No longer able to thank Feedback posts?

Boston

Now I know there's an undercurrent of abuse with the thanking system but I don't really see the reason why it should be removed from this forum anymore then say politics or after hours. In Helpdesk you're average pleb isn't meant to have input so it's fairly reasonable that thanking is removed, but that isn't the case here.

My name is URL

It's probably to avoid dissent on sensitive topics. Wouldn't be my choice but I'm sure staff discussed it and concluded that it would be best for the forum

Imposter

I'm guessing it's as a result of the poker debacle of the last few days and the perceived notion of bullying (rightly or wrongly) in feedback threads.

Surely feedback is intended as a place for people to air the different viewpoints rather than a type of voting system or as a popularity contest? I personally think it makes sense for the feature to be disabled in this forum.

stovelid

Possibly to stop some of the pics/my-10th-post threads sneaking back into feedback.

BuffyBot

It's been disabled on Feedback

eagle eye

Bad idea, cue much larger feedback threads or is that what you want?

Boston

If thanking is just a popularity contest, why is it enabled anywhere?

K-9

Boston wrote: »

If thanking is just a popularity contest, why is it enabled anywhere?

+1*

*to avoid +1 type posts.

Tom Dunne

Boston wrote: »

If thanking is just a popularity contest, why is it enabled anywhere?

I think it is because of the contentious nature of some of the Feedback threads.

In here, as things tend to get quite hot and heavy, giving thanks could be interpreted as giving the two-fingers to an opposing view, thus further inflaming the situation.

Wibbs

Boston wrote: »

If thanking is just a popularity contest, why is it enabled anywhere?

Maybe because Feedback shouldn't be a popularity contest? It's not enabled in Helpdesk either. It is all too easy to just click thanks, rather than actually put your money where your mouse is and posit hopefully a cogent response in support of another user.

My take anyway.

javaboy

Wibbs wrote: »

It is all too easy to just click thanks, rather than actually put your money where your mouse is and posit hopefully a cogent response in support of another user.

Why post a cogent response in support of another user? I can see why that would be desirable when disagreeing with a user but if the first person has said everything you wanted to say and you agree with them, what's the point of adding another post?

We all talk about the signal to noise ratio of threads especially feedback threads. Surely extra posts simply agreeing with each other when there is (was) a perfectly good system in place to stop that is only going to reduce that ratio. As it is too many feedback threads run to 10 or 20 pages and it is very hard to pick out the important parts. I can only see this making that worse.

Dades

Thanks from: Dades


* That's for javaboy's post. +1 for bring back "thanks"!

K-9

javaboy wrote: »

Why post a cogent response in support of another user? I can see why that would be desirable when disagreeing with a user but if the first person has said everything you wanted to say and you agree with them, what's the point of adding another post?

We all talk about the signal to noise ratio of threads especially feedback threads. Surely extra posts simply agreeing with each other when there is (was) a perfectly good system in place to stop that is only going to reduce that ratio. As it is too many feedback threads run to 10 or 20 pages and it is very hard to pick out the important parts. I can only see this making that worse.

Looked for Thanks button there.

Good point on the signal to noise ratio.

Kiera

Dades wrote: »

Thanks from: Dades


* That's for javaboy's post. +1 for bring back "thanks"!

Ah ha! And thats another thing. Its only going to be replaced with +1.

Posts will get pretty repetitive with people trying to show their support on a topic.

Wibbs

Oh no I do see your point. I did say cogent posting though. There's little enough of that when things get heated and I also suspect some posters who may have something to say may be intimidated by a previous possibly well known and popular poster getting a rake of thanks, even if they may be wrong in that case. I've heard of that before, though it can go both ways too of course. I meant it's all to easy to click thanks and run away. More personalities get involved without giving their actual well thought out opinion.

Wibbs

Well the other option is to maybe just keep feedback tighter on more contentious subjects?

If thanks is switched off then I would say run with that and disallow +1 etc

It's all a part of the process innit?

javaboy

Wibbs wrote: »

Oh no I do see your point. I did say cogent posting though. There's little enough of that when things get heated and I also suspect some posters who may have something to say may be intimidated by a previous possibly well known and popular poster getting a rake of thanks, even if they may be wrong in that case. I've heard of that before, though it can go both ways too of course. I meant it's all to easy to click thanks and run away. More personalities get involved without giving their actual well thought out opinion.

Fair point but if even half of those thanks were translated into posts instead I imagine that would be at least as intimidating if not more so. We can't wrap people up in cotton wool.

javaboy

Wibbs wrote: »

Well the other option is to maybe just keep feedback tighter on more contentious subjects?

If thanks is switched off then I would say run with that and disallow +1 etc

It's all a part of the process innit?

Then you'll just have people writing more verbose "+1"s e.g. "I agree with this post"/"Good point" etc. Do you disallow those too? I imagine that would be quite a contentious step to take on the forum designated for Feedback.

Ass

Remove thanks from all other boards.

turgon

I think some people like Ross who post here on technical issues, and those who give technical feedback like the Almighty Cushion deserved to be thanked.

Saibh

If a post expressed the opinion of what a few other posters agreed on, I think it would be better to have thanks option instead of filling the thread full of "+1" and "I agree".

My name is URL

Saibh wrote: »

If a post expressed the opinion of what a few other posters agreed on, I think it would be better to have thanks option instead of filling the thread full of "+1" and "I agree".

+1

nesf

Boston wrote: »

If thanking is just a popularity contest, why is it enabled anywhere?

It works well on some forums, in Politics you're more likely to see good contributions thanked rather than popularity contest type stuff.

Ass

My name is URL wrote: »

+1

-10^3289612361912638122

Earthhorse

I agree with javaboy's initial response to Wibbs, Wibb's response to that response, javaboy's acknowldegement that it was a good point (though I disagree that we cannot wrap people up in cotton wool) and also javaboy's last post on this page in response to Wibb's first post at the top of the page, all of which is more difficult to express thanks to the removal of Thanks from Feedback.

turgon

Earthhorse wrote: »

I agree with javaboy's initial response to Wibbs, Wibb's response to that response, javaboy's acknowldegement that it was a good point (though I disagree that we cannot wrap people up in cotton wool) and also javaboy's last post on this page in response to Wibb's first post at the top of the page, all of which is more difficult to express thanks to the removal of Thanks from Feedback.

You could at least have made 5 posts out of that. At least.

+1 to nesf, when used well thanks is a good tool. In Af however it is merely a method by which people suck up to each other and, more importantly, the mods. I mean the amount of mod sucking up in AH just takes the biscuit. They merely have to appear to be thanked.

Jonathan

javaboy wrote: »

Why post a cogent response in support of another user? I can see why that would be desirable when disagreeing with a user but if the first person has said everything you wanted to say and you agree with them, what's the point of adding another post?

We all talk about the signal to noise ratio of threads especially feedback threads. Surely extra posts simply agreeing with each other when there is (was) a perfectly good system in place to stop that is only going to reduce that ratio. As it is too many feedback threads run to 10 or 20 pages and it is very hard to pick out the important parts. I can only see this making that worse.

+1

eVeNtInE

This post has been deleted.

Trojan

Good question. What ways do you guys interpret "Thanks" when you see it?

Simply at face value "Thanks for posting that"?

Or as "I agree with everything that poster said style" ("+1").

Or maybe as "I agree with something but not necessarily everything that poster said".

Do you agree that it can be used in bullying? Can thanking a post be bullying or abuse?

Can it be ironic? I.e. if I thank something that is the complete opposite of what I think - e.g. someone thanks another poster for posting something that earns them a ban. They're thanking the post ironically as they're happy it got the user banned, but folks might think they're agreeing with the spirit of original post.

Feedback is an often emotive forum and there are many ways to interpret and mis-interpret Thanks. Personally I think it's probably a good idea to have it turned off in here - but we're happy to listen to anyone who can defend the opposite argument logically.

javaboy

Trojan wrote: »

Good question. What ways do you guys interpret "Thanks" when you see it?

Simply at face value "Thanks for posting that"?

Or as "I agree with everything that poster said style" ("+1").

Or maybe as "I agree with something but not necessarily everything that poster said".

All three. And more. I've also thanked people in threads who I vehemently disagreed with but are willing to engage in debate.

Do you agree that it can be used in bullying? Can thanking a post be bullying or abuse?

Yes of course it can. As can PMs, posts, threads, signatures, avatars, custom tags, locations and just about every feature on this site. I know with thanks there is more ambiguity as to whether there's bullying going on than say with posts but on principle, I don't think bullying is reason enough to get rid of them unless its endemic which I don't believe it is.

Can it be ironic? I.e. if I thank something that is the complete opposite of what I think - e.g. someone thanks another poster for posting something that earns them a ban. They're thanking the post ironically as they're happy it got the user banned, but folks might think they're agreeing with the spirit of original post.

Is that an issue? Because if that's an issue, we'll have to stop people using sarcasm too.

Feedback is an often emotive forum and there are many ways to interpret and mis-interpret Thanks. Personally I think it's probably a good idea to have it turned off in here - but we're happy to listen to anyone who can defend the opposite argument logically.

Thanks. (pun unintended)

Earthhorse

Trojan wrote: »

Feedback is an often emotive forum and there are many ways to interpret and mis-interpret Thanks.

There are many emotive forums on boards, the only difference is that in Feedback we might expect some resolution to be reached when a topic is discussed; no one actually thinks that Humanities is going to produce an answer to the abortion debate, nor Politics one to the issue of bad governance.

Given this, the question then becomes whether the ambiguity inherent in the use of the Thanks feature hinders more than it helps us in reaching such resolutions. On balance, I would say it helps more. It's easy to convey to a user whether their position is agreed with, by thanking it, or disagreed with, by thanking a post opposed to it.

Although Thanks can be used in the contrary ways outlined in your post I would argue that this is the exception rather than the rule and that usually such use is transparent.

Removing Thanks will prevent people from abusing a feature in the manner you describe, that's certain. Will it prevent people from engaging in the same behaviour (bullying or agreeing with people ironically)? No. Will it stop accusations of cliques, mod factions and so forth? No. Indeed, if I recall correctly, such accusations predate the feature in question.