Iām nothing to do with the administration of the site and certainly not part of the forums governance team, but based on what has been said previously:
A āthumbs downā reaction has been widely discussed as being essential before the Help site is migrated from OSQA to here.
The help site isnāt going anywhere until the old forum has been migrated from FluxBB to here (there are numerous discussions on the progress with that elsewhere).
The admins have been quite busy recently dealing with issues caused by the upgrade to Discourse 3.0
Thereās actually a āsolutionā to this question here, but essentially that says āweāll look at this when move on to supporting help.osm.org functionalityā, which seems like a sensible approach to me.
That is surely the only sensible solution to the problem of sorting replies to help and support questions by up and down votes.
Being able to provide a āthumbs downā reaction is a slightly broader topic, as it is about being able to provide a reaction to any post, not just downvote a support reply. Being able to downvote a support reply is obviously necessary if we want to sort by the algebraic sum of +1 () and -1 () votes.
Hopefully admins will find time for looking into this once solved the mentioned upgrade.
I find it strange that there is still no reaction to this request from anybody managing this forum. Even if it is a low priority, it takes only seconds to at least let us know that.
To be fair, I donāt think that that is actually true. In my previous reply I summarised what was, and still is, the current position, and also linked to the āsolutionā to the previous question, which Marioās just repeating here.
True, but the last update on that is now 8 months ago. Implementing a downvote option is not dependent on that plugin. Therefore, I still think expecting a response to this particular request is fair.
hi. I donāt think Iām merely repeating the previous question. Iām suggesting adding this reaction. IIUC, the āprevious questionā is about counting them together with reactions, for which the solution is in a plugin.
if we had it, I would consider adding a to your comment
I expect we will look at this in the context of the help.osm.org migration. While it is not inherently confined to #help-and-support, compatibility with the plugin(s) we use to approximate helpās features seems crucial.
I also expect some debate on the pros and cons. Itās not obvious whether non-constructive disagreement is really a desirable reaction outside a vote-ranked discussion format. Upvoting a post which explains the disagreement seems like it might lead to better conversations.
is still better than the negative emotion reactions we have right now. If I disagree with a post, I disagree. That does not mean that I am sad () or angry () or even crying () about the post or the user who posted it.
The person Iām agreeing with has hopefully already explained their views and why they hold them. Asking people who disagree to do the same and put forward some arguments for their opposing viewpoint seems only fair. This is similar to how the proposal process asks that people who oppose should give a reason and preferably include suggestions.
Thereās also the emotional dimension to consider: Receiving upvotes feels good. So itās not quite as important that theyāre constructive ā being encouraging and making people happy is already a pretty good reason to hand them out. In contrast, receiving downvotes feels bad, and this negative impact needs to be balanced out by a sufficiently large upside (such as improving the conversation, making it easier to find correct information or producing better decisions).
While youāre probably right about this, Iām not really convinced these reactions are a net benefit either.
I think I do see your point and partially agree: itās like the return value from a function, where ā0ā means no error (I agree with the statement), but thereās so many different ways to disagree.
however, it seems only fair to let people who disagree to have their votes seen at a glance, not requiring the quick reader to scan the reactions and judge which ones are in favour and which against.
one more point: Iāve occasionally seen posts strongly opposing the original topic author (OP), and people who wanted to disagree with those posts (agreeing with the OP) could only choose among , , , or flagging the reaction post, or having to spend time to translate their disagreement into a post long enough to be accepted by this platform.
I regularly come across posts with which I disagree, I see them upvoted, and I wish to downvote them. instead, I have to upvote one of the critics to that post. or just give up, which is what I generally do.
with these posts Iām not upset, Iām not sad, I simply disagree.
but Iām upset with this community not letting us disagree.
I mostly agree with your comment and find myself in the position sometimes. The problem Iāve seen with how most sites do thumbs up/thumbs down systems though is that they cancel each other out. Which to me is kind of worthless because then thereās no way to if a post got 5 thumps up, or 7 and 2 thumbs down, or what. Although I guess that could be solved by putting them side by side, but it already does that with other emojis and more the two rows just seems excessive.
Although I guess that could be solved by putting them side by side, but it already does that with other emojis and more the two rows just seems excessive.
the other emotions are rather emotional and cannot express a simple dissent, hence the discussion here. For neutrality, we could consider removing the thumbs-up button
Iām aware. My comment wasnāt pro or con the other emojis. I was just saying is that Iām not sure how a thumbs down could be implemented in a way that doesnāt cancel out thumbs up. That said, Iād be totally fine with them getting rid of the other emotes. Since I agree with both you and the OP that they are rather emotional. I donāt see that and implementing a thumbs down in a way that doesnāt cancel out a thumbs up when both are left on the same message as orthogonal though. Plus, I assume completely getting rid of them has a slim of happening anyway. Iām not sure if getting rid of the thumbs up reaction is that great if the other ones are still being used though. If the others are rather emotional, which I agree that they are, youād think it would be better just to get rid of them and have a thumbs down emojis instead of axing one of the few semi-neutral options.
if the people in charge of this discourse site would let us react with as they now let us react with , these reactions would be counted each individually, none cancelling out any other, as is already the case.
Maybe, I assume the other emojis donāt cancel each other out because they arenāt 100% analogous though. Like why would the heart emoji cancel out a surprised emoji when they arenāt at all similar?
emojis arenāt classified at all. itās just reactions, none cancelling any other.
you need to define and implement a cancelling count if you want to just upvote vs. downvote posts, and be able to sort them based on algebraic sum of reactions.
letting us simply react with this or that emoji will leave our reactions, thatās all.
collected by strongly critical (and in my opinion questionable) posts, with few options to disagree:
(which is arguably other than disagreeing).
(which is not a constructive reaction at all IMO.)
where they are allowed to agree 
) about the post or the user who posted it.
, these reactions would be counted each individually, none cancelling out any other, as is already the case.