I admit I have been doing it, too. I have been clicking that naughty red icon. Yeah, you know which one.

Once, against my better judgement, I clicked into the thread ‘Belgium under terrorist attack :(’. Yup, plenty of racist nutters inside. Normally, stuff like that makes me grateful that we have that Downvote icon. I don’t need to waste my brain on explaining why a person who clearly is an asshole indeed is an asshole. I can just go clickety-click, and then I have ‘hurt’ the fucker. So userfriendly!

But if someone had asked me if this shitty little I’m-so-offended icon would be a good feature, I would have given them a solid ‘No!’. I think the downvote feature is fundamentally wrong. It is a way judge other peoples thoughts, anonymously, without having to explain what you see as the fault in their thinking. As a feature in a message board, it seem rather strange, since it’s all about not communicating.

The downvoting feature speaks to the most rotten and disgusting aspects of my person. If I have lots of mental energy, if the world seem to me like it makes sense, I either just ignore stuff I disagree with, or enter the discussion. However, if my mind is blank and empty, if I can only see this shit world for what it is, I click downvote.

Letting a message be “downvoted” and hidden from view because an anonymous mob clicks a red icon - it just feels wrong. And it’s stupid too, since the message gets more interesting because I have to unhide it.

In the end, I didn’t downvote anyone at that there thread. Instead, I stopped downvoting for good.

I found it plenty easy to remove the downvote icon:

1) Download the Stylish browser extension
2) Create a new style like so: And so, that tempting red icon was gone. Goodbye, sweet love! :’-( We have had a good time together, but it was time for me to grow up and move on. I never asked for this feature, and I have decided that my life is better without it.

Abstinence is your own personal hell.

My policy with downvoting is something like the following:

If a post contains language I consider offensive, I downvote.
If a post is a personal attack, I downvote (especially if I am the target, in which case I also "report as spam").
If a post is something that I think doesn't belong on the forum, I downvote.
Users with higher rep are more likely to be downvoted by me (and those with lower rep more likely to be upvoted). Similarly, "high rated" posts are more likely to be downvoted, and "low rated" ones more likely to be upvoted.
I don't downvote the original post in a topic unless it is obvious spam or is not in English. (The "is not in English" rule, of course, doesn't apply to the other language forums, but I don't check them anyway.) Having the first post in a topic "low rated" is rather obnoxious, as it makes it difficult to tell if there are new posts in the topic. (I consider this behavior to be one of this forum's misfeatures.)

It's worth noting that "low rated" posts don't seem to be automatically hidden any more. There is, however, the fact that topics where the first post is "low rated" appear as read even if there are new posts.

Who needs downvoting when you've got ctrl+w? :)

It would be much easier for everybody if GOG got rid of the rep counter altogether. And if there is a need to mark a post as helpful, just provide a little "Thanks" button.

From where I'm standing, abstinence doesn't sound so great.

Well, more like sitting at a pub with a beer, but let's not nitpick.

Definitely would like a "thanks" button, or even a "brofist" button :)

From where you're sitting everything will start to look great. Just remember them beer goggles are on :)

I was thinking exactly that. RPG Codex does it the right way.

Better not be called "brofist". Except that their choice of term is rather exclusionary; it assumes that all gamers are male, which is clearly false.

"win a discussion". Ah, the internet at its best.

"Brofist" doesn't have to be a gender specific term unless you're generally angry about that kind of thing. Just like I can say "awww man!" to a girl. Or "duuuude!" to just about anyone.

It was a riddle. My goal was to trap people in a place they otherwise voluntary visit but end up stuck there. It was also a joke.

People here don't seem to have a problem with the red(orange) button on my posts,it works rather well:)