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Comment Voting: Back, Modified Comment Count

Brian

09aafa37dd14701cfd302eb8963d1e1c0faa5119d60e2671eea5f13620231492[1]

Hello. Comment voting is back. As as often the case with these things, I just had to do something entirely different to get it to work. Once I modified the approach it was easy, which… computers, man.

The graying out and highlighting are still a work in progress, but we have restored the status quo ante bellum, pre-slashcomments. I'll probably move the voting thing to the right, but I figured I'd let people get a grasp on the new/old status quo before making further changes.

The system:

You need 100 points to vote and start threads. As per before. No change there.

Upvoting is free and provides two points to the upvoted user. Someone posted something you like. Hurray!

Downvoting costs a point and subtracts a point from the downvoted user. Finally: something to spend your points on. It costs a point to downvote a guy in an effort to mitigate the echo-chamber effect; downvoting is not supposed to be disagreement. It also hurts the downvoted user less than upvoting helps him an effort to only excise folks who get more than two-thirds of the site on their bad side. If this is you… I cannot help you.

THERE IS NO LIMIT. bwahahahahahaha (there should probably be a limit. working on that.)

Comments

justingoblue

December 11th, 2013 at 4:12 PM ^

Can you scale the comment box color to how upvoted/downvoted the comment is? Start at some neutral color and work towards red and blue or something? No idea how feasible this is or anything, just a thought.

Joined: 11/16/2010

MGoPoints: 29741

Daniel

December 11th, 2013 at 4:16 PM ^

show up based on a threshold. Since downvotes are costly, a post with a below-zero point total is probably not all that worthwhile, and you could set it at -2 or -3 to counteract occasional accidental downvotes and squabbles. That way you'd have a very good chance of not seeing the worst posts.

Joined: 11/26/2011

MGoPoints: 958

Lost in Champaign

December 11th, 2013 at 4:44 PM ^

As someone who mainly lurks, might I suggest getting rid of the feature where you automatically get 1 point for each post. I've see a lot of "new" posters quickly make a bunch of relatively useless posts just to hit that 100-point total to start making questionable threads that inevitably get taken down.

Making the point totals purely a factor of up/down voting would make that 100-point total mean a whole lot more and would probably reduce quite a bit of the bad threads that get taken down anyway.

Joined: 11/12/2012

MGoPoints: 87

ScruffyTheJanitor

December 11th, 2013 at 4:13 PM ^

You, sir, are intelligent and I enjoy everything about your blog and appreciate this improvemnt upon the interactivity of the message boards, which is a vital component of this site's enjoyment. 

 

 

 

Joined: 02/03/2011

MGoPoints: 12197

reshp1

December 11th, 2013 at 4:21 PM ^

I like the part that it costs something to downvote.

Another idea I've been thinking of pitching is having a new user's first 10 posts or so be moderator approved before posting to the board. It'll cut down on repeat offenders that make new accounts and help set a standard for conduct for legitimate new users. The downside is it adds work load to mods.

Joined: 10/31/2011

MGoPoints: 34177

justingoblue

December 11th, 2013 at 4:29 PM ^

At Eleven Warriors they have (had? only commented there 2-3 times) a system where a username needs approval. Doing something like username/first comment would be a reasonable amount of protection without taking the workload off the charts.

I also think it should be a little like registering to vote, where you can't just make a new account the day of a football game, maybe extend the rule to a few hours around basketball games and the bigger hockey games, NSD, ect.

Joined: 11/16/2010

MGoPoints: 29741

reshp1

December 11th, 2013 at 5:06 PM ^

Yeah, that would work too. I have no idea how much work mod pre-approving posts is, so mods should definitely decide that.

 

One other quibble. Looks like you can up-vote your own posts, which somewhat negates the "cost" of the downvotes.

Joined: 10/31/2011

MGoPoints: 34177

Sobinator

December 11th, 2013 at 4:15 PM ^

Thank you

thank you

thank you

I've been around here lurking forever and occasionally posing.  This site has increased my football IQ a ton with all the insightful posters.  I visit here multiple times a day, and it's really the only place to gain knowledge about UofM. The last six months have been brutal as the place has been infested by garbage, making the mgoboard almost impssible to read or gain any insight. 

I hope this will help restore Mgoblog.

Joined: 05/10/2009

MGoPoints: 265

Skapanza

December 11th, 2013 at 4:16 PM ^

Hooray! As someone who doesn;t comment much on things and mostly reads content, I look forward to getting to hear more about football, basketball, and hockey, and less about asshole message board troglodytes.

Joined: 07/10/2008

MGoPoints: 2591

cjm

December 11th, 2013 at 4:20 PM ^

I'm fine with or without limits but curious as to what purpose a limit might serve? Whatever it is, I'm far from it so doesn't effect me.

Joined: 11/17/2008

MGoPoints: 5611

G. Gulo of the Dale

December 11th, 2013 at 8:14 PM ^

So, as more of a lurker than a poster, I don't mind not being able to vote.  What's strange is that I can't even see the effects of voting at all.  Everything looks like it has for the past however many months, rather than how it looked under the earlier system where I could at least see whether posts had been negged or showered with favor.  Is this how it is for you??

Reading these threads after the reinstallment of voting has been like being at a party in which I'm the only sober person.  Everybody else is having a blast and finding everything funny, and I'm in an alternate universe.

Joined: 04/01/2013

MGoPoints: 6757