As the subject says this is a question for Messmaster, or anyone else who may already know the answer.

First of all, thank you for all you do for this community. I have been enjoying UMD off and on for close to 20 years!

I am sure this has been considered before, just curious about it though. Why is there a love button (essentially a thumbs up), but no thumbs down?

The reason I ask is, a person may get more thumbs down, or disagreements, over a comment they made As opposed to negative replies. However, When people do actually reply, there is a tendency to be more judgmental and make comments Considered to be hurtful. And then the arguments, back-and-forth can start and someone get offended.

I would think many of those would be avoided with just clicking a thumbs down in disagreement and moving on. If a poster was curious as to why their reply got a thumbs down, they could respond via the notification that a thumbs down was given.

Again, just curious. Thanks

Mo

I personally think this is a really bad idea....

Imagine a member who isn't secure getting a thumbs down, from someone who did it by accident, or just being rude.
Imagine getting a thumbs down on a photo you post !!
Or a link you went to the trouble of finding.
Some People would thumbs down posts if the chairs the wrong colour !

Up with the hearts and positivity and down with the negative thumbs, I say!

LisaMoomin xx

Just what Lisa said.

It's a valid questions, but I think Lisa really nails it. If you take a look around the "Messy Minds" group for instance you'll see there is a lot of depression, illness, and just general hurt here. And this isn't just a case of someone needing to grow "thicker skin". There is a LOT of deep mental wounds and scarring.

Knowing MM as I do, I can tell you he is one of the most positive people I have ever met in my life. I've seen the man upset/angry rarely and when I do, it's always well thought, and then he moves on to something more positive. He respects people opinions and rights to free speech, but he really want this place to be a beacon of positivity, kindness, and friendship.

A thumbs down option seems very contrary to the type of person he is at heart, and the type of environment he wants there to be here.

That's why I love Reddit for open discussion. When someone starts trolling or being a general asshole, you can down-vote them back to the stone age

I'm a big believer in positivity and support, but there are just too many assholes running around on this planet. They need to be called out every time they open their mouth.

Plus one for Lisa's idea.

Regards,

Andy and the team.

^^^ This.

Though how dare you disparage those of us who cherish the purity of the One True Black Chair. Down with green! Down with white!

Somebody, I don't know who, said

"If you can't say something nice, don't say anything"

I'll try to abide more by that too.

I do agree with what Lisa says. In fact I had a sentence that I deleted before posting that essentially said, I really don't necessarily support this idea, I was just curious. I deleted it because I knew some people would say, if you don't agree with it then why the hell did you post it. Again, truly just a curiosity.

The question was brought on because of a reply that someone included on Someone's post. I replied to their reply (hopefully politely) saying I disagreed. That got me thinking that it would just be easier to put a thumbs down to that reply, which got me to thinking about it.

That, in fact, is what led to my curiosity and question. I have made replies that certain things don't do anything for me. I think I do it politely, I hope?? I usually try to include what I do like about the post, to try and keep it from looking like just a negative reply. If there's nothing about the post that I care for, I just move on.

I just get tired of one person saying something rudely in a reply, and then an otherwise good post gets hijacked and turns into a back-and-forth argument where someone usually does get offended.

Thanks to all who have replied so far.

I am sure there are several that wanted to rip me a new one for even Bringing up the subject. For those, I thank you for just moving on.

Perhaps just raising the awareness of negative comments is a good thing?

Yeah, I almost put that in my last post

Thanks for the question, and thanks for being here for 2 decades!


Because the goal is to promote positivity, but for practical reasons. A public downvote generates a lot of resentment. For some reason it hits people MUCH harder than a thumbs-up (I estimate about 4x harder, but that's another conversation). Like Lisa said, it's extremely disheartening to have people do drive-by downvotes on your stuff. Other community members will also see the thumbs down, and the downvote itself will generate FUD and suspicions about who the down-voter is.

For that reason I've tried to be careful about the types of negative feedback I allow people to post publicly. For example, I don't show it anymore when posts have been flagged because that's even too much apparently. I don't even have a 5-star system on most of UMD's content because 1 or 2 stars generates resentment (as many other sites like Youtube also discovered years ago). So those who really have a problem can take the extra 5 seconds to go flag the post, but otherwise it's all love baby.

I actually prefer a public debate with words than a lazy downvote to express empty disapproval. The world is full of people just putting each other down without an honest attempt at a conversation or resolution. Not only do I not want to be part of that, but the overhead of running a community like that is just not sustainable for me.

I appreciate your question and the opportunity to explain this to everyone.
MM

Thanks for the reply, MM!

I totally see where you are coming from, and it makes perfect sense.


To the above, I agree too, I just hate when people cannot express themselves with tearing someone down or swearing constantly. If you feel you must disagree with someone, speak to them as you would want to be spoken to.

If anyone is upset that I brought this up, please feel free to find a mud pit and toss me in!

Thanks again to all.

Mo

Exactly! We should always speak to each other like we would IRL. I always want people to think of this entire site like a house party. You are all guests in my house. I'm DJing. We are all acting silly and having fun, and if somebody acts out of line or is just generally being a fun-sucker, we tell them cut it out. If they can't understand that, we kick them out! But if they do get it, then it's all good and we'll all go get another beer.

So do I! I've never had an internet persona, and always aim for the same tone on here that I'd use if I was talking to someone for real.

Very well put. And THANK YOU for hosting the party, and allowing me to be a part of it.

Mo

Is this horse too dead to beat?

While I understand the desire to have a thumbs down option, I think it's not super necessary because there are other methods that serve the similar function and there's a dark side to the thumbs down.

First, there's the simple ignore. You post something I'm not in to. So I keep browsing.

Then, there's the response. You've upped your game. It's not that I'm just not into what you've posted, but it's wrong, factually, ethically, or just plain a bad idea. There are quite a lot of people on UMD who will not hesitate to politely (or not so much) inform you of the error of your ways.

Finally, there's the big guns. Report and/or block. What you've said is such an offense to good taste, it's based on harmful stereotypes, it's violates the TOS, or some other major infraction, or maybe I'm just super offput by what you've said, the only thing I can do is report and/or block you.

Now, what could the down side to a thumbs down be? It can be a mechanism to bully/harass you.

You don't post too often. But I've decided I don't like you. So I'm going to go through and thumbs down everything you've ever posted. Depending on my settings, you may get notified that someone thumbs downed it, but not who. And no one can see who hearted or thumbs downed your post. So I can, effectively totally anonymously, harass and/or bully you into silence or even off the platform.

I know that sounds super unlikely, but there's been some drama that comes out ever once in a while, and there some folks who, given the opportunity, would do exactly that.

But that's just my thoughts.