Please feel free to speculate on how we could improve the quality of works hosted on our fair site in this discussion page.
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» Abolish The No Vote, Downvote Your Friends, and Other Musings
This is the discussion related to the wiki page Abolish The No Vote, Downvote Your Friends, and Other Musings.
I get the argument, and respect it. What I will take from this is to try and remember to comment on a piece when I no-vote, particularly if I haven't had a chance to explain my vote to the author in chat.
A downvote means, in almost every case, that you feel something shouldn't be on the site. I'm not going to say that just because I didn't vibe with something that it shouldn't be on the site; I'm not an impeccable arbiter of quality or taste, as convenient as it might be if I were. I have biases, pet peeves, and hot buttons just like everyone else.
I respond to this essay by encouraging the comment rather than the downvote - it's what this article is really getting at anyway; explaining your thoughts on a piece is more valuable than ANY manner of vote. I've been watching the ratings on my latest piece climb, and realized that honestly at this point I'd rather have another comment than another 10 upvotes. I don't care if you like it or don't like it as long as you're taking the time to engage with it; that's what we should be encouraging.
I feel very similarly, a good comment is worth infinitely more than any quantity of votes. We have the voting system, as long as that’s in place I hope we can utilize it to maximum effect, thinking critically about that vote and how to dispense it is a first step towards leaving thoughtful comments with that critical thinking.
Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!
As a new author, unexplained downvotes are often incredibly discouraging. Personally, I’m not too focused on the rating of any given page, but I can definitely imagine how another new user might feel seeing downvotes pile on with very few comments.
Looking at the lowest rated pages, most of those are in the double digit negatives with next to no comments besides the deletion vote. Now I know it’s impossible to give actual, thoughtful critique to every coldpost given the sheer number of them but there are plenty of +10 to +30 articles hanging in limbo that could very well use a comment, even if it’s fairly brief.
A vote certainly is more helpful than nothing, but downvotes without an explanation can sometimes discourage a new author from posting again.
The only thing I dislike more than a novote without a comment is a downvote without a comment.
I get you don't like the article, but if you could at the very least explain the parts you didn't like about it, it'd help immensely to produce content that you like.
It's annoying and frankly eyeball roll-inducing.
I agree with you 100% that down votes without commentary aren't constructive in any way, especially to new writers. The unfortunate reality though is that a lot of people either don't have the time or don't care enough to give critique on a skip they don't like. Their only other alternative is to no-vote.
While I don't think that this is necessarily a good thing, it's worth mentioning that the critique forums are there for a reason. New writers shouldn't be making posts until they get their work critiqued on which mostly avoids getting down voted into oblivion to begin with.
Plus, aren't all readers who don't have an account effectively giving a no-vote?
Artist and Prospect Writer. Will draw a skip if interesting enough. (@headlesscentaur)
Darkstuff just quipped to me about a tale of mine:
“Huh. +43, but only two comments. Yours and one other from another member of your contest team.”
Heck, it’s at 100% upvotes. (I’m guessing because if you read that long ass bitch, you liked it enough to upvote.) But I still feel like my baby is being neglected.
As a YouTuber, I spend a lot of time scanning the wiki for stories to read. I remember to vote on some of those, but really it’s only 75% remembering to upvote stories I pick for the channel, and novoting articles that I pass over. I’m one user this essay has convinced to try, at least part of the time, to leave some more comments and critiques when I have the time.
We all have to do our part. With the bragging I do about our community and how you can get good critique and people are interested and, if not perfectly professional, at least the best they can be; we need to foster that.
I'm vowing to leave a comment along with every single downvote I make, from here on out (and also for previous downvotes if their authors prompt me).
I'll try to remember to leave comments for upvotes every now and then, too.
Even if I've seen the original threads, I hadn't expected this. So, yeah, the others above had expressed more eloquently than me my thoughts and I hope that everyone who will read this would try to leave more comments and explanations about their votes !
I would like to provide a sort of counter-point to this. I say sort of because you kind of touch on this point but don't really do anything with it.
I would say that a no-vote is perfectly, completely acceptable, with one caveat; you should leave a comment. I agree, my opinion would be meaningless if I simply no-vote, but if I comment explaining that no-vote, then the issue is gone, isn't it? My opinion is heard, and really, far better heard than a up or downvote with no comment, since it actually gives the author context on the vote, or lack thereof.
I think this essay approaches a quality musing on an interesting topic, but completely misses its own point. This article doesn't make a strong case for or against novoting so much as it makes the case for leaving comments on articles.
There are authors who upvote nearly everything I write, there are authors who downvote nearly everything I write, and I'm sure there are some who novote everything I write. Honestly, their opinions all mean the same to me. Sure, it's nice to see the big number or whatever, but honestly having an article blow up nowadays has about equal parts to do with marketing as it does with the quality of writing. I have articles of similar quality with vastly different ratings due to things that are probably out of my control. Maybe I was higher up on top rated of the month, maybe I posted during a drought, maybe I was in chat a lot and people saw my article on .lc, maybe I got a plug on a podcast or on a discord, maybe somebody recommended my piece to their friends, or maybe I got a front page feature. All of those things have little to do with how good my article is beyond basic competence, but they generally make the ratings much higher.
Honestly I don't pay attention to who votes how after the first week or so of posting a thing. I do track comments from a Listpages module on my author page though, and lemme tell ya, that's where the real money is. You want me to respect your opinion? Leave good comments.
I think that this essay starts to talk about this issue, but then abandons it for perspectives that were no doubt formed when the site was far more niche than it is today. Sure, a downvote from a big name author or a friend might get my attention, but not like a comment would. If someone like Hippo downvotes, upvotes, or novotes my article, that's whatever. It tells me how that author felt about my work in the most basic sense possible, and it gives me literally nothing to work with. On the other hand, if somebody like Hippo left a comment explaining why they feel the way that they do about my article, well that tells me flat out what is going on with my piece. It cuts right through the white noise to tell me, the author, exactly what is up. It shows me what I can fix, what I should remember for the future, and what I did right. Irrespective of how they voted, their good comment was infinitely more helpful. The vote was worthless, but the comment was priceless.
Ultimately, I gave this essay a -1 because it doesn't do what it set out to do at all. It did absolutely nothing to convince me that a novote is worthless and that I should downvote more. What it did was start to make the case for leaving more crit. Hell, the comments here are even more evidence to that point. Nobody left this essay with the intended point: that novotes are worthless.
Nobody left this essay with the intended point: that novotes are worthless.
I'm actually going to have to disagree on this point. The majority of your comment does, in fact, make sense and this essay definitely isn't perfect for that reason.
I feel people aren't thinking much about the effect that more people downvoting more has on the wiki as a whole, and are fixated on the effects of voting/commenting philosophies on individual users. Commenting is great to improve the author, which indirectly improves the amount of quality content on the site (undoubtedly a good thing). But voting is the only way to directly influence what stays on the site, and what doesn't. Therefore, it's the method of quality control with the fastest and most noticeable results.
I'm going to take a slightly different perspective here, and look at the site from the point of view of a reader. A reader who's only here to read good content, and honestly doesn't care about the development of specific authors. If every novote voters cast because they felt 'meh' about a piece of work became a downvote, the amount of mediocre works that survive on the site would be vastly reduced. While the lack of comments wouldn't help the authors, the majority of readers on the site aren't authors, and critical voting would benefit them.
Personally, I did leave this essay feeling that novotes have vastly less value than either binary vote. The focus on this essay is on improving the average writing quality on the site, helping out individual authors is a different topic (which should probably be talked about, but that's largely beside the point).
If every novote voters cast because they felt 'meh' about a piece of work became a downvote, the amount of mediocre works that survive on the site would be vastly reduced.
Point totally granted, but the essay doesn't provide this perspective in nearly as much detail as your comment does.
Rereading the essay, you're totally correct on that point. This piece would definitely be improved by slightly more focus on overall quality control of the wiki, since that is the real, noticeable effect of more critical voting.
I was reminded to post a link to my response essay for breadcrumbs.
Thank you, Roget, for opening up this discussion.
I was, in many ways, a ghost a user. I am the kind of person who reads so much that I browse by recently updated pages. This will be my first comment, vote, and critique:
First, I agree that there is a current lack of ongoing quality control. I'm confident many long time readers can see how some articles, more recently, are weak in many ways. However, there is a tried, true, and statistically validated way to get more community interaction that the SCP wiki does not engage in. That way is to ask for outreach.
Everyone who has watched YouTube will know the phrase "like and subscribe". If the collective of authors and site admins decides to campaign for the critics in the wings, as this article does, we will come. So I propose a deal: I shall do my best as a recovering no-voter. In exchange someone with more influence than I makes more articles that ask for critique and hopefully a call on the mainpage somewhere loud and upfront.
Good luck to us both.
/forum/t-13244289/abolish-the-no-vote-downvote-your-friends-and-other-musings#post-
page revision: 7, last edited: 17 Nov 2020 06:16
