The person I’m 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.
There’s also the emotional dimension to consider: Receiving upvotes feels good. So it’s not quite as important that they’re constructive – 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 you’re probably right about this, I’m not really convinced these reactions are a net benefit either.
I think I do see your point and partially agree: it’s like the return value from a function, where ‘0’ means no error (I agree with the statement), but there’s 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: I’ve 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 I’m not upset, I’m not sad, I simply disagree.
but I’m upset with this community not letting us disagree.
I mostly agree with your comment and find myself in the position sometimes. The problem I’ve 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 there’s 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
I’m aware. My comment wasn’t pro or con the other emojis. I was just saying is that I’m not sure how a thumbs down could be implemented in a way that doesn’t cancel out thumbs up. That said, I’d 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 don’t see that and implementing a thumbs down in a way that doesn’t 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. I’m 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, you’d 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 don’t cancel each other out because they aren’t 100% analogous though. Like why would the heart emoji cancel out a surprised emoji when they aren’t at all similar?
emojis aren’t classified at all. it’s 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, that’s all.
Like I said in the message you were responding to they cancel each other out on other websites, Reddit being one example. Of course there’s no way to know if they would in this case since there isn’t a thumbs down feature. Nor did I say it is a given that they would. I don’t think you can extrapolate from how things are currently that a thumbs down wouldn’t cancel a thumbs up or visa versa though since it all depends on how the developers decide to implement things. Usually that’s based some kind of standard for how liking or disliking posts in discussions forums are usually implemented, but of course it doesn’t have to be.
FYI, downvoting is now available on the support categories:
Additional use of thumbs-down or downvoting will be consulted with the whole group of local moderators and a recommendation will be shared for community input.
as I see it, it turned out quite unrelated to thumbs up or down.
I tried with an answer with a score 2, I put thumbs-up to it, and the score remained at 2, then I downvoted it, and the score went to 1. there’s no thumbs-down reaction available.
Interesting, I hadn’t considered the preconceptions that users might have coming from other sites with their own up/downvoting systems. The most relevant one to this community would be OSMCha, which has and buttons to rate changesets. Sometimes a user passive aggressively clicks on each of another user’s contributions, seemingly out of spite, and the recipient of those downvotes wonders aloud whether it’ll cause their future changesets to be blocked from OSM or a data consumer’s maps. (It won’t, at least not automatically.)
As another point of comparison, GitHub has both and . Despite its shortcode :confused:, is used not only for confusion but also for skepticism, annoyance, indecision, or hesitancy. Maybe for “meh” as well. Even though can technically express dispassionate disapproval, people often perceive it as an aggressive gesture akin to a in a contentious debate, especially if nothing is being voted on. It’s just another example of how languages evolve illogically.
The existing set of emoji already afford plenty of ambiguity. ( is for when an angry poster needs a hug to brighten their day, right?) If a reaction is added and it’s intended for dispassionate disapproval, that intention should be indicated in the UI or documented somewhere to help avoid unintended conflict.
as yet another point, on StackOverflow you need to have reached some minimal level of trust, in order to downvote anything. Downvoting is associate with a price in terms of reputation, you can’t downvote all that you read, or you will quickly end without any reputation left.
indeed, if any reaction is added, intended for dispassionate disapproval, this should be indicated somewhere. I think that “dispassionate disapproval” is useful just as we already now have “dispassionate approval” (or do we always agree with all that we read here?) and I think that since we use for dispassionate approval, the best choice for dispassionate disapproval still is .
After several rounds of discussions within @forums-governance and with the forum’s moderators, @Firefishy has now preliminarily enabled thumbs-down reactions for posts.
We will be observing the effect this has on conversations, and we may revise this decision accordingly. We still welcome your views on the new reaction, especially once you observe the impact this has on your communities.
, 
, 
, 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.
as they now let us react with 
, these reactions would be counted each individually, none cancelling out any other, as is already the case.
. Despite its shortcode 
in a contentious debate, especially if nothing is being voted on. It’s just another example of how languages evolve illogically.