1. Truth, is that negative affects us more than positive. Either in life or in a game. Just because an idea has a lot of supports, it will at least cause you to read it and you can form your own opinion without being affected by the votes. But once there are negative votes, you might not even bother because the negative will always outweigh the positive. Think about a site that has votes on it about safety for example. Many might vote ‘unsafe’ because they don’t like the site, because they truly had bad experience or simply don’t care. There can be two times as many ‘safe’ votes, you will still be very careful, and even avoid the site altogether. But just because a site has a lot of ‘safe’ votes and no ‘unsafe’ votes will not affect your experience at all.
Negative simply naturally affects us more.

2. Again, positive votes don’t affect your opinion much if at all. However, I know a lot of people who have a lot of enemies on this site. There is not just one or two bullies around. There are a ton of people who simply don’t care and just want to laugh at the expense of others, feeling that power was put in their paws to make someone feel bad about the many negative votes.

3. There is a constant flow of people. Everyone reads the ideas who frequent the Game Development section. It is impossible to assume that an idea doesn’t get so much supports like the others because it wasn’t seen as many times. That scenario is impossible. Also, this is why we have the bump feature if you are afraid that not enough people saw it.

4. Again, if someone doesn’t want to leave a comment because they have anxiety, then by all means they should simply not support and leave the idea be. One less support for the idea. In no way are they forced to give their opinion. Life is not less harsh. If you don’t give your opinion, you will be simply ignored when it comes to a decision. Voting system or not.

5. Nobody is singling out anyone here. If you don’t want to support an idea, then comment or simply don’t press the support buttons. If you add a ‘no support’ button, then there are no useful comments, period.

6. Objection. Ever since the Support button was implemented less and less people comment on an idea. Now the only comments are basically those that was to put to the idea or don’t support an idea. Before the support button an idea had paged and pages of comments. Buttons bring less communication. Especially when that communication would be needed.

7. Again, objection. Indeed if you support an idea it means you agree to the very first post. That would be a repeating monotonous posting flood if everyone would just go ‘support’, ‘agree’, ‘well duh’. However, many times people don’t support because they simply don’t want to give it more thoughts, they don’t care, they don’t understand. However, a good talk with the OP can change views. You give them advice, you point out where you agree. A press of a button will tell the developers absolutely nothing. You cease communication altogether, the OP gets depressed and clueless as to why they have so many ‘No supports’. Again, negative votes affect people way more than positive ones. You get pessimist when you go and decide to read an idea with 300 ‘No supports’ but will be not affected if you read an idea that has 300 supports.

You wont go asking yourself why people support your idea. But it can cause a lot of bad feelings and cluelessness if people begin voting negatively and you just dont know why but you want to know. And you cant even ask because these people dont comment and you dont know who they are. You are left in the dark.

It is a natural defense mechanism in our mind. Hence why negativity affects us more.

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1. "Just because an idea has a lot of supports, it will at least cause you to read it and you can form your own opinion without being affected by the votes."
See, I really don't get this part, so I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding. You seem to be implying people don't just click the "I support!" button with out reading? How does a "No support" button make someone automaticly not want to read? If they didn't want to, they wouldn't. They might give a vote or two, but ultimately, you said it yourself. The devs will look at the comments; this is just something that will let other users feel a little bit "safer" about showing why they don't support an idea.

Even if negative votes had an impact on everyone's judgement, the comments would still be viewed for feedback. The "I don't support!" button isn't intended to be viewed in stead of the comments, and would not prevent comments from being made.

2. Okay, lets have it your way. Lets say, for now, that positive votes don't affect your opinion at all. For the sake of this point, lets also say "no support" votes impaired everyone's judgement (not saying this is your beleif, just making a point). Why are people not reporting these apparent bullies? You keep mentioning bullying, and all I can think about is "why the hell aren't they contacting moderators?"

On the subject of people feeling bad about negative votes... Why not hide positive ones from everyone but the dev's then? I'm sure some people feel bad when they see another suggestion recieving more votes than theirs, because someone happens to have a bunch of friends who'd vote for them.

Why not just make sure the "support"/"no support" buttons are the only things visible? The devs still get to see how people judge something, and people still get to keep their anonimity with out anyone getting hurt.

You keep talking about the abusive aspects of this, but lets say someone has 20 enemies. Lets say all of those 20 enemies have double accounts. That's 40 negative votes. It looks like a big number now, but if this was a desired feature, it would also collect more positive votes over time too. Since voting is "permanent", other people would be more reluctant to press the "I disagree" button in the first place. You might click no support, but if the idea changes, it could become one you appreciate. It would be something to be more careful with. While not everyone will be, that's the risk of getting an idea. There will always be people who dislike it. Clicking "No support" isn't a personal attack. It just means "I'm not interested, lets do something else".

If someone is viewing it as a personal attack, then I'd say that's on their end. When you make a post in a public forum, you expect to see people agreeing and disagreeing with you. And if one persons ideas get a lot of positive feedback in comments but consistently a lot of negative votes, all the mods need to do is see which accounts are voting. If they're focused ONLY on voting against one or two users, obviously, action should be taken against them.


3. Yes, but again, there is a difference between being neutral and disliking an idea, and people don't have the option to do the second with out exposing themselves to fire. While it's true that many people visit and might give threads a read, it's still unclear whether they're of neutral standing or against the idea. You could say all it takes is a single post to say why you don't support someone, but social disorders and just a desire to stay away from potential arguments can chase people away from posting, particularly if they see a lot of individuals supporting the idea.


4. I'm repeating myself quite a bit here, but again... Not clicking support makes them neutral, at best. It doesn't show that they dislike the idea, which is the desired result of this button.

Using your logic, if someone gets hurt by seeing bad votes, they should not post an idea in the first place. Hey, it's their anxiety, in no way are they forced to give their opinion here for us to review.

And if votes don't matter, why not remove them at all? Why not remove the "I support" button too, and force everyone to be on eaqual grounds? Because this is unfair to one side.

5. People are getting singled out because they're not getting the same choice as others. They're being ignored, you said it yourself, and that's not okay. The idea that a simple button is going to remove all communication on this board seems a little silly, honestly, and I see no reason to claim that as "fact". The "support" button hasn't stopped people from expressing their support, so there's no reason the "no support" one would end discussion.

6. Honestly, there seems to be a decent amount od discussion on the board. Even if it's less than presumably was here, the feedback is still consistent and useful. If you feel one thread doesn't have enough of it, why not go there and provide some yourself? Again, the support button hasn't ended *all* discussion, it just cut away the redudant "I support/don't support" that would be written out with no reason listed. To me, those comments are spam in general. If someone wanted to speak, they'd do so with or with out the button around. If they're not doing so now, obviously, it's because they don't want to.

7. You say comments like 'support', 'agree', and 'well duh' are redudant... but seeing 'i don't like this', 'uh no', 'no support' is just as useless and gives the devs just as little idea on what's going on. Being honest, comments of that nature are useless. Isn't that the very point of the button? Cutting away that spam so that real discussion can be seen with out it.

And I disagree heavily. Why would you not ask yourself why those supporting do enjoy your idea? Would you not want to know if you're being understood? If your message came out right? If people have any suggestions to add to improve the idea? Honestly, I'd be more dissappointed to see a bunch of good votes and no comments on my thread, than a bunch of bad votes and no comments. The bad votes simply tell me I need to rethink my idea and try to figure out a better way to go through with it. The good votes tell me nothing. People like the idea, but do they understand it, and why do they like it? And if I change any part of it, will they still like it? Or will they think it turned out worse?

Being clueless is not plesant regardless of which side you're on. But I will say making the guess that a button, one button, would end all discussion, seems a little far fetched.

And if you're that worried about people being hurt, why not just implement a system where no one except for the devs can see the votes? The OP can only know what is posted in their thread, and can continue bumping to get more support leaning to either side.

Most importantly, the thing you don't seem to notice is that people who make comments refusing OP's idea get as much (if not more) negativity when they attempt to make a comment on a thread a lot of people like. For example, a lot of people liked the "killing lioness" idea; but it seemed a lot of people had valid points on it that were downright ignored.

(And I'm not using this to attack the idea, I like the feature myself. I just don't like the fact a group of people "jumps" when one makes a comment, and I feel that's why a lot of people were too scared to add their own imput in such an active thread.)

To conclude my post:
I feel you're too worried about "what if" situations, and don't pay mind to the ones currently around. You're basicly saying that someone's opinion shouldn't be heard if they have anxiety, because the OP's anxiety is more important than their own.

If you feel the "no support" button is a bad choice, isn't it better to remove votes entirely? It forces discussion on both sides, and leaves no side unattended. ifthe devs only read comments, why is the voting even here? It's unfair to one side.

You say it's not "isolating" anyone, but that's exactly what it is doing. It's giving an unfair advantage to one side, because no matter how bad an idea is, they can go "Hey, look, 12 people supported this. Who are you to butt in?"

Yes, there are people who'd ignore that alltogether, but you said it yourself, negativity can affect people. If people see 3 suporters, and then one non-supporter posting, the other non-supporters wont be as likely to post. Why? Because they see these three are tearing at this person, and they don't want that kind of heat.

If you want to make things fair and include everyone eaqually, then there's a few options. Remove the "support" button, add a "don't support" button, or add a "don't support" button and hide the votes entirely from the userbase.

The current way of doing things is unfair.
It places the anxiety of one member above those of others.
This isn't okay, and if we're looking to create an environment where people don't get hurt, then we need to treat everyone the same way.

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Main point:
Negative affects people more. Positive, less or not at all. If you give someone an article that has bad votes, you will already consider it bad. If you give someone an article that has only good votes, you read it without judgment and will judge it yourself.

What is better?
If people read an idea with already a bad judgment or if they read it with a good one or none at all?

The key is the absolute lack of communication that it would bring. If you dont support something and press the button, then where will you give the OP the opinion why you dont like the idea? They will just know that people dont like it.
But the most important part of this all will be left out: Why dont they like it?

People who support agree with first post. Those who dont agree can and should tell with what they dont agree in the first post. It helps the developers see things from different perspectives. They wont know why you did not support, hence why you need to give in your own information.

And seriously... Treating and consideration towards mental problems is not Lioden's job. Have anxiety? Have some kind of mental block? look for professional help, get treatment, or medication to help. One doesnt need to communicate on Lioden at all. Dont like an idea? Well, just dont press the 'Support button' and off you go. One less support for it. Dont dare post your opinion why? Too bad. Life wont be prettier.

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Axel - but not pressing the support button doesn't DO ANYTHING.

Why should people, like Luther said, who don't like an idea not get the same choice as those who do like an idea?

Why does liking an idea automatically mean you don't have anything to say about it? Even people who agree with an idea might have things to add, but the "support" button means they don't speak up about it.

Honestly, Axel, it's not your job to decide whether or not someone who disagrees should be posting about it or not posting about it, just like it's not lioden's job to treat people. Even disliking something doesn't automatically mean you have passion enough to give a whole speech about it in posting.

If the developers like an idea, but it has a lot of no supports, then they can make a news post asking about it. That creates communication between developers and players. Because the only thing that matters about the support board is gauging what the general consensus is to give the admins/staff a better idea.

Why should they have to scroll through possibly 20+ pages to try to see what the problems are? If they like an idea, shouldn't THEY have the ability to see if the general population will like it or not? And then, again, engage in conversation as to why not?

There should be a Support - Neutral - No support set of buttons.

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Actually, it does, Alrewolf. ideas that are not desired usually have 50- supports and a lot of pages where people express why they dont like the idea, explaining to the OP and the developers why it would be a bad idea. Usually the first few pages explain the situation well enough. But with a 'No Support' button we would have maybe a single person saying something but I can see that less and less would comment and commenting would be more of a luxury to see in Game Development.

Information is key.

And seriously, it is not necessary for people to add to an idea. The OP made a suggestion. If they agree to the first post, then they dont need to repeat one after another, maybe quoting the first post. If you have a completely different opinion-even in a healthy normal conversation face to face- then you will speak up and share it. Your opinion after all completely differs from the OP, so it up to you to share it or be silent about it.

The only true communication you can do is by stating why you dont like something. If you just press a button: Oh yeah okay..... ehm.... you didnt like it....... but why?

When someone states an idea in a conversation, people who agree are nodding or saying 'I agree'. If you disagree, then you say so, but people will expect an explanation. Your 'I dont agree' will not be informative. Why dont you agree? What is wrong with the suggestion?

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Negative affects people, but positive does too. If you saw a thread with 1000 supporters, wouldn't you think to yourself, "this one's worth seeing"? That, in itself, is influence by the positive votes. You can argue it's not as bad, but it's still affecting people.

Honestly, I'd prefer if people read articles with no judgement offered to them prior in the form of votes. But if they get to see the positive side, I don't feel it's okay to hide the negative. Either show both, or neither.

I still disagree that it brings a lack of communication, but provides a voice for those that aren't usually heard. People who want to speak will do so. People who don't want to speak should have that option, and not one side should have an advantage in that field (which the supporters do).

"But the most important part of this all will be left out: Why dont they like it?"
And it wouldn't be left out if someone read the thread and didn't click either button, or comment? It would. Because people don't talk if they don't want to, and talk when and if they want to. How is the support button any different? It leaves out why something is liked.

"People who support agree with first post."
They agree with what they think they've read, which might not be what the OP wanted to state. that's why feedback is important from both sides, and still recieved from both sides, regardless of whether the support button exists. The support button didn't end all discussion as we know it, so I don't believe the "no support" one will do so either.

And for the last part:
You spent two posts talking about how someone might view votes as a personal attack against them, and now you're telling me lioden shouldn't cater to their users? Seriously? How are OP's feelings more important than that of another person?

And what makes you think other users don't have professional help, treatment, and medication? Therapy is a slow process, it takes years, and a lot of people suffer from mental disorders of all sorts. Again, this brings back the question, why is OP placed above these users? Why are OP's feelings more important? It makes absolutely no sense to cater to one user but not the others.

Again not pressing "I support!" doesn't show you don't support the idea, it shows you're neutral at best. The idea of the "I don't support" button is to show dislike and not neutrality.

"Dont dare post your opinion why? Too bad. Life wont be prettier."
You get down because of negative votes why? Too bad. Life wont be prettier.
See why this doesn't really work? You're promoting the support of one user, but everyone else can pretty much get lost just because they're not the ones creating the thread. Why does OP matter more than everyone else? It's important to remmeber that other people, voting or not, are human beings. Many have problems, and it's not okay to exclude some in favor of others.

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Again, what is best:
1. If someone views an idea in a negative light already?
2. If someone views an idea in a positive light already?

Ask yourself this.

And I did not talk about mental problems there. But the fact that the OP gets no chance to see why people dont like the idea. There is no information, no way to talk about it, nobody would help them correct it, no one would tell them what is wrong with the idea.

Even a completely healthy person would feel down after seeing so many negative votes.

They get no chance to explain, no chance to convince you, nothing at all.

People who support an idea support it because they simply like it and agree with the explanation.
People who dont support an idea dont support it because..... there is a reason for that. If you dont share, people wont know. Just pressing a button will not tell them your reason.

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"Even a completely healthy person would feel down after seeing so many negative votes."

"Treating and consideration towards mental problems is not Lioden's job."

You kind of answered your own statement, Axel. It's not Lioden's job. If you post an idea, you should KNOW some people won't agree. The system we have now is 100% more harsh than just a number where people can actually (and have to, if they don't agree) tear apart an idea.

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That............. is not the same. Try to read again and understand it.

Being a healthy person means you dont have any mental problems and issues. I am not depressed, I dont suffer of anxiety, yet I would feel beyond frustrated and down if I saw many negative votes but no explanation.

Or is being healthy a mental problem?

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I mean, I don't know how to pull any other meaning from it?

And this is exactly why even an "I support" button doesn't work. Because some people interpret things differently and even if I say "I agree" to something, how do I really know what the original poster meant?


Edit: Also, you did not say mental HEALTH problems. You said mental problems. Depression in any form (even if it's only for a day) IS a mental problem. Clinical depression (long lasting, etc) is a mental HEALTH problem.

Double Edit: Also, getting so down from one little thing could indicate some sort of anxiety or inferiority complex. Normal healthy people can usually take things into stride.

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"Again, what is best:
1. If someone views an idea in a negative light already?
2. If someone views an idea in a positive light already?"
My anser would be 3. If someone views it from a neutral stand point.
We don't need bad ideas implemented because people didn't read either. I already proposed solutions if you don't like a "no support" button being added, so I don't really see why you're limiting things to those two options.

"Even a completely healthy person would feel down after seeing so many negative votes."
You know what, I'm not a helathy person. And you know what else? I'd give a rats ass for the negative votes. Everyone has something that bothers them, healthy or not, and I really don't see why this should bother someone more than being jumped by 5+ supporters when they try commenting in a thread.

The OP has a choice not to add their suggestion too, or ask a more courageous friend to add it, just like no-supporters have a choice not to add their two cents. Supporters have a choice not to add their two cents, but to click a button. Why do supporters have/need/deserve one more option? Why are they more important to us than the ones who disagree? A fair sistem is a neutral one.

"Being a healthy person means you dont have any mental problems and issues."
Just about everyone on the planet has a "mental issue" of some sort, whether they're aware of it or not. Some are just more severe than others. Depression and social anxiety are some of the most popular ones around, and the population having them grows each day. Why should we only help people who get irked by things that you personally do? Because you aren't diagnosed? Many sick people aren't, and many healthy ones are when they shouldn't be.

"There is no information, no way to talk about it..."
Except, as it turns out, people didn't stop saying why they support things when the button was given. Strangely, I get the impression they wouldn't stop saying why they disagree if another button was added.

"People who support an idea support it because they simply like it and agree with the explanation."
Which they might not understand, which again, is why discussion from supporters is still very necessary. We need to know if those giving support understand what they're supporting. If there's a misunderstanding, the users might get a feature they dislike and don't want, and then go through the trouble of trying to have it removed again.

"People who dont support an idea dont support it because..... there is a reason for that. If you dont share, people wont know. Just pressing a button will not tell them your reason."

Same goes for supporting, but supporters still get the chance to stay anonimous, while those who disagree are forced to get into heated discussions or get coupled in with those that have neutral standing. If non-supporters can't have the button, then why do supporters? What makes them more important?

"Or is being healthy a mental problem?"
No, it's not. But lack of sympathy for those who have them can be an indicator for one. Not enough for a diagnosis, of course. Thing is, no matter how normal and healthy some people seem, everyone has something unhealthy about them.

Edit:
@ Alrewolf
I'm sorry I didn't spot your posts sooner, but thanks for helping me explain my point. English isn't my first language so I'm always worried I'm not bringing things out very well.

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supports
and as for some of the opposition i have read

why not just hide both the support tallies and then no support tallies till after a vote is made.

there are also some people that if they dont support an idea wont post on it at all a no support button would be good for them)
-this goes for ideas that someone doesn't support no matter what changes are made so the button would be nice
+if someone just doesnt like an idea one should not have to explain themselves just cause someone whats them too.

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I find it odd to have a "support" button but no "no support" button....you can't really get an accurate reading of something when there's only one option...that being said ..*shrugs and mashes support button*

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