00loner said:

I think you are complicating this simple topic. Dislike might just reduce toxicity rathen than adding it. People might add dislike rather than replying in a manner that will violate a rule or add toxicity.

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I dislike and disagree with this post. No, I'm not going to elaborate, I'm simply going to tell you that I dislike it and that you should feel bad for making it in the first place.
If I'm feeling particularly vindictive, I might even go through all your previous posts and leave the same comment, and get all my internet buddies to do the same to make sure you understand how horrendous your posts are.
/s
If this sounds unappealing to you, then you now know why QQ doesn't have a dislike feature.

Keksimus said:

I dislike and disagree with this post. No, I'm not going to elaborate, I'm simply going to tell you that I dislike it and that you should feel bad for making it in the first place.
If I'm feeling particularly vindictive, I might even go through all your previous posts and leave the same comment, and get all my internet buddies to do the same to make sure you understand how horrendous your posts are.
/s
If this sounds unappealing to you, then you now know why QQ doesn't have a dislike feature.

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I dislike and disagree with this post. No, I'm not going to elaborate, I'm simply going to tell you that I dislike it and that you should feel bad for making it in the first place.

If I'm feeling particularly vindictive, I might even go through all your previous posts and leave the same comment, and get all my internet buddies to do the same to make sure you understand how horrendous your posts are.
/s
If this sounds unappealing to you, then you now know why QQ doesn't have a dislike feature.

I think you guysare overacting with while rise to toxicity arguments.

I attend other forums were I expected toxicity like Mangadex threads that have variety of reactions and I don't see those bring abused or overwhelming were that site has far wider reach than QQ.
Really most reactions are Like, This and maybe Wow or Funny.

00loner said:

I dislike and disagree with this post. No, I'm not going to elaborate, I'm simply going to tell you that I dislike it and that you should feel bad for making it in the first place.

If I'm feeling particularly vindictive, I might even go through all your previous posts and leave the same comment, and get all my internet buddies to do the same to make sure you understand how horrendous your posts are.

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I'd love to see that kind of thing, let the beef wars commence!

To add a bit more to my previous post.
Anyone ever herd of a possitive toxicity?
That might be one of the issues growing on this site abd why aualoty of stories been dropping imho.
I feel people are very less likely to give any criticism were only reaction to a post are Likes even if story posted is atrocious because I'm not willing to be attacked. And opposite is also very true. Lots of likes usually also means that only feedback under OP post will be positive and glazing. I dunno if I'm the only one who feels like it.

I think people will be more willing to voice problems and issues and criticism if they at quick glance can see that post isn't just hug box that tickles authors bias and lets them see that they should put more effort into writing than just seeing aproval from anonymous crowd and collecting likes.

Only place were people are putting criticism nowadays is Rants section. But that doesn't fix the issue because that plave is outlet for frustrations we vent. There's little commenting on particular fanfic or quest over there.

So I support notion that including more open and quickway to voice dislike a post might be in the long run create more healthy environment.

John_Oakman said:

I'd love to see that kind of thing, let the beef wars commence!

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For beefs we have Rants section. A high noon thread IIRC.

Both likes and dislikes are too low effort to really mean anything apart from a general sentiment. That may be fine for regular posts (but probably not), but for stories actual criticism is high effort and rarely is acted on. At a minimum you have to care enough to actually comment and figure out what you don't like. So you complain about something, and one of three things happens.

You get brigaded by people who don't agree (including the author), and now have to fight an internet battle for way too long on a story you don't care much about.

You get asked how to fix the issue, which means that now you have to act as a teacher to a fic you have low investment in.

You find out that the author is fifteen chapters ahead on Patreon or Royal Road and the complaint would require an onerous rewrite and is vital to later plot points.

A dislike button won't fix this.

OK, I think people have been spending too much time on SV and haven't realized that the way it handles showing multiple reactions is due to an add-on to recreate how the XF1 add-on to allow multiple reactions showed them. The normal behavior is to just show the icons of each type of reaction given lined up at the start of the bar, you can't see how many of each the post has unless you open the details list. A post with 100 likes and 1 dislike and a post with 100 dislikes and 1 like look exactly the same.

They don't balance shit.

magic9mushroom said:

It didn't remove its dislike button. It just removed the ability for you to see how many dislikes something has, presumably because viewers making their own decisions based on that information was bad for watch-time statistics (naughty user, making decisions for yourself! Obey the algorithm, peon!).

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Yes I am aware that content creators can still see the dislike bar, and for exactly the tongue in cheek response you gave. Seeing an at a glance 'something's fucky' with the video is the entire point to having a visible like/dislike system, and it's entirely transparent what they're doing when they kept the likes visible while hiding the dislikes. If they wanted to prevent hug/hate-boxxery, they could have simply hid both. Keeping the positive while removing the negative one simply proves the point that it's about their inability to take criticism. (Youtube Rewind 20...18 I think? getting obliterated from low earth orbit for example)

RedStarMini said:

I disagree with the youtube comparison because, importantly, QQ is above all else a forum first and a content aggregate second. Personally I very rarely look at the likes to dictate whether or not something is good, and indeed likes are at the bottom of the post on the default UI. There's not a like based algorithm, it's all bumps. You cannot even SEARCH threads or posts based on their like counts.

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It is a forum, yes. But it's also a forum about content creation, in this case writing. We have Writing, NSFW Writing, and Off-Topic, implying that Writing and NSFW Writing are 'on-topic' and thus the primary point of the forum and what most people to come here for, either to create written content or to consume written content, with the latter obviously being greater than the former.

And while you can't search by like count as a whole you can-

magic9mushroom said:

You can sort threads by like count of first post. Might be new with XF2.

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-that. Yes, specifically 'first message reaction score' which would imply that said rating on that first post, much like the like/dislike bar below a video before you actually start watching the video, is a viable metric to sort and evaluate a story by.

magic9mushroom said:

That's because it's not in the search function. It's under "Filters" when viewing a board.

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The previous version had it too, but it was a little drop down thing at the bottom of the pane in the subforum you're looking through iirc. Didn't use it that often except to find stories with specific tags or specific word counts as anything past that is a bit clunky.

snthsnth said:

Both likes and dislikes are too low effort to really mean anything apart from a general sentiment. That may be fine for regular posts (but probably not), but for stories actual criticism is high effort and rarely is acted on. At a minimum you have to care enough to actually comment and figure out what you don't like. So you complain about something, and one of three things happens.

You get brigaded by people who don't agree (including the author), and now have to fight an internet battle for way too long on a story you don't care much about.

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Which is the primary reason why I said that QQ likely didn't need a like/dislike system because it's too small a community for it to actually be useful. Likes and dislikes like that work better when concrit isn't easier to get across and you're mostly working on vibes and general trends ('I made two things, this one thing has better metrics than the other thing' for example) Again going back to youtube, if you're someone with hundreds of thousands of followers and get 10k+ comments per video, actually reading all of that and getting a grasp on any problems is restrictive either on time or actual physical capability, so requires a more broad view of general egagement rather than any specific criticism.

There's just very few threads that move so fast that people can't easily keep track of them. I can only think of a handful of writers on here that have the kinds of writing pace and reader base that would necessitate anything like it, where 20-30 pages of discussion go by per story post with the author posting every day to every other day that would make keeping up with the discussion impossible for some people up to and possibly including the author themsleves.

snthsnth said:

You get asked how to fix the issue, which means that now you have to act as a teacher to a fic you have low investment in.

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People are always going to ask that anyway, regardless. And they will also bring up the same thing over and over again after every story post exactly because most people don't read the thread in full, either they only read story posts, or they read only the same page or maybe the page after the story post then bring up a topic that was probably resolved 5-10 pages back in the discussion. That's just the nature of a forum style system and people dropping in without reading through the backlog, either because they don't want to or are incapable of it in some way. I've seen it happen plenty of times, people bringing up the same thing the author has answered a dozen times before because they aren't following the thread.

snthsnth said:

You find out that the author is fifteen chapters ahead on Patreon or Royal Road and the complaint would require an onerous rewrite and is vital to later plot points.

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That's a problem with the episodic release format in general, though paywalling it certainly makes it more of an exercise in teethpulling as there's monetary incentive to not fix things that could be glaring plotholes.

thought on it more and my opinion: If this would apply ONLY to "content" then maybe. However, I am of the opinion that a dislike button when applied to regular discussion would actively make the forum experience worse

I will admit I have questioned how much people hate what I Post, how far a Dislike Button would plummet confirming what I already Know in objective subjectivity. But honestly I much rather would have the SV System or at least some wacky QQ unique Reactions alongside the normal Like, but that introduces all sorts of problems and is quite likely I wouldn't remember its Existence anymore then I already do with the current Like Button so it's less maintenance to have it simplified.