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• Reputation: 1892 Q&A: 26 0 27 731 19 24 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 4

  7 1 Apart from the answers already posted, I think a lot of it is just trollishness. Look at the main page right now and you'll see that nearly every question has a single thumbs-down, purely out of of malice. Including my question about organizing a fabric/craft fair. Don't take it personally. A lot of thumbs-down in your account is meaningful. A few here and there is statistical noise. ... (but I don't like it either, so I'll be happy to see that option go away in the new QL redesign!) Sacrelicious answered in Whatever 7 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: 1195 Q&A: 21 0 13 542 42 3 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 2 Sphinx

  6 1 I just went and checked out your hotel question and I'm guessing the reason it garnered thumbs down was because it looked a bit like it could be spam- you post this specific question and then someone pops up and recommends their hotel with a link- questionland gets a lot of spam where people will pop up with new accounts, ask weirdly specific q's, and then answer their own question with another account, advertising some business/service/product with a link. You probably haven't seen this phenomenon because the community responds by thumbs downing/reporting and the mods pull said content down. As you were apparently questioning sincerely, I'm sorry you got thumbs downed, but I don't think people were being malicious, they just don't like feeling like they've been tricked into reading ad copy. There also seems to be a weird effect on qland where once a question/answer/comment already has one thumbs down it lowers other members' inhibitions about thumbs-downing it more...so I wouldn't take it too personally. Also, soon there will be no more thumbing up or down on questions due to qland redesign. Finally, stick around and keep contributing! The more familiar your face/name, the more likely people will be to engage with you, explain their reasoning when rating, and generally give you the benefit of the doubt on content. Sphinx answered in Whatever 7 months ago | Report 8 comments by kitschnsync, MR, and Russ Campbell, NWEBS… 1 1 Dang, you beat me to the punch. kitschnsync commented 7 months ago | Report 1 1 The thing is, I posted this question last night. I got a "thumbs up" without an answer ( I assume that the person is also curious about it, too) Then, a couple of hours later, I got a "thumbs down" from someone without any answer or comment. I just got the "spam answer" today hours AFTER those "thumbs up or down" rating were posted. That got me to post this question. Thank you very much for your comments,Sphinx & kitschnsync. I totally agree with and understand what you say. I figured that the particular question I posted sure could seem like a spam, but I see this sort of thing happens often when the question doesn't sound like a spam or anything illegitimate.. MR commented 7 months ago | Report 4 2 Last night (Wednesday to Thursday) there was a HUGE spate of downvoting of questions and some answers. This morning if you scanned down through the questions listed almost every one had a downvote. I wrote the moderators and noted this apparent anomaly. The answer I got back was that there was someone that registered on the site and then proceeded to downvote willy nilly throughout Qland. They have been suspended and the mods are going to try to back out the votes, but I am unsure of the timeline of that process. It appears this can happen and one person can really reck havoc bouncing around the system clicking randomly on postings. All in all, it is amazing that the voting system works as well as it does. I was targeted one night and had my overall downvote total increase by 20% from just the effect of one person. Russ Campbell, NWEBS commented 7 months ago | Report 2 1 Russ, if you get down-votes on multiple questions or answers at the same time report it to the mods. They can reverse any down-voting that is obviously spiteful. Most of the "top contributors" have experienced this phenomenon. Kip Waddle commented 7 months ago | Report 4 1 Russ, that's nice to know. I take thumbs down more personally than I should, and so now I have something I can use to console myself. *smile* Tracy M commented 7 months ago | Report 0 0 Kip, It was an interesting experience - as I was trying to figure out what of my posts had attracted the downvotes (it appeared to be really old stuff as I was searching through history, but never found a pattern) I would periodically refresh my account page and the number would go up by 2 and 3 downvotes each time. It eventually added up to 20 added negative points in a span of less than maybe 45 minutes (taking me from 99 to 119). I complained that I had been targeted and the mods researched it. The answer that came back was that all of the downvotes had come from one person - a person that logs on infrequently, does not post much text, but votes a lot (both up and down) and that even though I had gotten 20 new downvotes from them that it did not appear I was "targeted", so it was allowed to stand. So be it. My thoughts are that some additional rules are needed. I had some ideas that included that someone who doesn't contribute shouldn't be allowed that privilege to pass such weighty judgement, maybe that the number of downvotes per day be limited, etc. But in the end I am not sure how that would work. Since that time I have refined the thinking to these two points and would like all of you to offer feedback. 1) That there be a time limitation that voting is allowed. It could be short (1-2) months or longer (up to 6 months) but the point is that someone couldn't crawl through someone's posts covering a couple of years of history and sabotage their standings. Favorite answers (Shrooms) could be awarded by the question asker whenever they wanted - no time limitation, but the voting on answers and comments would have a window of availability that would then reflect the community's reaction to that contribution near to the time it was offered (not over a year later). 2) That the ability to downvote should be earned by participation on the forum. Perhaps new registrants would need to show a positive point total at some level (50 or 100 points) before they could wield the ability to downvote. Going through the process of being a contributing member of the community - posting valued responses, etc. could certainly teach someone the importance and weight that passing quick judgement on the contributions of others have.] I was just going to let this go by and not post the above but now that I see every response on these discussions has received one downvote I get the impression someone is trolling on this whole issue, so the discussion needs to continue. Gnome and Elf, are you watching and listening (and noting who is downvoting all of this)? Russ Campbell, NWEBS commented 7 months ago | Report 1 1 Considering the sheer number of users that post/comment, and the usual proportion of silent lurkers to most websites with comment functions, I'm frankly blown away that there are so few upvotes (and downvotes). Rarely does anything get more than 10, and there's easily 100+ regulars here. I hardly think the votes should be worried about much: aren't they just one paltry person's opinion? i.e. For every 1 downvote troll there's apparently 99 silent or upvoting people that still like one's postings. FormerRebelTurnedParentalUnit commented 7 months ago | Report 0 0 Ah, see? the downvote fairy has visited. In no time at all. But 99+ others still love me. :D FormerRebelTurnedParentalUnit commented 7 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: 3564 Q&A: 50 0 15 2779 515 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 4

  5 2 The answer probably is: It varies on a case by case basis. In the case of your Mexico question, I'm guessing somebody thought it looked fishy because you got a response from someone in Mexico plugging their hotel. I've seen you post before, so I didn't doubt the authenticity of your question... But believe me, there have been plenty of occasions on Qland where people set up dummy accounts to provide spammy answers. Other reasons might include: Not liking the tone of a question, the assumptions underlying a question, turned off by bad spelling/punctuation, who knows? The whole point of the thumbs up/down is being able to show how you feel about a question/answer without leaving a comment. Let's not get into melodrama about bullying. Nobody is holding you down and giving you a wedgie here. You are free to leave at any time or protest a thumbs down to your heart's content. Don't let a few thumbs down get to you. IT GETS BETTER, MR! kitschnsync answered in Whatever 7 months ago | Report 3 comments by kitschnsync, MR, and ozchick… 2 1 Also, I fully expect that this answer will garner me some thumbs down without any explanation. I don't care. See how that works? kitschnsync commented 7 months ago | Report 2 1 I thought this question would get me a lot of thumbs downs, too!! but I needed to ask, and basically, I don't really care!! (It gets better!) MR commented 7 months ago | Report 2 1 I feel like I should give you one, K, just for no reason at all! ozchick commented 7 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: 690 Q&A: 19 0 3 340 100 2 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 RacerX

  3 0 please Don't take the thumbs downing so seriously. They don't mean "UR stupid". --I don't think they mean anything other than someone out there -out of thousands of questionland viewers- thought 'i don't think this is a good question'. On Amazon, books you like get bad reviews, on yelp, restaurants -where you're a regular- get 1 star, and some people get away without paying for parking and never get a ticket. The world is unfair, and more importantly -- nothing ever pleases Everybody. I think the thumbsdowns and thumbsups are especially valuable here - because they remind us we're all different and all hold wildly different values and points of view. Diversity rocks, and so does freedom of speech. Even if your (or anyone elses') opinion is WILDLY wrong --to my world view--I still love that we can all share honestly here - it makes questionland that much more valuable, being real, and not inhibited or PC or otherwise limited (ex- real, like IMDB used to be, back in the 90s) RacerX answered in Whatever 7 months ago | Report 1 comment by RacerX… 1 0 and on that hotel thing -- maybe they thought the hotel question should have been answered your self by looking up tripadvisor or yelp, or maybe they hate hotels on principal. who's to say? or maybe your answers have just rubbed them the wrong way once and they're being a seven year old and 'hitting back'. you gotta not worry about it and just blow it off RacerX commented 7 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: 1090 Q&A: 19 0 13 431 51 14 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Moderator Charles B is a moderator on Questionland Seattle Follow Following 4 Charles B

  3 0 MR, Thanks for asking the question. This is exactly the reason we contemplated removing the thumbs down in the redesign. After asking for feedback we have decided to keep it and to enhance it over time. While there was support for removing it, there was also a lot of support for keeping it. The general gist I took away is that the problem is not so much negative feedback as the reason for it. I can tell you some reasons things get thumbed down and maybe you can see which applies in your case.. Sometimes it is pretty clear. Before that let me say that it is a great concern of mine that people feel bullied, rejected, or generally put-off by down votes. I'm sorry it has had that effect on you and we will do our best to try and enhance this after we get the majormredesign out. In the meanwhile if yu suspect someone of malicious down voting (and don't know who it is) I can find out and see if there is a pattern. Just email us at feedback@questionland.com. People have done this before and I have suspended the malicious people and warned others. But down voting is a way to express an opinion and we are loathe to censor opinion. I only do this kind of thing when it is malicious, abusive, senseless, etc. Reasons for down votes: 1. Homework questions. We don't like kids coming here to have someone do their homework. 2. Questions that are so obvious or easy to google that it is insulting. This does not include things you could google but that would take research to discover or where google would provide answers but not value judgements. 3. Non-local questions. Since it is Questionland Seattle there is a tendency to prefer questions about our city. While this might include someone traveling from our city, the more generally it is about somewhere else where Seattleites would have no special knowledge the more likely it is to be down voted.. 4. Philosophical questions. These can be loved or hated. Again, since it is a Seattle site people tend to want to see questions about Seattle or relevant to our issues or things of which we have special knowledge. 5. Bad grammar or spelling. If people can't be bothered to phrase their question properly, many people wonder why others should take the time to give it a considered answer. It is disrespectful. 6. Generally disrespectful. People who answer the questions are providing others with help for no reward other than the act itself. The minimum they/we expect is that others will ask questions with this understanding, with reasonable expectations and will ideally thank people for their efforts.. 7. Disagreement. They simply disagree. 8. Low quality answer. Either it was misleading, not helpful, uninformed, repetitive or something along those lines. 9. Abusive, offensive, trollish, etc. 10. Spam or general unwarranted self promotion. So you can see that there Re many possible reasons and I think this I'd the heart of the problem. We tend to interpret all thumbs down in one way I.e. You are an idiot. Rarely is this the message. So that will be our challenge after we get done with the redesign. It won't be quick so I hope you (and the others that dislike down votes) will bear with us. Thanks Charles Charles B answered in Whatever 7 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 1 One reason is it is easy to do. You can vote on questions without ever leaving the front page. It is a great opportunity for someone who is both mean and lazy. Kip Waddle answered in Whatever 7 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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  2 0 I have the same feelings. I'd love to see the Powers That Be at Questionland do a peek behind the scenes to see just who consistantly gives out negative thumbs down, and who has given the most of them. I think it would be very enlightening...and might highlight the troll. I agree, there should be an effort made to explain, either way, up or down. O my captain answered in Whatever 7 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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  2 1 I've given no-content thumbs-down to especially dumb questions, but I've noticed that someone (or a collection of people) have just been thumbs-downing all threads that seemingly bore them, or are beneath them, or whatever. Don't take it personally. Black Beetles in Amber answered in Whatever 7 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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