Should -1 voting be removed?

This is an interesting question, and one I think will be relevant for the prairie initiative which has proposed adding votes to issue queues on drupal.org.

I just ran some queries to look at how votes are used. My conclusions:

• The overwhelming majority of vote sums on an item are for 1 positive vote: 6,810. While the count of all items that have a negative score is 2,398
• People seem to vote up far more often than they vote down - there are 1,837 who have a total of their votes less than 0, but only 267 with a total of votes less than -1 while there are 4,654 people who have a positive total vote value and 1,509 with a total greater than 1 (I think excluding those with a total of -1 and 1 helps remove people who just tried the feature once and didn't do anything with it.
• 6,882 individual people have lodged votes, with the most prolific doing over 1,000 votes!

Here's the breakdown of votes:

mysql> select count(1), value from votingapi_cache where tag = 'vud' and function = 'sum' group by value order by value desc;
+----------+-------+
| count(1) | value |
+----------+-------+
|        1 |    43 | 
|        1 |    29 | 
|        1 |    26 | 
|        1 |    25 | 
|        1 |    24 | 
|        1 |    23 | 
|        1 |    21 | 
|        1 |    20 | 
|        2 |    17 | 
|        2 |    16 | 
|        4 |    15 | 
|        8 |    14 | 
|        6 |    13 | 
|        7 |    12 | 
|       10 |    11 | 
|        7 |    10 | 
|       17 |     9 | 
|       25 |     8 | 
|       24 |     7 | 
|       42 |     6 | 
|       74 |     5 | 
|      165 |     4 | 
|      399 |     3 | 
|     1365 |     2 | 
|     6810 |     1 | 
|      744 |     0 | 
|     2086 |    -1 | 
|      211 |    -2 | 
|       55 |    -3 | 
|       20 |    -4 | 
|       13 |    -5 | 
|        4 |    -6 | 
|        2 |    -7 | 
|        3 |    -8 | 
|        1 |    -9 | 
|        1 |   -10 | 
|        1 |   -19 | 
|        1 |   -25 | 
+----------+-------+

Given this data do you change any of your conclusions?

Edited to fix typos and formatting

I think that:
1. There is less people on groups.drupal.org, so we're not going to see the type of usage that we'd possibly get on d.org.
2. Issue queues are rarely the place where someone has to risk 'putting it out there' with a comment, so I think our vote up/down metrics on d.org issue queues would actually be very useful, as we could auto-hide comments with low enough votes like subscribes (until that whole part is fixed of course) or asshat comments that I always seem to get and help us possibly focus on comments of value, which is getting harder and harder to do with longer and bigger issues.

Interesting to see actual data behind this. Like the original poster, I also got the sense this was basically being used to "shun" people posting unpopular opinions, and it's always rubbed me the wrong way.

As one of the most ridiculous examples I can think of, here's a thread where we're discussing the possibility of changing the template for commit messages: http://groups.drupal.org/node/140309 You'll see that dww's comments are rated -1 (this is up from -2 the other day). There is absolutely nothing offensive or mean about his comments or anything at all that would warrant "modding down", other than I guess the people who did this simply disagree with his opinion on the matter. But then rather than simply saying that, they mark his posts as "low quality". Bleh.

I'm also not sure that 6,810 vs. 2,398 represents an "overwhelming majority"; that's still about 25% of people who are voting down comments on the site, which is no small percentage. And they're seemingly doing so either because they're either expressing dissent to someone's opinion or because they're just being mean or who knows what.

We might be better served with a "Like this" button and a "Flag as offensive" button. This would help the best comments naturally float to the top without putting anyone down unnecessarily, and also provide a tool to escalate spam/abuse to admins much more directly. Just a thought.

Thanks for compiling actual data behind this tool's usage though; it's interesting.

I think your interpretation of the vote down as "this is junk" or "this is offensive" is different from how people are using the vote down. When I see it my interpretation is "I disagree." And I think it is extremely useful to be able to say "I disagree" without having to leave a comment.

For example, this comment got something like 50 down votes. It would be harder to follow the conversation if all 50 people commented saying "-1, I disagree."

Two things that I think could help:

1. We add some hover text on the voting arrows. The hover text on the vote up could say "I agree or I like this comment" and the down arrow could show "I disagree or dislike this comment."

2. We add in something like flag abuse so people have a proper way to report something as abuse. This gives people the tools they need to express themselves.

I'm willing to remove the down vote if only because it is contentious. I feel it is a useful part of intense discussions and could be more useful with the above improvements.

I mentioned the prairie initiative and the suggestion to use an up/down mechanism in the issue queue - here's the wireframe and the proposal that references the wireframe.

I would personally give a (vote up) to adding a "report abuse" link and then phasing out the issue queue for most spam reports

For example, this comment got something like 50 down votes. It would be harder to follow the conversation if all 50 people commented saying "-1, I disagree."

A flip-side way of viewing that is 50 people didn't have the balls to tell Kieran to his face that they disagreed with what he had to say, and engage him in a conversation about why. Instead, they were anonymous cowards attacking him behind their little -1 votes.

Yes, please get rid of the vote down functionality. The negative votes on posts in one particular group I'm involved in is adding noise to many conversations about the direction of that community.

Ironically, when voting was introduced I asked for the decision to allow downvoting to be revisited and my comment was immediately downvoted.

Btw, I do recognize some legitimate uses of downvoting. For example, here's a place where it was appropriate: http://groups.drupal.org/node/136294#comment-464979 (for those who can't see that, it's a comment that just says, "Shut. Up.")

That type of comment is pure trolling, and only breaks down discussion. But a "flag as offensive" flag could've just as easily dealt with that as 6 people down-voting it, and probably would've raised the attention of admins so it could be unpublished sooner.

Downvoted posts show up for admins at http://groups.drupal.org/moderator and it's a good dashdboard for finding trolls and well as spammers.

For what it's worth, it was by looking at that page that I realized that the group I'm involved in has a bigger problem than I thought.

And in terms of short-cutting long/heated discussions, the +25 on chx's snarky reply to Kieran's post does just as much to indicate the "mood" of the community as the -25 on Kieran's does. The difference is that one is supporting and boosting up, the other is attacking and tearing down (and in an anonymous, dishonest way).

We should not, IMO, be providing tools for people to attack others on *.d.o, regardless of how unpopular their opinions might be.

A flip-side way of viewing that is 50 people didn't have the balls to tell Kieran to his face that they disagreed with what he had to say, and engage him in a conversation about why. Instead, they were anonymous cowards attacking what he had to say behind their little -1 votes.

Are you presenting this so the argument can be logically complete or because you dislike the fact that they are anonymous? We could just show who made which votes on content. If we did that I would make it something that was widely advertised, allow for cancelling of votes, and make it true for votes from point X forward.

I don't personally view it as a tool for cowards but a simpler and more useful way to say "+1/-1" without having to spam the conversation. I certainly see how it can be abused like that.

I feel like in general on the internet the down vote (in addition to a spam flag) is a useful pattern that we are seeing more commonly. Two examples: the IxDA.org site (based on years of design/review by interaction designers) follows the pattern and the wildly successful StackExchange sites follow the pattern.

I owe the g.d.o community a blog post on the topic and will use that to solicit feedback. I promise to do that this week (or at least this month).

I feel, again, that this is as much about a problem with labeling as it is anything else.

The -25 on Kieran's post isn't (necessarily) about attacking him. I don't view it that way at all. It's about disagreeing with him. Disagreeing by voting a -1 is often more civilized than the responses we see on our site.

Did you read my suggestion about labeling in comment #5? And if so could you respond to those proposals?

I'm presenting it because that seems to be how they seem to be used in practice. Take, for example, the post that actually brought me to this issue: http://groups.drupal.org/node/140679#comment-465124

A guy walks into bikshed thread about what to re-name the LGBTQI group to (presumably because the activity on that node has made it "hot" this week and he came across it from the front page; I'm not really sure). Asks a simple, non-offensive, and perfectly legitimate question. Gets one simple, non-offensive, and perfectly legitimate response back. Plus 4 down-votes.

Did the voters mean their -1 as "This comment is off-topic for this thread"? Did they mean their -1 as "This question offends me on a deeply visceral level because I feel that you are de-legitimizing something that's very important to me"? Did they mean their -1 as "Straight people aren't welcome here, and screw off jackass"? I have absolutely no idea, because there isn't a bit of context, nor is there any identifying information to go ask follow-up questions.

So, if I were that person, I would be left to guess, and would probably jump to conclusions that this is an unwelcoming group that doesn't allow reasonable questions to be asked. I would be offended that my simple, non-offensive, perfectly legitimate question was met, essentially, with "Buzz off and go away." By not just one or two but *four* people (so far). None of whom I can confront to ask "Why?"

If we remove down-voting, then the way to voice dissent is by actually, you know, voicing it. Conversations can happen. Understanding can happen. Hurt feelings can be mended. It's much better for building community.

I don't know that the labels in #5 help much. There is a chasm of difference between "I agree" and "I like," just as there is between "I disagree", and "I don't like." And what you might actually mean is "offensive" or "off-topic" or who even knows...

And regardless of what label you assign to it, that -4 is sitting there next to my picture, and it's telling people that what I just posted isn't as worthy as what other people posted. I don't see how people are going to take it as anything other than an attack.

Marking postponed for now. I think we've sufficiently hashed this out and I'd like to wait for

1. Me to have time to write this up to get broader feedback
2. When I do that I will post into the prairie initiative group asking them why they have a down vote and what, if anything, they plan to do to mitigate the sense that it is an attack instead of discussion

The thread that brought me here is http://groups.drupal.org/node/175234

That entire thread is one giant coordinated trolling effort full of “every basetheme sucks but mine” passive-aggressiveness.

echoZ’s entire comment was:

The roadmap for Zen 7.x-5.x is to provide a responsive layout.

And that got -4 votes. (One good samaritan came in and started adding +1’s to negatively-reviewed comments which is why it's at -3 at the moment.)

You can’t disagree with echoZ on her comment. It’s a statement of fact. So it’s pretty clear what the sentiment of the -1 votes are about. Fanboyism. Trolling. Directed at people who like the Zen theme.

And regardless of what label you assign to it, that -4 is sitting there next to my picture, and it's telling people that what I just posted isn't as worthy as what other people posted. I don't see how people are going to take it as anything other than an attack.

I completely agree.

So, if I were that person, I would be left to guess, and would probably jump to conclusions that this is an unwelcoming group

I’ve been in the Drupal community for a long time and even I felt unwelcome in that responsive basetheme thread. From the poor treatment of Zen supporters, it was clear my opinion wasn't welcome, so I never commented, even though I had a lot to say on the subject. I just hoped the thread would die. But it kept getting comments and would show up in my inbox. I got like 5 about it in the last week and couldn't stand it any longer.

A "minus" should be removed. A "Plus" is still enough to vote for a post you strongly agree with. What John Albin says is a sign that it does have a damaging effect. Let's not wait till people really start leaving the community because their posts have been thrown into minuses and they feel campaigned against.

I agree, the down-vote can't come instead of a "mark as offensive" flag. it is offensive and often miss-used.

I came here via the base theme thread. I'm a themer for non-profits. Webchick's base theme thread is exactly the kind of discussion I need and want as I suss out how to give clients on very tight budgets the most I can. I use different base themes (including Zen) in different contexts, based on their strengths. So, in theory, that base theme thread (http://groups.drupal.org/node/175234) is exactly the kind of helpful discussion I need and want out of the Drupal community.

Until it turns into fanboyism/trolling and passive-aggressive tear-downs. As it so often does. I've been using Drupal extensively since 2006/4.7, and honestly I was hesitant to get more than passive-reader-level involved in the Drupal community at all until a couple years ago. This is in part due to the negativism, the cliquishness, and exclusivity that I perceived in Drupal threads. I feel like the negative voting is a quick, easy, anonymous way to preserve that element. I think a plus vote (vs. neutral/nothing) is great feedback. But as Webchick points out, there's no way to confront or identify the troll/fanboy as there would be if s/he had to put together even a semi-coherent comment.

To build a better community, a more welcoming community, I think it'd be best not to give trolls and fanboys an easy tool to be passive aggressive while remaining totally anonymous. I think + voting is great. + or neutral seems to be a more fair way to capture this quick kind of feedback.

I was just thinking: StackExchange does allow down voting. I am not deeply involved in the StackExchange community enough to have a feel for how often this kind of thing happens, but my colleague is, and he says that he feels it has better community oversight. Here's a link to SE's rules for down-voting, for reference: http://stackoverflow.com/privileges/vote-down

You have a limited number of votes per day — and answer downvotes cost you a tiny bit of reputation on top of that — so use them wisely.

I think that's a key element of the way SE uses downvotes and we're unlikely to have that kind of feature on g.d.o very soon, so I'm increasingly OK with removing down votes.

I'd be interested in seeing the stats in #1 repeated with a distinction between published and unpublished comments. My guess is a large portion of down votes are intended to say "this is spam." That, along with much of "this is inappropriate," aren't really statements that everyone needs to see. They just need to be flagged to moderators and unpublished. So I like the idea of adding a private flag and removing down votes.

The one thing this removes is the "-1 I disagree" statement of down votes. I disagree with what greggles said here:

And I think it is extremely useful to be able to say "I disagree" without having to leave a comment.

As tsvenson said:

Those who have a negative opinion can still do so in a comment, but then they need to formulate and give arguments about why they are negative to it.

I'd go further and say not only that they can disagree in a comment, but that a comment is a much better way to disagree, because it's so important to know why someone disagrees. Without such explanation, it's way too easy to make incorrect assumptions and build up misunderstanding. That's not nearly as important for up votes, because the explanation of agreement is already stated in the original comment.

Even if everyone who currently uses down votes instead leaves a comment with nothing more than "-1 I disagree" (which I don't see as very likely), that's at least an opportunity to follow up and ask for more explanation. I think down votes make it too difficult to pursue understanding of disagreements.

I'd go further and say not only that they can disagree in a comment, but that a comment is a much better way to disagree, because it's so important to know why someone disagrees.

I was in favor of keeping downvoting up until this point in the conversation. This changed my mind because removing downvoting forces *someone* to explain why they disagree, but preserves the ability for others to express disagreement without leaving a comment by +1'ing the comment that expresses your disagreement best.

Another option is to keep -1 voting but display only positive scores. (so that 0 is visually not different from -37)

On a general note: the OP was concerned about chilling effect on 'users who dare to stick out', but come on, d.o & g.d.o discussions normally are more polite and civilized than perhaps 90% or even 95% of "teh interwebs". There might even be the opposite sort of chilling effect - some people may refrain from commenting because "I think this s**t will lead to a major FUBAR but, oh, everyone is so nice here, how do I put it politely? oh well, let's move on."

+1 for removing -1! :)

I often found myself upvoting, obviously without reason (or without good reason), downvoted posts.

Removed.

Since part of the point was to give people a way to flag spam I tried to add a flag for that, but #1611886: dont style all flag links got in the way :(

So, how do people retract their upvote if they wanted to?

Here's an issue on retracting votes in Vote Up/Down: #670258: Allow easier resetting of your vote

To flag spam there should be a separate button. You can "minus" a spam - but it's not getting removed because of that. So minusing a spam was actually useless. There is no good spam control without a few moderators.

Alexei Rayu, until the problem mentioned in #32 is resolved, opening an issue in this GDO queue under the "Spam" component" is the best way to flag spam. We do have moderators watching that queue and deleting spam, moderators who also watched a list of minused comments when that was available. So that wasn't useless.

The 3.x version of Commons is likely to use the D7 Rate module for voting functionality - The long term solution for canceling votes is probably #1185272: Undo/Cancel a vote .

Let's keep further discussion in a new issue.