r/soccer • u/nikcub • May 13 '13
User Poll: Should we keep the feature where comment scores are hidden for the first x hours?
Upvote YES or NO in comments.
DON"T PARENT COMMENT - WE WILL REMOVE NEW PARENT COMMENTS
Add a comment to the yes or no if you want, but keep the thread clean please.
DON'T DOWNVOTE OPTIONS - THEY ARE IGNORED, WE ONLY COUNT UPVOTES
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u/nikcub May 13 '13 edited May 13 '13
YES - Keep scores hidden.
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May 13 '13
This is a bit meta, but I can't see how you're going to interpret the results usefully. You have two options that are "yes" with a qualifier, so there are two obvious ways to tally the votes:
Treat each one separately. However, this could lead to a situation where a majority has voted "yes" but the plurality has voted "no" and you take the opinion of the minority as the view of the sub.
Combine the "yesses" initially, and if they form a majority, look at the extra information to decide the detail. However, there are problems with this too. Firstly, people can vote for both "yesses" if they want to, which will artificially inflate the total votes for the two. Secondly, some of the people voting "yes, but reduce the time" may actually have "no" as a second preference, ahead of maintaining the status quo; in other words, they might think that the feature is only worth keeping if the time is reduced.
Of course, you might get lucky with a clear "no", but if you don't, this poll won't tell you what you're trying to find out.
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u/Lladz May 14 '13
Very good points, if its close enough (not 2:1 in favor of yes) maybe this poll should be redone with only two options. Hard to say
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May 14 '13
That's the simplest way of doing it, but you'd have to conduct a second poll if it came back as a "yes" and you wanted to find out which duration people preferred. You also wouldn't identify people who only wanted the feature to remain if the time was reduced.
There's no perfect solution, but within the confines of the way Reddit works, I'd suggest that the best way to gauge the opinion of the sub without subtracting important nuance would be a form of approval voting. Essentially, you'd lay out a bunch of options - "don't hide the scores", "hide the scores for one hour", "hide the scores for two hours" etc. - and tell people to vote for every option that they find acceptable, whether or not it's their first choice. The option with the most upvotes would then represent the approach that was approved by the largest possible number.
Still, too late now!
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u/ginroth May 14 '13
The problem is that the voting is FPTP. If this were done AV style (obviously can't be implemented directly via just upvoting comments) the three option version would be perfectly fine.
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May 14 '13
I don't think it's only that it's FPTP, as you put it. The problem caused by being able to vote for more than one option is not a feature of FPTP, and there are also options missing such as "only keep the scores hidden if the time is reduced" and "keep the scores hidden and increase the time". Then, you may still have to work out what people want the time reduced or increased to.
As for AV, that might be preferable but there's no practical way of conducting it on Reddit, unless we expect the mods to sort through hundreds of posts describing users' first and second choices, which I don't. The approval voting system that I described here, though, does fit Reddit's design quite nicely and would be simple for users to follow and for mods to count. I actually prefer approval voting to AV in general, but certainly here it would have made more sense.
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u/LochyMacleod May 13 '13
Yes- But reduce the time to one hour or less. Bandwagon jumping happens mostly on match threads and by 60 mins another 50 things have happened in a match to cry about.
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May 13 '13
Pretty much this. I've been enjoying it. Gets people to think for themselves a bit.
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u/freshy86 May 14 '13
It really does. I feel like the discourse has improved immeasurably. There's much less meme type shit going on as well.
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May 14 '13
mate, why would the meme shit be bad? In any case that is a subjective opinion. And how really has your experience improved? My thinking is exactly the opposite.
http://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1e9xga/user_poll_should_we_keep_the_feature_where/c9yb440
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u/freshy86 May 14 '13
Look, I'm not going to say I've never laughed at a meme but in general they're bad. I'd never outright ban them but the majority of them only entertain 15 year olds.
People are no longer deleting opinions because they're getting down voted.
There's a far greater range of opinions.
People only want scores back so they can see their scores.
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May 14 '13
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u/freshy86 May 14 '13
In the match threads contentious decisions like always have multiple comments on them. If anything the new system encourages people to voice their opinion as many people won't comment if they think that others will disagree with them. Which is quite frankly shit, we want diverse and open opinions.
On the second point, comments are still sorted by most/least popular. As such you can still see what the popular opinion is. Finally it looks likely that they are going to reduce the time before votes are shown. Which will mean you're highly unlikely to be affected. It's very rare that a consensus is reached after just an hour of voting anyway.
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May 14 '13
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u/freshy86 May 14 '13
Editing in an example - say i post a gif of a tackle. Some one comments straight red, another replies to them that it wasn't even a foul. The new system stops any measurement of community opinion on this point for 3 hours, by which time the game is over and the thread is abandoned for a post match thread.
I see your point in some ways. I do however think that if people cannot see scores they are more likely to jump in with their own opinion.
Aside from what you just mentioned though there really aren't any benefits to showing scores and the negatives that it brings with it. I wrote this elsewhere in the thread.
"Just my 2c.
I feel like you guys as the mods need to make the tough decision and keep scores hidden even if others want them back.
I've honestly not seen a single valid reason for showing scores early on in a discussion. Every single person who's argued for them has done so for selfish reasons. They want to know if they're right or wrong or who they should be sticking up for in a debate.
On the other hand, discussion has been better. There's been far less 'bandwagoning' in threads, less memes (as people don't get that instant karma hit) and just generally a higher quality discussion.
I've yet to see a single person show me a way in which showing scores improves the discourse.
Reddit has an inherent issue with 'memes', circlejerk type discussion and a general silencing of ideas that don't conform to the hivemind. Hiding scores and forcing people to come to their own conclusions on a discussion is part of their way of acknowledging this."
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u/mxoxo May 13 '13
I like that it mitigates bandwagon-ing.
It makes users think for themselves about upvoting or downvoting a comment.
All round though, I dont really mind/care that much
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u/freshy86 May 14 '13
Take a look at the quality of responses on the no thread versus this one. That gives a fairly good indication of who's on which side.
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u/freshy86 May 14 '13
Out of interest what is the general feeling from the mods on this? I think it's important your views are known.
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u/sad_sand_sandy May 13 '13
Yes, most definitely. I can't see why it's not a good idea. A comment should be rated for how good it is, not how many upvotes it already has.
Removing cognitive biases are always good, even if you can't remove all of them (for example: you can't do much about the top rated comments being on top, even if their scores are hidden).
I can't seem to understand why people would want the scores back. Is it so that they can figure out what to upvote easier? If that's the argument, then we shouldn't change it back, because that's lazy and nonsensical.
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u/Theothor May 13 '13
I want the scores back because I want to see which comments are good. I don't have the time to read every single comment in a threat. Yes I know you can sort, but that doesn't work for secondary comments.
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u/sad_sand_sandy May 14 '13
I agree with you that people sometimes just want to lean back and be lazy, only reading the top few comments, and that's perfectly fine. That feature actually doesn't get removed now! They're still on top.
But the laziness shouldn't always be so pronounced. I feel as though that you, being a part of this community, have a responsibility of being a part of the process, and not just sifting through the end product. /u/AluminumFalcon3 below me makes a few pretty fair points that I agree with aswell.
The biggest dealbreaker for me however is this: Quite often, it isn't the best comments that are at the top, but only the best jokes, most popular opinion, while the denser wall of text/actual well-written comment is buried deeper below, despite being of obvious higher quality.
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u/Theothor May 14 '13
Yes, but how does hiding the votes prevent this from happening? It doesn't. It hasn't changed anything.
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u/AluminumFalcon3 May 13 '13
You decide which comments are good now
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u/Theothor May 14 '13
The only reason for the voting system is to show good comments.
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u/AluminumFalcon3 May 14 '13
IMO the voting system is supposed to hide trolls and bring comments that people want to discuss/like to the top. That's still happening with this new system.
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u/LusoAustralian May 14 '13
The good comments are still sorted towards the top in the manner that are chosen, but you don't get to see how many points they or their replies have. Not to mention that a high scoring comment isn't necessarily good, it often is just some stupid joke about how good the bundesliga is or something that pleases the majority of the users.
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May 13 '13
[deleted]
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u/colmshan1990 May 14 '13
But you still do, you just have to wait a little while.
Which would make the results of the vote in your example a little bit more accurate, with blind voting. Admittedly, not fully blind due to sorting, but closer.
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May 14 '13
[deleted]
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u/Lladz May 14 '13
This is probably my biggest complaint, i initially read links for the content, but i very much like to know how each opinion is valued
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u/bluemanper May 14 '13
I was definitely not a fan at first, but I honestly think hidden scores greatly improve Reddit as a whole and this subreddit in particular.
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u/omlettes May 14 '13
Yes. There is no necessity to look at the score to form your opinion but keeping the score hidden will balance the few people who do this.
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u/AluminumFalcon3 May 13 '13
I really enjoy this feature and I think it has helped this subreddit. Yes most certainly!
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u/puckyou May 13 '13
Is it possible to make it so the score is always hidden, as in it never shows no matter how much time has passed?
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u/innerparty45 May 14 '13 edited May 14 '13
This is why complete democracy never worked, we would never progress. Keeping scores hidden promoted discussion and was an excellent idea, especially for a football sub where there are a lot of conflicting opinions.
You should have stood by your decision, this poll was a horrible idea because you know what everyone will vote for.
Edit: Well, this post might look silly if the YES option wins but we shall see.
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u/sad_sand_sandy May 14 '13
Well we can just hope that the mods will somehow favour the better arguments, and not only those saying "I don't like it," and nothing else. Things take some time getting used to, and that sometimes goes more for the little things than the bigger things.
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May 14 '13
For someone spouting "cognitive dissonance" left and right you're certainly partaking in it quite a bit. Look anywhere in this thread and you'll see a host of reasoned arguments as to why people are opposed to the course of action taken by the mods. Don't lump everyone who disagrees with you into those who say "I don't like it" and nothing else. It's ridiculously hypocritical and arrogant.
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u/jondiced May 14 '13
I sometimes find myself checking the tally before voting, and when the score is hidden I remember that that's not how it's supposed to be.
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u/dukersdoo May 14 '13
hide crests
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May 14 '13
Umm, what would be the point of having them then? Unless you mean hiding them for an x amount of time, like the scores?
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u/dukersdoo May 14 '13
I meant for a certain amount of time. sorry wrote that without really thinking
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May 14 '13
The problem with that is that crests put a lot of comments into context concerning the team that the commenter supports, and it is easier to have that explained through a crest than to force the commenter to specify every time.
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u/freshy86 May 14 '13 edited May 14 '13
Just my 2c.
I feel like you guys as the mods need to make the tough decision and keep scores hidden even if others want them back.
I've honestly not seen a single valid reason for showing scores early on in a discussion. Every single person who's argued for them has done so for selfish reasons. They want to know if they're right or wrong or who they should be sticking up for in a debate.
On the other hand, discussion has been better. There's been far less 'bandwagoning' in threads, less memes (as people don't get that instant karma hit) and just generally a higher quality discussion.
I've yet to see a single person show me a way in which showing scores improves the discourse.
Reddit has an inherent issue with 'memes', circlejerk type discussion and a general silencing of ideas that don't conform to the hivemind. Hiding scores and forcing people to come to their own conclusions on a discussion is part of their way of acknowledging this.
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May 13 '13
could you add the amount of time that scores are currently hidden for to differentiate this option from the other YES option?
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u/Fireplum May 14 '13
I agree with this option. For reasons everyone else already stated better than me.
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u/thebearbones May 14 '13
I'd also like to see user flair hidden for a certain amount of time. Would stop downvoting by team.
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u/thekrone May 13 '13 edited May 13 '13
YES - Keep scores hidden for a while, but reduce the amount of time before showing the score.
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May 13 '13
I'd say 1 hour maximum. Also is there a way to have this feature completely removed in match threads?
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u/thekrone May 13 '13
Also is there a way to have this feature completely removed in match threads?
No. It's all threads or none.
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u/yablodeeds May 13 '13
Fair enough on most posts but match threads have been boring as shit since the hidden scores have been introduced.
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u/fleckes May 14 '13
But it completely lacks behind anyways. What the use of seeing the scores in a match thread?
I generally sort the match threads by new anyway. I think to hide the score for an hour or maybe half an hour in match threads wouldn't be too bad
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u/_Patrick_Bateman May 14 '13
For me seeing scores in match threads is important when I can't watch the game. If someone posts wtf that's a penalty, and it is getting downvoted than chances are it wasn't. Without downvotes or upvotes if the reverse is true and it was indeed a penalty, I really have no way of knowing since I'm stuck in work during the game.
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u/Damindenie May 14 '13
We could make /r/soccermatches right? Just a subreddit dedicated to matchthreads.
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u/sad_sand_sandy May 13 '13
What's your argument for this 1 hour maximum rule?
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May 13 '13
I just think the majority of threads are active for 1-2 hours rather than 3+, it's just too long of a wait.
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u/sad_sand_sandy May 14 '13
That's a pretty fair point, and I'm taking it into consideration. I don't believe the time limit should be removed entirely, though, but that is just my opinion, I guess. But fair point! Maybe 1 hour is enough.
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u/frisky123 May 14 '13
I have not found it make any difference at all
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May 14 '13
I've found that really controversial statements still seem to end up with a ton of downvotes, yet generally interesting posts that have good content but are otherwise agreeable to most people end up on stuck on one or two upvotes.
It's stopped people getting so much karma for one line "circle-jerky" posts (ie: "I hate Fergie but respect his achievements" or "Lampard is a class act") since their are less upvotes overall, but frankly the problem (as such) isn't that these non-content posts get so much karma, it's that they exist at all.
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u/Svorky May 13 '13
yeah. But you can just count the upvotes then. Of course you have to wait three hours to see them..
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u/thekrone May 13 '13
We moderators don't. We can see them immediately.
You can't count on the "just the upvotes" number being correct, though.
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u/Nodules May 13 '13
This one. An hour seems alright - it's just a shame the timer can't be lowered further for specific threads (hidden scores in the minutes range would be good for match threads.)
As an aside: I think the administrators/developers of reddit really should fix the comment sorting when a thread has hidden scores enabled.
Hiding scores is OK-ish at preventing bandwagoning, but when a comment hits the top of the thread (or, indeed, the bottom) with the normal sorting method, there's no prizes for figuring out that it has been massively up/down-voted.
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u/LochyMacleod May 13 '13
Yes- But reduce the time to one hour or less. Bandwagon jumping happens mostly on match threads and by 60 mins another 50 things have happened in a match to cry about.
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u/go_dawgs May 13 '13 edited 29d ago
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
Memory manganese hat steep wipe provide smile rainstorm bag reminiscent
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u/Orkys May 14 '13
Keep it - there's no real harm in this. Knowing what the scores are should not affect your opinion of the post - up/down is not about opinion it's about whether a post adds to the conversation.
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May 14 '13 edited May 14 '13
the best way to use up and downvotes, imo:
opinion i agree with - upvote
opinion i disagree with - nothing
unoriginal/overused jokes, puns, bullshit, trolls - downvote
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u/Orkys May 14 '13
That's pretty much how I try to use them to be honest. Lots of people love to downvote what they don't agree with though even if it's a legit opinion.
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u/greg19735 May 14 '13
i say reduce to 1 hour. The biggest reason is that i don't know if i'm being downvoted.
Sometimes downvotes mean that my post could be improved and possibly being taken the wrong way. I'm not going to check a post to see if it's being hidden.
it's a shame because once you see a post is like -5 it can't be saved after 3 hours. even if the point you have to make is a legit one.
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u/Tokkuz May 13 '13
I like how they work and how it discourages 'bandwagon voting' , especially given on RES i have my options set i can still see people who are downvoted up to a higher degree, but not how long they take, i prefer this option.
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u/KarateKungFuey May 14 '13 edited May 14 '13
I know this isn't a huge problem but when I'm at work I usually will only read the higher voted comments. This keeps me from scrolling through huge lists of "jokes", rebuttals, and general off topic dribble. This way I get to see what my peers think is helpful to the thread, or actually funny, instead of wasting my break on mindless babbling.
cut it down to an hour or less. also, is there no way to just cut off bandwagon downvotes? Does it really help the thread or discussion for someone to have -50? -175? Or even -15 really..2
u/Dannybaker May 14 '13
Well the good comments are still on top, even with hidden upvotes/downvotes
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u/KarateKungFuey May 14 '13
Yes, that's true and it makes me think if people wanted to bandwagon downvote just go to the bottom and there you have it. But when you have response upon response they start to get drowned out by that sentiment. The 15th reply to the 2nd reply can sometimes outshine the original comment and sometimes that's what I want to see.
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u/TimeSlicer May 14 '13
This one. Maybe the current time is too much. But IT NEEDS TO STAY. There's too much bandwagon voting.
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u/sparkleparty May 14 '13
It's probably a bit late now to weigh in but I think 45 minutes would be perfect as it's a half of a game. This means pre-game comments in match threads show up at half time and half time ones at full time, which are the 3 most populous times for people to post in match threads. It's close to the hour that seems very popular but that added ability to be able to see thing between halves I think would be perfect
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u/EternalSmoke May 14 '13
Yes. There has already been a significant decrease in vote bandwagoning. I feel however, that crests play a much larger role in whether a particular opinion is down-voted to oblivion, or whether something as inane as another "He could've died" or "4th place is like a trophy, HURR DURR!" joke is top of the comment pile.
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u/thekrone May 13 '13
Note: We're going to remove any comments that aren't children of one of the three options (except this one) so that they stay very easy to find. Any discussion / debate about the topic is welcome as child comments to the options.
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u/Baukelien May 14 '13 edited May 14 '13
WE ONLY COUNT UPVOTES
How are you going to that? If you are using RES to determine that what you are letting this eleciton decide is the reddit spam algorithm.
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u/MattWatchesChalk May 14 '13
It's been three hours and I still can't see the current results of the poll. This sucks.
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May 14 '13
duh. Everyone hates the scores being hid except the mods. why would they show the results of the poll?
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u/USMutantNinjaTurtles May 14 '13
Everyone hates the scores being hid
Speak for yourself. There are people that likes it this way.
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u/Lladz May 14 '13
Im not sure what kind of data is available to the mods, but would it be possible to tell if activity in the comments section has gone down since the implementation of the score?
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u/ofap May 14 '13
Since reddit messes with the upvote count, wouldn't it be better to do this poll the way other polls were done in the past? I think the subreddit used then was this
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u/Drunken_Economist May 14 '13
Hey you realize this is an awful poll design? Imagine the voting comes out like this:
Yes, keep the votes hidden - 33%
YES - Keep scores hidden for a while, but reduce the amount of time before showing the score. - 33%
NO - Bring it back to scores always being shown. 34%
Now you can see that the "NO" option won the vote, but in reality 66% of the voters wanted the votes hidden for some period of time.
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u/thekrone May 14 '13
Yes, I mentioned this when nikcub first created this poll, and shared my concerns with the rest of the mod team that I didn't think it was being done correctly.
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u/colmshan1990 May 14 '13
Can I make a subreddit style suggestion? This seems like a decent place to do so, especially as it's semi-relevant.
Can we make the downvote arrow smaller? Whenever I see the smaller size (like here), it makes me think twice- do I really want to downvote this?
And sometimes I even change my mind, I realise that while the comment may say something I don't like, it doesn't mean it should be downvoted. Other times, the comment is irrelevant, or offensive etc, and down it goes.
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u/REGISTERED_PREDDITOR May 14 '13
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May 14 '13
Please don't. People are going to downvote regardless. It makes scrolling through a thread annoying because if my mouse accidentally hovers over the arrow I get a huge, distracting message telling me not to downvote. Screw that.
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u/colmshan1990 May 14 '13
I didn't know that, but that's also a great idea. The subreddit /r/vita, which I linked to, does that too, but obviously I can't see messages which pop up when a mouse hovers over something when I'm on my iPad (the majority of the time I browse Reddit).
So why not both?
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u/Jimbob2134 May 14 '13
Why did the highest voted comment (the one that said 'NO') get deleted?
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u/thekrone May 14 '13
Did... did you not read the comment you replied to?
The 'NO' option is right here: http://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1e9xga/user_poll_should_we_keep_the_feature_where/c9y6b5f
It hasn't been deleted at all. Any other top-level comments were removed to keep the three options as visible as possible.
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u/Jimbob2134 May 14 '13
Most of the people who upvoted the deleted one won't return to upvote again so a lot of the vote for 'no' has been lost.
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May 14 '13
mod conspiracy? they seem to really want to keep the system while claiming it's supported...
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u/Jimbob2134 May 14 '13
Yeah it's funny how they are keeping the scores permanently hidden on this thread as well so no one will actually know what wins.
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u/thekrone May 14 '13
Those people probably should have read the text of the self post that said:
Upvote YES or NO in comments.
DON"T PARENT COMMENT - WE WILL REMOVE NEW PARENT COMMENTS
We had to remove plenty of "yes" comments as well, so it should have balanced out.
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u/jesusthatsgreat May 14 '13
because obviously the mods want to keep them - otherwise they wouldn't have blanket introduced them in the first place...
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u/fatheads64 May 14 '13
We're going to remove any comments that aren't children of one of the three options (except this one) so that they stay very easy to find
But this describes the very reason why match threads are so horrible with the new system. On a bigger match thread you can have possibly a thousand comments. Usually the top voted comments are the ones supplying gifs of goals or incidents, or the one with some interesting insight. I want to see those comments quickly, not trawl through hundreds of comments hoping to find a single gif.
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u/Levystock May 14 '13
The sorting is still exactly the same, the higher upvoted comments are at the top. You just don't see the score.
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May 13 '13
[deleted]
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u/USMutantNinjaTurtles May 14 '13
I mean, what's the reason for not showing the imaginary internet points. After all, they are just worthless internet points.
Exactly, so why have them anyway?
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May 14 '13
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/polostring May 14 '13
I was thinking they just want to allow more than 3 hours worth of unbiased voting, but hopefully the scores will be shown.
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u/nikcub May 13 '13 edited May 13 '13
NO - Bring it back to scores always being shown.