ESOCommunity

umeu wrote:I'm not using those words. They are yours, and perhaps say something about your disposition, but don't put them on me. Social pressure exists, I don't deny it anywhere, but it's also something which can also largely be dealt with simple "mind tricks", or just generally being taught about certain philosophical theories and ideas. Your way of dealing with social pressure is just to build in more "protection", rather than teaching people how to deal with negativity, both when receiving it and expressing it.

This isn't about how people handle negativity. You keep pushing this narrative that the only people who are affected by this sort of social conditioning are weaker people, but that's not true. People act very differently when they feel like they have to play to a crowd. Instead of trying to argue with someone else, they will try to turn the observers' opinion against the person they're arguing with. Everyone changes their behavior based on these sorts of social games.

My suggestion isn't to "protect" people from "negativity," it's to prevent discussion from becoming a social game in the first place. To make sure there is no need for protection. There's no reason to expect the entire community to be trained to avoid average human behavior, when you have the option to avoid getting into such a situation in the first place. If people an behaving in a way you don't want them to, you should try and change the system which causes them to behave that way, rather than trying to train them to be resistant to their natural behavior. With this in mind, you're the one who is trying to build in more protection; not me.

umeu wrote:The fact that people only see likes and link such likes to their self-esteem is exactly what gets you people who are addicted to such forms of feedback and will adapt their posts in such a way as to get as many likes as possible, or to post primarily in order to receive likes.

I think the lack of negative stimuli makes ESOC's current set up a bit different. People aren't going to be weighing likes and dislikes if there are no dislikes. In fact an unpopular opinion can seem popular just because it's only possible for people who agree with the post to respond without replying. If a dislike feature were added then I would definitely expect people to start weighing likes and dislikes to measure popularity, and maybe use this for ego purposes. But I'm not too concerned with people attaching attaching self-esteem to likes, or getting addicted to them; ESOC seems small enough to be able to avoid that. My concern is mainly in the fact that adding a like/dislike system will turn every single post on this website into a social game.

Amsel_ wrote:This isn't about how people handle negativity. You keep pushing this narrative that the only people who are affected by this sort of social conditioning are weaker people, but that's not true. People act very differently when they feel like they have to play to a crowd. Instead of trying to argue with someone else, they will try to turn the observers' opinion against the person they're arguing with. Everyone changes their behavior based on these sorts of social games.

It has nothing to do with weakness... It has to do with increasing people's autonomy. You say you can't deal with social conditioning unless you actively deal with it. I'm saying, teach people how to do the latter. People do act differently when in a crowd, or even when in a pair. Obviously. This has nothing to do with like buttons. This isn't a social "game", adapting to shifting dynamics due to the presence of a plurality of different people is the core of social interaction.

My suggestion isn't to "protect" people from "negativity," it's to prevent discussion from becoming a social game in the first place. To make sure there is no need for protection. There's no reason to expect the entire community to be trained to avoid average human behavior, when you have the option to avoid getting into such a situation in the first place.

Discussion is a social interaction. I agree that something like a button dilutes discussion in some form, but I disagree that this is any different for a like button as opposed to a dislike button. You haven't really put forward a good reason for it either.

If people an behaving in a way you don't want them to, you should try and change the system which causes them to behave that way, rather than trying to train them to be resistant to their natural behavior. With this in mind, you're the one who is trying to build in more protection; not me.

It's merely your opinion of how people should behave though, and not some sort of blueprint or guideline that we were born with. The latter is true to some extent, but its also natural behaviour, so you will, as people naturally strive to protect themselves by becoming more competent. When faced with drowning, you should teach people how to swim, rather than to build a dam and divert the water elsewhere.

I think the lack of negative stimuli makes ESOC's current set up a bit different. People aren't going to be weighing likes and dislikes if there are no dislikes.

you don't need dislikes to weigh likes. The absence of likes is enough to give likes a weight.

In fact an unpopular opinion can seem popular just because it's only possible for people who agree with the post to respond without replying. If a dislike feature were added then I would definitely expect people to start weighing likes and dislikes to measure popularity, and maybe use this for ego purposes. But I'm not too concerned with people attaching attaching self-esteem to likes, or getting addicted to them; ESOC seems small enough to be able to avoid that.

This is already happening, as I said above, dislikes aren't necessary for this to occur, although I agree it might worsen things.

My concern is mainly in the fact that adding a like/dislike system will turn every single post on this website into a social game.

Yes, I understand that this is your concern. But this concern is the product of your world view and unexplained theory of a "social game", and there's little that actually points at your concern being a realistic problem.

umeu wrote:

Amsel_ wrote:This isn't about how people handle negativity. You keep pushing this narrative that the only people who are affected by this sort of social conditioning are weaker people, but that's not true. People act very differently when they feel like they have to play to a crowd. Instead of trying to argue with someone else, they will try to turn the observers' opinion against the person they're arguing with. Everyone changes their behavior based on these sorts of social games.

It has nothing to do with weakness... It has to do with increasing people's autonomy. You say you can't deal with social conditioning unless you actively deal with it. I'm saying, teach people how to do the latter. People do act differently when in a crowd, or even when in a pair. Obviously. This has nothing to do with like buttons. This isn't a social "game", adapting to shifting dynamics due to the presence of a plurality of different people is the core of social interaction

Why should you be teaching anybody? It is unhealthy to cause a split between conscious and unconscious desires. If we can avoid injecting popularity into every single post then we have no need to train anybody! This is a social game because people will be able to gauge a post's worth based on the amount of people who agree versus the amount who disagree, instead of judging a post based on its actual merit. I prefer a system which encourages trying to make a good post rather than trying to win observers over to your side.

umeu wrote:

My suggestion isn't to "protect" people from "negativity," it's to prevent discussion from becoming a social game in the first place. To make sure there is no need for protection. There's no reason to expect the entire community to be trained to avoid average human behavior, when you have the option to avoid getting into such a situation in the first place.

Discussion is a social interaction. I agree that something like a button dilutes discussion in some form, but I disagree that this is any different for a like button as opposed to a dislike button. You haven't really put forward a good reason for it either.

I said earlier that people can brush off the absence of likes easily. It's much harder to rationalize you being heavily down voted, and the person you're talking with getting heavily up voted. A lone like button will only serve as positive encouragement. It also seems more uncommon for someone to reply to a post to give further arguments in favor of it than it is for someone to reply to a post to argue against it. A like button might technically remove some discussion, but it is negligible in comparison to a dislike button.

umeu wrote:

If people an behaving in a way you don't want them to, you should try and change the system which causes them to behave that way, rather than trying to train them to be resistant to their natural behavior. With this in mind, you're the one who is trying to build in more protection; not me.

It's merely your opinion of how people should behave though, and not some sort of blueprint or guideline that we were born with. The latter is true to some extent, but its also natural behaviour, so you will, as people naturally strive to protect themselves by becoming more competent. When faced with drowning, you should teach people how to swim, rather than to build a dam and divert the water elsewhere.

I don't see why you would be okay with changing things in a way that would make people act differently, then try to "teach" people not to act like that. It seems a lot easier to just not change things. Just the fact that you're even bringing up teaching people not to act how they naturally will act also contradicts your statement that "It's merely your opinion of how people should behave." You wouldn't be suggesting a cure if you didn't see some sort of problem.

umeu wrote:

I think the lack of negative stimuli makes ESOC's current set up a bit different. People aren't going to be weighing likes and dislikes if there are no dislikes.

you don't need dislikes to weigh likes. The absence of likes is enough to give likes a weight.

It's common for a good post to get looked over. It's not that common for a dozen people to accidentally push the dislike button on your post.

umeu wrote:

In fact an unpopular opinion can seem popular just because it's only possible for people who agree with the post to respond without replying. If a dislike feature were added then I would definitely expect people to start weighing likes and dislikes to measure popularity, and maybe use this for ego purposes. But I'm not too concerned with people attaching attaching self-esteem to likes, or getting addicted to them; ESOC seems small enough to be able to avoid that.

This is already happening, as I said above, dislikes aren't necessary for this to occur, although I agree it might worsen things.

I think it's good that people are getting an inaccurate representation of a post's popularity. It adds variety. It forces people to talk things out further in order to get to the bottom of it. With a blatant like/dislike system people will quickly find out where the majority stands, and will naturally factor that in to their own posting habits.

umeu wrote:

My concern is mainly in the fact that adding a like/dislike system will turn every single post on this website into a social game.

Yes, I understand that this is your concern. But this concern is the product of your world view and unexplained theory of a "social game", and there's little that actually points at your concern being a realistic problem.

What's not to understand? Someone gets a message saying "I like your post" and they are encouraged to do that thing more. Someone gets a message saying "I don't like your post" and they are encouraged to not do that thing as much. This is naturally going to corral people into mostly posting things that will get them their positive stimuli without the risk of a negative stimuli.

Amsel_ wrote:Why should you be teaching anybody? It is unhealthy to cause a split between conscious and unconscious desires. If we can avoid injecting popularity into every single post then we have no need to train anybody! This is a social game because people will be able to gauge a post's worth based on the amount of people who agree versus the amount who disagree, instead of judging a post based on its actual merit. I prefer a system which encourages trying to make a good post rather than trying to win observers over to your side.

That split exists per definition. I don't see what's wrong with teaching people (And I don't mean this in a universal education kind of way, just parents teaching children for example) to think about whether you do something for your own reasons, or for someone elses reasons. You can leave subconsciousness out of it, because nobody really understands how it works.

It's not the like or dislike button that injects popularity into a post. The fact that people perceive this in a post, and attach value to it, is something that precedes the like/dislike button, even though such a button may worsen said effect. It's the creation of a mind that's addicted to attention and validation from other people that creates such a feature, such a mind isn't the result of such a feature, as is shown by the fact that similar social processes predated the like/dislike button, social media, or just in fact, the whole internet.

If it is a social game, it's a social game that has existed for millennia. The like/dislike button is merely another way for humans to measure prestige and standing in a social group. We can argue about whether it's a social game because it's our "natural behaviour" or whether it has to do with the way human culture has evolved over time (Nietzsche's POV) or perhaps it's a mix between the two (most likely, in my opinion).

I said earlier that people can brush off the absence of likes easily. It's much harder to rationalize you being heavily down voted, and the person you're talking with getting heavily up voted. A lone like button will only serve as positive encouragement. It also seems more uncommon for someone to reply to a post to give further arguments in favor of it than it is for someone to reply to a post to argue against it. A like button might technically remove some discussion, but it is negligible in comparison to a dislike button.

Maybe it makes things more extreme with a dislike button, but it's a matter of degree, the principle pretty much stays the same. However, there are simply no facts brought forward by you to make your final claim anything else than conjecture on your part. Which was my initial point all along. You seem to think that a dislike button suddenly changes the entire "social game" even though it's merely a quite obvious extension of the rules that were already in place. Whether it is necessary? I don't think so. But there's no need to be overly dramatic about it.

I don't see why you would be okay with changing things in a way that would make people act differently, then try to "teach" people not to act like that. It seems a lot easier to just not change things. Just the fact that you're even bringing up teaching people not to act how they naturally will act also contradicts your statement that "It's merely your opinion of how people should behave." You wouldn't be suggesting a cure if you didn't see some sort of problem.

Because I don't think that a dislike button will make people act differently in any relevant understanding of that word. The type of person who is affected by such a feature is already affected by the mindset that makes him/her susceptible to it. If a like/dislike button does anything, it's merely highlight the disposition towards certain behaviour that was already present in that person, and which perhaps manifested itself in similar or different ways in other situations (Think of ELO, many people react in the same way to ELO as you describe they would react to likes/dislikes). For example, before the like/dislike button, such a person may have taken the amount of discussion garnered in response to his posts as a badge of honor, instead of counting the likes. I agree that such a system may make it easier, or even more extreme, but again, that's a matter of degree. Removing the like/dislike system merely treats the symptoms of a mind or a society that's more interested in appearance than substance, it doesn't actually fix it. What I propose hopefully fixes, or at least, reduces such fixation.

I think it's good that people are getting an inaccurate representation of a post's popularity. It adds variety. It forces people to talk things out further in order to get to the bottom of it. With a blatant like/dislike system people will quickly find out where the majority stands, and will naturally factor that in to their own posting habits.

like/dislike buttons ARE NOT a an accurate representation of a post's popularity anyway. If you can't understand this, then the fault is with you, not the like/dislike system. We're opposed in this because you seem to think there's something wrong with the tools we use, while I think there's something wrong with how we use the tools, or rather how we regard the tools we use.

What's not to understand? Someone gets a message saying "I like your post" and they are encouraged to do that thing more. Someone gets a message saying "I don't like your post" and they are encouraged to not do that thing as much. This is naturally going to corral people into mostly posting things that will get them their positive stimuli without the risk of a negative stimuli.

Merely the I like your post is enough to corral people into doing that will get them positive response. In fact, if you want to get people to do what you want, negative stimuli are often ineffective and even counter productive. It's the entire foundation of modern education. We teach children in school almost solely by using positive feedback. And the results are that children will perceive that lack of positive reaction, while OTHER children (and that's the crux) do receive positive reaction, as a negative feedback. It works pretty much the same in adults, except that we seldom use only positive feedback. But in any case, if everyone around you get's promoted (positive feedback) you're eventually going to feel the lack of promotion (neutral feedback) as a negative feedback (which would initially have been something like getting fired or demoted).

In any case, it's not the like/dislike button which is the root cause of society's obsession with appearance. If there is a cultural cause, then it lies way in the past, and it has been reinforced and spiraled into more extreme forms over time because an obsessed mind creates structures that makes it easier to fixate obsession which in turn worsens obsession. Removing the structure itself won't be enough to cure the mind of obsession, it might help temporarily, but unless you teach coping mechanisms, then it's just going to relapse in some other form.

Gendarme wrote:So the answer is yes (but delete previous unread notifications).

Thanksh, devsh.

Make downvoting a thing and then hide downvoted content. That way it will almost be as if the basement is finally banned except occasionally you'll have to help the community out by downvoting their posts and threads.

DEUS VULT

Gendarme wrote:

Gendarme wrote:So the answer is yes (but delete previous unread notifications).

Thanksh, devsh.

This change is so fking great!

Yeah. Let's like each other's posts!

momuuu wrote:Make downvoting a thing and then hide downvoted content. That way it will almost be as if the basement is finally banned except occasionally you'll have to help the community out by downvoting their posts and threads.

I like that you act like the Basement is somehow still impacting the quality of the forums when we barely even post anymore. It also seems very unfair to lump gustavus and D1ck in with cheadar and I - have you even had any problems with their posts in the past?

I, for one, am still concerned that Dr. D1ck has a selfie stick

pecelot wrote:I, for one, am still concerned that Dr. D1ck has a selfie stick

That original thread upset you very much

The man has grown up. He who once was a crooked mod is now a hero of the free world.

I was under the Imperius curse

Basement is cool and jacked i dont know the rest :( @deleted_user2

Here's an example of a post that should be disliked https://eso-community.net/viewtopic.php ... 70#p365322

Here's an example of a post that should be disliked https://eso-community.net/viewtopic.php ... 25#p365325

Just turn your monitor upside down?

Every lejend post I've "liked" I've forgotten I was holding my phone the other way, which I do on a routine basis to prepare for being reincarnated as a sloth.

Yeah I still want this feature to be added. Even if I get a ton of dislikes, that's still "engagement" with my posts, which is really all I crave

fightinfrenchman wrote:Yeah I still want this feature to be added. Even if I get a ton of dislikes, that's still "engagement" with my posts, which is really all I crave

Oh it's engagement you want? I can help with that.

Counter suggestion: Remove likes. For why, refer to the discussion between Amsel and umeu. Yes, it discourages honest discussion. And no, not to the same degree as a dislike button would, but still.

I do agree that while there's a like button there should be a dislike button too. I'm not a fan of this circle jerky trend in forums where people are only able to like each other's shit. Do we really suck so badly at handling negative feedback that we have to shield ourselves from it? Yeah let's have everyone constantly feel validated in their shitty opinions and never stop to think.

I dunno i like having a like button for stuff like news posts but yeah in off topic it can be pretty annoying seeing as everyone just tends to like posts that run along the same lines as their own views.

Goodspeed wrote:Counter suggestion: Remove likes. For why, refer to the discussion between Amsel and umeu. Yes, it discourages honest discussion. And no, not to the same degree as a dislike button would, but still.

I do agree that while there's a like button there should be a dislike button too. I'm not a fan of this circle jerky trend in forums where people are only able to like each other's shit. Do we really suck so badly at handling negative feedback that we have to shield ourselves from it? Yeah let's have everyone constantly feel validated in their shitty opinions and never stop to think.

Agreed. Ironically, I liked your post.

Don't forget the ability to like and dislike our own posts needs to also be added. I'd like to be able to communicate if I enjoyed or disliked having to post something.

Goodspeed wrote:Counter suggestion: Remove likes. For why, refer to the discussion between Amsel and umeu. Yes, it discourages honest discussion. And no, not to the same degree as a dislike button would, but still.

I do agree that while there's a like button there should be a dislike button too. I'm not a fan of this circle jerky trend in forums where people are only able to like each other's shit. Do we really suck so badly at handling negative feedback that we have to shield ourselves from it? Yeah let's have everyone constantly feel validated in their shitty opinions and never stop to think.

No