Forum Suggestion: 'Disagree With Comment' feature

Bradyfjord

Hello everyone. I searched the forums, and found quite a few old threads on this topic. Every now and then, I see a post or comment that I would like to disagree with by simply tagging it with a button. There are times when to me this is the most logical way to respond to the poster of the comment. I do not think of disagreeing with a post as an attack on a person making the post. I just think it's sometimes useful to say, I disagree. And then move on or elaborate as I wish.

What wasn't discussed was that I think the total disagrees should not be seen by anyone other than the owner of the post or comment.

I think that it would be helpful to the community to be able to 'disagree with comment' from time to time.

Should we have a disagree with comment feature?

P.S. I'm keeping the results private in the spirit of discussion. Let me know in the comments if you agree or disagree with this choice, if you care about this.

Lumsdenml

Can I disagree with this poll?

Blinx

we already see somewhat forum wars going on some heated threads, this would just get abused, so no ty

Northwold

I think when doing a poll you need to stick to the basic answers, not yes (insert poster's own reasoning), no (insert poster's assumed reasoning). Otherwise you end up with an inherently misrepresented result. If people want to explain, they will.

But I don't think a disagree button is a good idea. It doesn't do anything to encourage debate and will actively discourage people from pursuing a line of discussion based on mob reaction. It makes no difference whether the total is public or not.

Bradyfjord

Lumsdenml wrote: »

Can I disagree with this poll?

Of course. That would be the point.

@Blinx I guess it's possible to abuse it somehow. But since no one could see the disagree besides the owner of the post, I'm not sure how. To me (subjectively) it seems good to be able to disagree, and a disagree button would be useful in this regard.

Dagoth_Rac

There is really nothing to say when agreeing with a post. But if you disagree with a post, why not just post a reply explaining why you disagree? There is really only one way to agree with a post but a million ways to disagree with a post. The original poster took the time to write out their thoughts. I think someone wanting to disagree should have to put in same effort.

For example, if someone says that there should be a 1,000,000 gold reward for logging in every day. You disagree. Why? You are worried about inflation? Don't care about inflation but think players should earn gold from in-game content? Don't care about inflation but or earning gold but think the every day requirement is too steep and even most the dedicated players will miss a day here or there? Don't care about any of that, just think gold is a lame generic reward and would prefer a unique mount? Or some other reason? Just disagreeing, even if only seen by original poster, just doesn't seem constructive or helpful without more info.

vsrs_au

If you wish to know who disagrees, you can always turn your OP into a poll. Yes, I know polls can be badly-written, but having a disagree button would have its own disadvantages.

Bradyfjord

@Dagoth_Rac I can appreciate that there are many ways to disagree with a post. I also agree that it would be preferable to explain why someone would disagree. Some people simply want to post, but might hit a disagree button. Just like sometimes there are nuances to a situation where someone might have many reasons to agree with someone, but they might only hit the agree button.

LostHorizon1933

I’m not really sure that the world needs more rancor.

Bradyfjord

LostHorizon1933 wrote: »

I’m not really sure that the world needs more rancor.

Does tapping a disagree button cause rancor? I can only say for myself, but I never felt that way when someone disagreed with me. I can agree that things like this shouldn't be done to cause this feeling, but I'm not sure that having or not having a disagree button will influence the presence of people looking to cause bad feelings in others.

(Copied from Google)
ran·cor
/ˈraNGkər/
noun
bitterness or resentfulness, especially when long-standing.
"he spoke without rancor"

xaraan

Nah. The ESO reddit has this (as a result of how reddit works) and half the time its just used by fanbois to bury anything critical.

They also used to have other options on the forum like that and already got to a point where they decided to eliminate them because of how they were used. So I'd not expect to see them return.

ixthUA

Dislike button is a way to attack someone.
Every forum that had one that i visited, it was used to bully. Dislike wars went on as bad as moderators being dragged in, who banned people for using dislikes.
Real example from youtube (which has/had dislike button): imagine that your video (or forum message) is posted on a different site or discord channel and command is given to dislike it - suddenly a good video or message gets 300 dislikes in a short time.
I did post several of my videos on this forum and they got many dislikes (on youtube) and 1-2 likes. Imagine what will happen if forum users are allowed to dislike messages.

LostHorizon1933

Does tapping a disagree button cause rancor?

About as much as hitting someone with a dictionary.

ArchangelIsraphel

I feel like the agree buttons already hold too much weight as I've seen arguments justified using "I'm right because I have more agrees than you". I don't think we need to add "you're wrong because you have more disagrees" to the equation too.

Bradyfjord

LostHorizon1933 wrote: »

Does tapping a disagree button cause rancor?

About as much as hitting someone with a dictionary.

I have to say. Well played, sir.

NettleCarrier

Yeah no, this doesn't need to be Reddit. We can easily post there if we want to be buried in downvotes lol. Can't even really contest posts too much here without getting edited so there's that I guess.

Bradyfjord

Thank you to everyone that participated in this thread, even if it was only to vote. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the community. ESO really does have a great community.

Without disclosing the details, the poll results were overwhelmingly in favor of the 'no' option. I can accept that. I guess I'll still have to write out thoughtful, longwinded responses.

Have a great day, everyone.

Supreme_Atromancer

Bradyfjord wrote: »

I guess I'll still have to write out thoughtful, longwinded responses.

Yep. I come here for interesting discussion, and to understand people's thoughts. This is the way.

xaraan

Bradyfjord wrote: »

Thank you to everyone that participated in this thread, even if it was only to vote. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the community. ESO really does have a great community.

Without disclosing the details, the poll results were overwhelmingly in favor of the 'no' option. I can accept that. I guess I'll still have to write out thoughtful, longwinded responses.

Have a great day, everyone.

Not to disagree with you if you really want to type a long response, but another option is to ignore a post all together.

I've had posts just not get much attention and die out that sucked a lot more than ones that turned into ten page arguments with people that disagreed. Kind of like that old saying: any press is good press I guess. Sometimes just ignoring a thread and making sure it doesn't get bumped will show more disregard for the post than a response.

Just a thought I wanted to share.

Mythgard1967

sO

@xaraan

I was just hitting insightful on one of your posts and thinking "I wish there was something stronger than Agree of Insightful or I could say both agree and insightful" to indicate that It wasn't just "agree" or "insightful"....

anyhow...that was a digression.....

I probably need to pay close attention to your last paragraph and print it out.....Sometimes I want to just indicate "disagree" and not actually say anything because to say anything would be a bad plan. Your last paragraph though is the much better option.

So uh.....consider this one both agree and insightful as well.

wenchmore420b14_ESO

Bradyfjord wrote: »

Thank you to everyone that participated in this thread, even if it was only to vote. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the community. ESO really does have a great community.

Without disclosing the details, the poll results were overwhelmingly in favor of the 'no' option. I can accept that. I guess I'll still have to write out thoughtful, longwinded responses.

Have a great day, everyone.

I didn't vote. Sorry.
But I know ZoS's answer as at one time we had a "LOL" button, but it got removed.
A disagree button would just open up opportunity for people to grief others.

Danikat

I've used forums with disagree buttons and I never found it particularly helpful. As other people have said it doesn't contribute anything useful to the discussion because it's too vague and open to interpretation. If you post a suggestion and someone says why they disagree you can respond with clarification, suggested changes, a more persuasive argument, whatever might be needed to address their point/s. If literally all you know is that someone, somewhere disagreed with it you can't do that, so the discussion goes no where.

That's true even for seemingly simple suggestion, like the above "I think there should be a 1,000g login reward". Do they disagree because they prefer the current rewards? Because 10,000g is not enough? Too much? Are they worried about the impact on the economy or that players will expect it all the time or what? All of those concerns could be valid, and they all have potential solutions, but without knowing which it is the person making the suggestion can't try to improve on it.

I suppose the argument could be made that it's an easy way to silence trolls - they get to push a button and feel they've done their bit to shut down the person they disagree with, but it's meaningless and virtually invisible and therefore harmless and easily ignored by everyone who is actually involved in the discussion. But even then I think it's better to encourage them to learn to articulate their thoughts if they want to join in a conversation.

Agree buttons can have a similar problem (and again are easily ignored and largely irrelevant) but at least there the simple interpretation is that they agree with absolutely everything the post says and would have said all the same things if they had written their own reply. If that's not accurate that's their problem.

vsrs_au

Danikat wrote: »

I've used forums with disagree buttons and I never found it particularly helpful. As other people have said it doesn't contribute anything useful to the discussion because it's too vague and open to interpretation. If you post a suggestion and someone says why they disagree you can respond with clarification, suggested changes, a more persuasive argument, whatever might be needed to address their point/s. If literally all you know is that someone, somewhere disagreed with it you can't do that, so the discussion goes no where.

That's true even for seemingly simple suggestion, like the above "I think there should be a 1,000g login reward". Do they disagree because they prefer the current rewards? Because 10,000g is not enough? Too much? Are they worried about the impact on the economy or that players will expect it all the time or what? All of those concerns could be valid, and they all have potential solutions, but without knowing which it is the person making the suggestion can't try to improve on it.

I suppose the argument could be made that it's an easy way to silence trolls - they get to push a button and feel they've done their bit to shut down the person they disagree with, but it's meaningless and virtually invisible and therefore harmless and easily ignored by everyone who is actually involved in the discussion. But even then I think it's better to encourage them to learn to articulate their thoughts if they want to join in a conversation.

Agree buttons can have a similar problem (and again are easily ignored and largely irrelevant) but at least there the simple interpretation is that they agree with absolutely everything the post says and would have said all the same things if they had written their own reply. If that's not accurate that's their problem.

I agree with all you said except for your last paragraph The agree button has the same defect as a disagree button: when it's used, it's *not* clear whether the person who used the button agrees with everything in your post.

dem0n1k

This forum used to have a 'LOL' button for posts... & that was removed because posters thought they were being trolled with it ..... LOL !

Tommy_The_Gun

There is... you just don't hit "Agree"

Jokes aside, the reason why it is not a "thing" is probably some kind of policy or something. So that people with different opinion would not get "review bombed" etc.

xXSilverDragonXx

You actually think having a disagree button is a good idea?
Reasons why it is not a good idea:

1) can come across as hostile
2) tips the environment toward more confrontational by the very nature of what it is
3) probably would trigger a whole bunch of folks. I mean, we've seen all sorts of threads tip toward trolling, baiting, and attacking without a disagree button. Do we need to irk people anymore? Probably not.
4) literally adds nothing useful other than an 'I don't like your comment or opinion'. So if you don't like it, ignore it.

Bradyfjord

Well, I personally don't mind getting disagreed with, either in text or with a button. But I see that the consensus is that it is a bad idea. Which I am personally okay with also.

But I'm one of those people that directly addresses dissent in a situation as a positive thing to be listened to. And we still have our posts for that, so I'll use that when I feel the need to share with a poster that I disagree with them. So maybe I'm just wired a little differently because it's a positive thing to disagree, as long as it is civil.

proprio.meb16_ESO

Absolutely not.

It will just enhance bitter reactions and extremise everything.
Users uncapable or unwilling to relate to others will just ignore the number of negative or even feel a martyr and get on worse than before.
Sensible users could get intimidated or even feel threatened by it and decide not to contribute to a discussion.

It has absolutely no usage unless you need a tool to stop someone from talking. Thats just the moderator's job.

DreamyLu

I would like to be able to click disagree on posts, the same way I can click that I agree. For me personally, it's somewhat logic: why can I say that I agree on something and not that I disagree on another? So I voted yes.

Dojohoda

I voted other because I can't be trusted with this decision.

Frogmother

No for two reasons

1. It would be abused
2. Today too many people can't handle critique, even something like a dislike could be enough