Why are you here?

[BobbyT]

for starters, we figured out that rating posts was wrong back when only the editors could do so and only positive ratings were possible. That gold star on the teacher's pet forehead is not a good thing in the classroom. There was a couple of books worth of posts on this subject ... it was thoroughly discussed ad nauseum to the last possible scruple of a scruple under a scruple inside of a hidden scruple. It is worth noting that eventually all parties in the discussion - and there were more of those than what posts here in a month - in the end, agreed, that rating posts is a bad idea for a community oriented forum (which the fray was, and so is political jack). This discussion probably lasted 6 months. Then the fray architecture changed and they allowed ratings by posters - positive and negative - and we lobbied to get rid of the negative anyway, because those are really destructive, and management agreed and did away with the negative ratings. All of this was before emoticons.

As for your subjective feelings, you are not alone, you are the norm. We all feel the same way. Even the worst offenders feel the same way. fire fights are just that, they can happen to anyone, just as fire can flare up in anyone's home. I was in the middle of - like ground zero, dead middle of - the worst war that ever happened on the fray. I learned the hard way. After I got torched, burned, fried, skinned alive, toasted, and hung out to dry. I was the one who came up with that motto, " attack the post, not the poster" "kill the argument, not the messenger".

Anyway, from a purely management view, rating posts is a very bad idea in a community oriented forum. If you gave me an emoticon that said "stupid" I would abuse it to high heaven. You are a fool if you think otherwise, don't enable me, I will firebomb the whole forum, anyone would. That's not to say we should do away with emoticons, just the ones that rate posts. I think we should have 500 emoticons, at least, the more tools, the better we can post, but we should do away with rating posts.

Interesting story, sounds like the fray would have been fun to experience. I can't imagine what an editor-provided gold star to any member would do to this board. Gadzooks, that would be all out war.

I wouldn't abuse any ratings or emoticons. First, I don't use emoticons unless they're translated for me when I use the old fashioned way, like ;-), and I see the use of negative ratings or emoticons (or cartoons) as an admission of an inability to formulate a coherent argument. My dad always said that cussing was the last refuge of the unintelligent. Negative ratings are the Internet equivalent of cussing.

I don't disagree with you that using negative ratings can be destructive. I just think it's destructive because it eliminates discussion on what should be a discussion board.

 

[Days]

I don't disagree with you that using negative ratings can be destructive. I just think it's destructive because it eliminates discussion on what should be a discussion board.

exactly...

... and it leads to fire fights.

On a whole, as a general rule... because humans are emotional and defensive by nature.

There's only two solutions to stop the wars:

• Eliminate the posters
• or eliminate what starts the war between posters

We all think that we are the reasonable poster. What we don't realize is... we are. It isn't the poster involved, it is the nature of humans. It is like any social disease... anyone can come into contact with it, anyone can catch the disease. We won't eliminate the disease by blaming those who have it, we have to treat the disease, stop the disease, the humans can heal, and the humans that do heal and go on posting, can help us understand the disease. I'm one of those who had it bad, real bad, so I know, this thing is beatable if we treat it like a disease and cure the forum ..... instead of tearing it down, to get rid of the fire.