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• Reputation: 2477 Q&A: 40 2 29 1140 138 11 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 2 soundslikepuget

  10 2 The new layout looks great, and I like some of the new concepts. I like that you're going to feature experts and regular contributors who have posted lately, the current list features a lot of people who have been silent for a year or more, but posted often back in the day. Not useful. New way is way more better.  I'm torn on the eliminating of downvotes though. I know people get butt hurt when they get downvoted, but there are the occasional posts that are really, really stupid and deserve to be admonished as such. There's one particular person I'm thinking of who posts the stupidest shit ever, ALL THE TIME, and I think the community is well-served by seeing a half dozen thumbs down racked up next to the comment.  On the other hand, if downvotes were eliminated, I'd probably feel a little more free to talk about hunting and how much I hate most of the gay bars on Capitol Hill. There are certain topics that people avoid, because they go against the groupthink and generate downvotes. If we take that away, we might find more open dialogue here. I mean hell, we might even discover that we have some Republicans, some Mormons, some people opposed to Gay Marriage and some NRA members in our midst. That's part of life in Seattle too. Also, I'm TOTALLY with Russ on not filling out the zipcode box. I bounce around the State. Sometimes I'm in Seattle. Sometimes I'm in Bellingham. Sometimes I'm in Friday Harbor. Sometimes I'm on a boat. I don't really see why it matters. While we're on the subject, I've never filled out the "verification" thing. Why do you need to know who I am? I like being a semi-anonymous smartass with occasionally helpful things to say around here. I like being able to tell people that you can smuggle booze into Safeco Field in your tits if you're a chick, and if you know any fishermen they'll probably trade you fresh-caught salmon for some weed. I'm not going to feel free to post things like that if you know who I really am. So, I'd urge you to reconsider the whole "verification" thing. I don't see the point.  As for the aesthetics, I think you guys did a GREAT job on the new page. It looks really sharp. Two thumbs way, way up.  Two other things come to mind. One, how about adding that rideshare section that I suggested a while back? I'd really like to be able to use Questionland to hook up with somebody needs a ride when I'm driving my car empty down to Portland or up to Bellingham. And Two, how about providing people an incentive to award a mushroom by giving the ASKER one reputation point when they give the mushroom out?   soundslikepuget answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report 5 comments by RacerX, asteria, and Charles B… 6 0 upvote for comment about verifications/ value of internets privacy. we don't need another FB RacerX commented 4 months ago | Report 3 0 Do you think the potential downvotes keep you from posting "controversial" subjects? I think you have started some of the most enjoyable exchanges here on Qland and I would hate to see you censor yourself. asteria commented 4 months ago | Report 3 0 soundslikepuget, Thanks for taking the time to give us such a well thought out response. It is much appreciated and extremely useful. Down-votes: You summarized our dilemma beautifully. How do you inform people of low quality responses and discourage bad contributions WITHOUT discouraging controversial opinions and without discouraging people from contributing at all. Even though we use pseudonymous identities, we are generally hurt by bad feedback. Down votes often express disagreement with the answer rather than a poor quality answer. What we really need to do is figure out a way that down-votes are focussed on poor quality rather than controversy/differing opinions. Any ideas would be much appreciated - assuming you agree with the concept. Zip Code: The zip code is not meant to peg you as being from a certain place. I'm pretty sure we never display it publicly. The idea of collecting it was simply to be able to deliver things to you that were neighborhood relevant at some point in the future i.e. it would be used as a filter for those who wanted it should the quantity and variety of q&a be too much for you to find what you were interested in. Verification: This was added purely for classifieds because we felt that it would discourage scammers. Your point is well taken and we will remove verification from everything but classifieds. It has no place in the general Questionland world. Mushroom: I agree that the person who takes the time to award the best answers should be recognized with a reputation bump - it's good citizenship. I'll see if I can get that Gnome on that ASAP. Rideshare: I like the idea, but aren't there sites designed specifically for that purpose? I could see making it part of classifieds in a simple way as you originally suggested but typically doing a good job of this requires specialized features like point of origin, destination, time, terms (i.e. split gas cost etc). Wary of doing a half assed job. Thanks again for the great feedback and we are really pleased you like the overall design. It means a lot. Charles Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 3 0 I appreciate how someone's gone through a story/comment downvote binge in anticipation of downvotes being removed. It's okay, little guy/lady! Black Beetles in Amber commented 4 months ago | Report 2 0 Ha! Smoke 'em if you got 'em, I guess. capicola commented 4 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 5947 Q&A: 111 0 11 4217 720 2 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 6

  6 3 Downvotes are good because they allow one to instantly tell whether a questioner or answerer is a piece of shit nutjob or not. For ordinary users it doesn't matter -- a few up, a few down, what's the diff. But for a Bailo or a Will in Seattle or a racist anti-Muslim salted nut bar like that pot grower guy, it's nice to smack them down until they leave or find a clue. Fnarf answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report 7 comments by capicola, Charles B, and Fnarf… 0 1 Hell yes. Kickin' ass ain't the same if you don't take names. capicola commented 4 months ago | Report 0 1 Fnarf, "salted nut bar"? You have a special place in my heart for that one. Turns out that people really don't like being down-voted. it's a Macbeth-style stain: Out, damn'd spot! out... Once it's there, the damage is done and all the kings horses and all the kings men.. We don't all have skin made of latex. The good thing is that people take reputation seriously but the bad thing is that they may never come back even when they have something good to add. As I said to Basil, ideally we could have a "salted nut bar" button so that people wouldn't down vote people simply because they disagree with them. I'm going in search of a good icon now... Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 2 1 Well, I have more than 700 downvotes, which has to be more than anyone, and I don't care. I even seek them out sometimes, when I just can't resist the snarky or (allegedly) humorous remark. Fnarf commented 4 months ago | Report 0 1 2 Things: 1. You don't come close to having the most down votes... not even half way there. 2. Skin of latex. Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 1 1 Good god, I had no idea. I'd better get busy then. Let's see, who should I be mean to? Fnarf commented 4 months ago | Report 0 1 Instead of eliminating it entirely, perhaps you could cap the number of down-votes each user could give at, say, five per day. That way, people would be less inclined to waste their limited ammunition on well-meaning answers and save it for the nutbars. Personally, I think you should retain unlimited down-voting, but this might be a good compromise. Ed B commented 4 months ago | Report 0 2 Downvoted everything in celebration of keeping downvotes! protosaurus commented 4 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 613 Q&A: 25 0 23 1118 1525 12 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 3

  4 1 I appreciate all the hard work, but I have to admit I'm bummed about the gnome and cartoony stuff getting a back seat. Perhaps I'm the only one, but I looked forward to the new cartoony bits and it brightened my days to see the critters and designs of ql. I am not really too much of a fan of the down voting, because I've gotten a gazillion down votes and it just makes sadness. I'm sure the new stuff will be great though. It will just take getting used to. Kristin Bell answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report 2 comments by Charles B and Nim Chimpsky… 1 0 The little characters will just be moved to the back office, so you'll be able to see them now and then. Thanks for the support. Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 0 0 You're not the only one. I love the gnome and mushroom, and especially the blue wood lettering in the banner. Nim Chimpsky commented 4 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  3 0 I wAsnt saying get rid of the down vote but a down vote and a disagree button to cover both intstances. Although I like the WTF button idea. I think there's a big difference between not agreeing and something is flat out bad info or mean answers. sublevelthree answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 1867 Q&A: 26 0 27 711 14 22 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 4 Sacrelicious

  2 0 Remarks! The Top Contributors/Experts bar takes up a LOT of space at the top of the page. Can that be made more compact? I don't mind it too much as long as it shifts around, and I'm with SoundsLikePuget in liking that it's the top contributors who have posted recently. Otherwise, it would just be the same five people up there, all the time, which is a nice trophy for them, but not necessarily inclusive of the rest of the community. And while we're on the subject, what's the cutoff for "Top" contributor? Highest 5 scores? Everyone with a score above a certain number? I kinda like the idea of getting rid of the downvotes, just because I'm a perfectionist and I sometimes shy away from being 100% honest or adding a humorous remark because someone will ALWAYS be butthurt. I think that trolls and jerks can be handled by mods pretty easily. I will miss the happy trees and the starry night sky. :( However, I like the idea of rotating user-contributed header photos. One thing that has really bugged me has been the number of unanswered questions that just vanish into the night. What do you think about adding a "boneyard" feature for these questions? Not for all questions, but if the asker really wants a reply, they can nominate it for the "boneyard," and it can slosh around in there for a set length of time (maybe placement in the boneyard expires after one week). If the question is answered to their satisfaction, yay. If not, they can renominate it for another week. Thanks for working on this! I love that QL is a dynamic, constantly-improving place, rather than a stagnant forum. You guys do a great job and the hard work really shows. Sacrelicious answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report 3 comments by Sphinx, Charles B, and Sacrelicious… 2 0 I dig your "boneyard" idea, Sacrelicious. Sometimes I ask questions that go unanswered (or only get one response or whatever) and I feel like I still want to know but asking again would be pushy/inappropriate. It can be hard to tell if it was a stupid question or if it simply got buried by an unusually busy posting day. Sphinx commented 4 months ago | Report 1 0 I love the boneyard idea. In fact we tried to do something like that earlier on in conjunction with the newsletter. If you remember, we called them "stumpers" and give people a prize for answering them. It wasn't always easy to find a stumper because you guys are so good at answering tough questions, BUT there still were quite a few over time. What shocked me was sometimes I would pick a stumper for the week that I was pretty sure no one would be able to answer and the answers would just come fast and furious. I think reviving the stumper idea and adding the ability for people to nominate them would be great. We probably can't get it into the first version of this but will add it ASAP. Thanks for a really great idea. Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 0 0 Yay! Glad you like it, and I look forward to seeing it someday. Sacrelicious commented 4 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  4 2 My favorite part? I am the first name on the top contributors! You appeal to my vanity, how can I not love the redesign? Basil answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report 2 comments by Charles B and Basil… 0 0 That's a permanent placement. The other people will change based on their most recent contribution (limited to the top 100 contributors) but you will stay in that position regardless. Glad you like it. Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 1 1 Seems fair. Basil commented 4 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  3 1 Questionland seems to be built on a framework that encourages SEOs to spam and run, including a report option that indicates linkspamming and not other harrassment/trouble would be nice. I email, but I don't want to waste anyone's time when I can just click the link ;) Black Beetles in Amber answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report 2 comments by Charles B and Black Beetles in Amber… 0 0 BBiA, Thanks for being part of our spam patrol. It's v. helpful. I check as carefully as I can every morning to try and catch spammers missed by our spam filter but you always seem to find people I have missed. Thanks. The best way to report spam is to just hit the "report" button because I get notified and when it is spam I kill it, when it is abusive I do whatever makes sense, when it is not meaningful I reset it to unreported. So clicking the report link will do what you want. Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 0 0 I'll just use the usual tools then, thanks! Black Beetles in Amber commented 4 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 3642 Q&A: 104 3 6 1386 84 16 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 5 Russ Campbell, NWEBS

  2 1 Change is good. It is hard to fathom the enormous amount of work that you guys must have put into this redesign. It all looks very clean and easy to scan. I think you have to put this up and let us drive it for awhile then come back for a revisit commentary after a week or two. I have to say I have never filled in the zip code stuff as on my profile as I don't want to paint myself into a box on where I call home base. I also don't pay much attention to those little maps that pop up below people's entries that reflect their location. Having some kind of mapping function to the specific locations or businesses referenced in questions and answers might be valuable, but not necessarily for contributors. I guess I clicked a little too soon on the new design stuff as none of the images would load but did with a refresh a few minutes later. I think the changing photo banners will be interesting enough to cause some to check in to see what is being highlighted. Maybe have a past banners link page to be able to view them in succession or by location areas (on a map?), etc. Somehow it seems the pond is getting bigger and that can only be good to increase participation and therefore the variety and depth of answers and viewpoints. Good work! Two wings held way up here. Russ Campbell, NWEBS answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report 5 comments by Charles B, Russ Campbell, NWEBS, and Charles B… 1 0 Thanks Russ. Appreciate you kicking it off on a positive note. It means a great deal to us. I like the past banners idea. Great. Also, I agree you can't really get a sense of it through a preview. But at least it won't come as a total shock and good ideas will clearly come out of it as evidenced by your response. Thanks again. Charles Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 0 0 I had another thought about the history and characters of Qland. I could see someone new to the site look at a question and selected favorite answer and think "what's with that funny mushroom character?" You might have an active link from the original characters somewhere to explain the mystery and history of gnomes and 'shrooms, etc. Russ Campbell, NWEBS commented 4 months ago | Report 0 0 Good idea. Thanks Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 0 0 Boy, the many responses and then all the comments were hard to keep track of as a coherent discussion. I wondered if you were thinking of summarizing how all those thoughts may have amended or changed the planned update in looks, function or timeline. By the way, when is the big reveal scheduled? Russ Campbell, NWEBS commented 4 months ago | Report 1 0 Since I get automatic emails whenever anyone answers or comments, it's been easy for me to keep track of. Once the update is out that will be true for everyone who wants to follow the question/person/category. So that'll make a big difference. The feedback has been very helpful and we have added things to our list of things we'd like to get done - like the boneyard/stumpers, etc. The biggest area of discussion was down-voting, which was also very helpful. It's the main thing which we plan to address prior to the release. I'm not sure of the specifics at the moment because they will depend on what is do-able quickly. We will continue to address this and other things after the big release in more manageable tweaks. As far as the date is concerned, I'm not sure because it will depend on the remaining changes and more importantly on the testing phase. With such a massive set of enhancements there is a lot to test and a lot that could need fixing. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful, but as soon as we have more specific I'll write a blog post to update everyone. Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 1271 Q&A: 38 0 4 438 27 4 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 asteria

  2 1 First: awesome redesign! :D I only have a few quibbles: I'm ambivalent about voting questions up/down, but I do like being able to downvote answers that are just stupid or mean, which are very rare here on Qland. There should be some way to show that an answer is or is not helpful to the community. While I like the idea of rotating banners at the top of the page, I think having a recognizable picture logo somewhere at the top is very important - it makes the site seem more stable & consistent. The text on the bus marquee in the example does not evoke "Questionland" to me. It's not so much about marketing as having something people can latch on to - it's kind of like a security blanket for my brain. Maybe modify the little ? icon from the address bar, and require people to incorporate that into their submissions? I also am not interested in verification or giving a lot of details about myself, such as my legal name. One, I was stalked a long time ago by a former boyfriend and I'm still skittish about being traceable online. Two, I'm in school studying accounting and I want to be able to freely express my hate of capitalism and how fucked up our economy is without worrying about future job prospects. I have a suggestion - I often notice people ask really similar questions because they probably didn't see the older ones. I'm thinking of all the questions about where to find an affordable or sliding scale dentist. Is there any way to make these more noticeable to new people? Like a FAQ besides Questionland FAQs? (By the way I think there should not be an apostrophe in FAQs - it's not a contraction.) Thanks for asking for feedback before rolling the redesign out! asteria answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report 3 comments by Charles B, asteria, and Charles B… 0 0 asteria, Thanks for this great feedback. Rotating Banners: I didn't think of it that way but I think you are right. There is real merit to having at least some element of the banner that provides a sense of consistency and identity. I'll see whether the Gnome and Michiko can figure that out. The "?" element is a good suggestion. Verification: As I mentioned in another comment. We added this purely for classifieds to discourage scammers and it naturally became part of the overall design. Based on the feedback, we will get rid of it everywhere but keep it in classifieds for its original purpose. Repeat Questions: When you ask a question it brings up a list of questions that appear to match to show you if it has already been asked. This is often ignored. We have debated this on and off for a while: is it ok to have questions asked again? Our general feeling is that it is. Things change over time and older answers are often not as relevant or don't include contributions by more recent members. FAQs: Despite the above, I still think the idea of having an FAQ-type guide to Seattle is a great idea. Not sure where to integrate it into the design so that it would be visible. But it's something to work on. Thanks. BTW where did I put an apostrophe into FAQs? That needs to be expunged ASAP. Thanks for your great feedback. Charles Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 0 0 Hi Charles - the apostrophe I saw in FAQs is in the Browse Topics preview. Those things always pop out at me. I do appreciate the conversation you've opened up about the redesign. I had another totally random idea: what about adding a WTF button to answers? I don't mean replacing the thumbs down button; it would be in addition to thumbs up and down. I have no idea how hard this would be to implement, or whether this would affect the reputation score. I guess I'm not fond of dichotomies, and sometimes answers are not necessarily bad, they are just not helpful. I'm great at brainstorming but not so good on getting stuff done. As a former amateur web designer I should just shut up now. :) asteria commented 4 months ago | Report 0 0 Thanks for pointing out the apostrophe blooper (how embarrassing). It's fixed. Still struggling with the voting. We are likely to leave it unchanged for now and refine later so it doesn't slow us down too much. Thanks again. Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 3544 Q&A: 50 0 15 2758 514 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 4 kitschnsync

  1 0 Wow, I'm kinda surprised there aren't more "ZOMG YOU CANT CHANGE A THING" posts here. My thoughts about the redesign: - Crowdsourcing the banner is a great idea, but I wonder if people are as willing or able to alter their images as you seem to think they are. You'd have better participation if you lowered the bar. Just take the user-submitted images you like and slap the Qland logo on it yourselves. I know that's the option you present in the end, but you might as well make it the starting point. - I really like the idea of "following" questions. Good questions are thought-provoking, and whether or not they are popular questions is irrelevant to that quality. To me, a question with a lot of followers is de facto a good question. - Regarding downvoting answers: Please don't take this away. It is the way the Qland community as a whole assigns value to an answer. If a completely moronic answer is as good as a great answer to an untrained eye, what is the point of coming here for great information? I don't particularly care about how voting affects reputation. - Why do you give so much real estate to top contributors and experts? I may alone here, but I really don't care enough about that stuff to look at it every time I log in. Put it behind a link for people curious about those stats or seeking validation. The prominent space for top folks also reinforces the popularity contest aspect of voting, which some people feel subdues honest opinion. Thanks for continuing to refine the site. You guys are doing a good job, and those pants make your ass look great. kitschnsync answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report 2 comments by Charles B and Sacrelicious… 0 0 kitschnsync, First, thanks for that feedback about the pants. I spend a lot of time torso-twisting in front of the mirror and I'm glad to see that it isn't time wasted. Banner - I'm sure you are right. Realistically, I don't think we have the bandwidth to spend doing picture manipulation. This whole thing is designed, coded and everything else by the Gnome - alone. I'm here because of my great ass (thanks again) and not because of my Photoshop skills which are non-existent. So, we'll see how it goes. Downvoting - OK. We'll keep it. People - I hear you. But the number of great people (experts and top contributors) on Qland is amazing and largely invisible. I think the new "follow" capabilities may lead people to explore the people on the site and follow them. If they are not prominently visible I don't think that would happen. That said, I agree with the fact that it takes up space and I'd like to see this evolve so that people could more easily create the initial view that they would prefer. Thanks again for taking the time to give us the feedback. Charles Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 1 0 "Wow, I'm kinda surprised there aren't more 'ZOMG YOU CANT CHANGE A THING' posts here." Questionland: Not Facebook. Sacrelicious commented 4 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 1170 Q&A: 21 0 13 527 42 1 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 2 Sphinx

  0 0 Overall, I think the new design looks great! I dig the columns approach to answers/questions- the answers languishing at the bottom of the page have always seemed a little useless. I'm also a big fan of the rotating contributors spotlight- as cool as some of our contributors used to be, they've left us for greener pastures, so seeing some movement up there is cool. I'm also quite excited about the follow option- thanks for delivering! Sacrelicious's suggestion of a question boneyard for unanswered questions that the questioner would still love responses on seems super useful to me, and I'd like to throw in a seconding vote for it. I agree with the general consensus on verification, but that appears to have been dealt with, so I won't spend much time on that. Basically, I don't want facebook having anything to do with my questionland account and I don't think questionland is a place that people necessarily want to be identified as their real world selves (although the vast majority of contributors are appropriate, thoughtful, and not even slightly trollish, which makes verification seem even more unnecessary). I think that our downvote system usually works pretty well. It can be slightly unsettling to be downvoted without explanation, sure, but most of the time I think that downvotes are used sparingly and as a pretty innocuous way of saying "Hey, you're being a jerk, knock it off." I agree that they shouldn't regularly be used just because of disagreement, but in some cases that particular usage of downvotes makes perfect sense. Lots of questions are asked about "good places for x,y,z," "possible solutions to this problem," "advice about dealing with the logistics of the this situation" etc. in which the questioner does not necessarily know how to differentiate a good answer from a bad one- that's why they're asking. Letting the answerers pass judgement on each other helps the questioner sort out bad responses. For example, when someone asks a question about good restaurants in x price range for a visit to Seattle, that person doesn't have the expertise to tell that the answerer telling them to go to Don Eduardo's is giving an answer that the majority of Seattleites would scoff at- unless they can see that every other person who bothered to answer their question downvoted that answer. As far as eliminating voting on questions, I'm all about that. If a question is offensive, spammy, or generally inappropriate for questionland, we have a report link. If people simply think a question is stupid or uninteresting, they can avoid spending their time answering it. And I think that downvotes on questions drive away more people than downvotes on answers, because newbies generally come here to ask questions and wait a bit before they start jumping into answering and commenting. Sphinx answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report 2 comments by Charles B and Black Beetles in Amber… 1 0 Sphinx, Thanks for the great feedback and the thoughtful analysis. I think we are agreed that we should keep the down votes and see whether we can work out a way to provide greater distinctions. A while back someone suggested that down votes pop up a "reason" box which perhaps could let people choose from a few simple options: Disagree / Offensive / Not Useful. I'm not sure how we'd display the result in a way that wasn't overly confusing. But if we could I think it would actually help. I have no problem being down voted but I do like to know why. Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 0 0 "A while back someone suggested that down votes pop up a "reason" box which perhaps could let people choose from a few simple options: Disagree / Offensive / Not Useful." Yeah, sort of like a simplified version of Slashdot's mod system. http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml "Normal -- This is the default setting attached to every comment when you have moderation privileges. Normally, you should not need to actually select this option, but if your mouse slips and you accidentally moderate up or down a comment you didn't mean to, you can undo that mistake by choosing Normal before you hit the "Moderate" button. Offtopic -- A comment which has nothing to do with the story it's linked to (song lyrics, obscene ascii art, comments about another topic entirely) is Offtopic. Flamebait -- Flamebait refers to comments whose sole purpose is to insult and enrage. If someone is not-so-subtly picking a fight (racial insults are a dead giveaway), it's Flamebait. Troll -- A Troll is similar to Flamebait, but slightly more refined. This is a prank comment intended to provoke indignant (or just confused) responses. A Troll might mix up vital facts or otherwise distort reality, to make other readers react with helpful "corrections." Trolling is the online equivalent of intentionally dialing wrong numbers just to waste other people's time. Redundant -- Redundant posts are ones which add no new information, but instead take up space with repeating information either in the Slashdot post, the attached links, or lots of previous comments. For instance, some posters cut and paste otherwise legitimate comments in multiple places in the same discussion; the pasted versions are Redundant. Insightful -- An Insightful statement makes you think, puts a new spin on a given story (or aspect of a story). An analogy you hadn't thought of, or a telling counterexample, are examples of Insightful comments. Interesting -- If you believe a comment to be Interesting (and it's not mostly Redundant, Offtopic, or otherwise lame), it is. Informative -- Often comments add new information to explain the circumstances hinted at by a particular story, fill in "The Other Side" of an argument, provide specifications to a product described too vaguely elsewhere, etc. Such comments are Informative. Funny -- Think of Funny as being a good moderation choice if you actually think the comment is funny, not just because it seems intended to be. Not every knock-knock joke is Funny. Overrated -- Sometimes you'll run into a comment which for whatever reason has been moderated out of proportion -- this probably means several moderators saw it at nearly the same time, thought it was Funny, Insightful etc, and their scores added together exaggerate its relative merit. (A knock-knock joke at +5, Funny) Such a comment is Overrated. It's not knocking the original poster to say so, but it's probably better to spend your mod points on comments which are deserving of being moderated up. Underrated -- Likewise, some comments get smashed lower than they perhaps deserve by overzealous moderators. If you moderate a comment as Underrated, you're saying that it deserves to be read by more people than will see it at its current score. As with Overrated, if you can think of a more specific moderation reason, do so -- if a comment has already been moderated with an appropriate label though, and you just want to indicate that it deserves greater visibility, that's what Underrated is for. However, if a comment is labeled with a fitting (negative) label, choosing Underrated isn't such a great idea, because you could end up with contradictions like "+5, Flamebait." Black Beetles in Amber commented 4 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  0 0 I like the present layout/design of the site. I am a grown up who is not much into cartoons but the cartoon design of the site is 'cool'. The bus layout which was shown above is pretty ordinary (that's just me). The 'follow' button thing is good but i feel the voting up and down system should stay. jack answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report 1 comment by jack… 0 0 design: something like cartoons which are not childish, something that's not ordinary... jack commented 4 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  0 0 It looks nice. Please keep downvoting. protosaurus answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  0 0 LOVE the redesign. I haven't been on here in a while, but I love the proposed features, and maybe a new look would mark a good time to come back. Put me in the "keep downvotes" category, even though I remember how sad they could make me. It's just nice to have a way to say something is bad without having to engage the person in dialogue (gross). Aislinn answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  4 7 I agree that the voting up or down of questions was really odd to begin with, well pointless really. And the voting up or down of answers seemed a bit arbitrary or based on a voters previous experience with the contributor. (i.e. I don't like so and so therefore I vote the question down) The Doctor answered in Feedback 4 months ago | Report 8 comments by Basil, capicola, and Charles B… 4 2 I'm sorry, but the fact that this comment got downvoted so much just made me laugh really hard. Basil commented 4 months ago | Report 1 0 https://www.xkcd.com/917/ capicola commented 4 months ago | Report 0 0 @capicola. tx for that. #deep The Doctor, The down vote issue is obviously a tough one. I don't think that they are all arbitrary by any means. But as I mentioned elsewhere, they are used to express disagreement which is really not their primary purpose. Ideally they would be used to identify poor quality. The down-votes on your answer seem like a good example. You are getting down-voted on this not because of your overall identity, not because there is anything wrong with your answer, but probably because people simply disagree with you. Thanks for the feedback Charles Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report 1 1 I downvoted this answer because of its quality. The Doctor failed to realize that people have all sorts of reasons for downvoting. It's not always arbitrary, or because they dislike the person giving the answer. I don't have anything against The Doctor personally. In other words, I thought this was not a good, quality answer and voted accordingly. I'm sure lots of people use the voting buttons that way. I'm also sure people use them arbitrarily or vindictively, but we are making an omelette here. kitschnsync commented 4 months ago | Report 0 0 What about adding a disagree button then? I think if I had up down and disagree I'd be more apt to use the disagree but rarely hit down except where someones tone or stupidity warranted it. sublevelthree commented 4 months ago | Report 2 1 I like the downvote system. It makes it less of a super-happy, contrived-bullshit arena where we are only ever nice to each other. Sometimes, we all deserve a thumbs down or two. I think people can handle it. Basil commented 4 months ago | Report 0 1 I agree Basil we DO deserve thumbs down!! The Doctor commented 4 months ago | Report 1 0 The down voting has certainly created a spirited debate. Any minute now we should be talking about Nazis... so before that happens let me say what I think we'll do: 1. Leave down voting as is. In the absence of a convincing reason to change it and in light of the general support it seems to have it doesn't make sense to introduce a radical change and eliminate it. 2. Review how it could be refined without making it confusing - too many buttons or too much UI debris. 3. Create a few simple options as time permits and before doing anything solicit feedback on which, if any, would provide better information. The latter 2 are non-trivial undertakings and unlikely to happen anytime soon. I'd prefer to focus on Sacrilicious' boneyard (stumper) than flog the downvoting issue for now. Thanks for the debate. I think it has resulted in the best decision for now. Charles B commented 4 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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