Cavalary: About the post rating and reputation system, however, I find it useful in theory, but the fact that abusing it isn't tackled here made it toxic. So don't think it should be removed (and the ability to hide posts most definitely needs to remain), especially if not replaced with something else, but the first change should be to list those who rate a post, so it'll no longer be annonymous. And then, of course, those who abuse the system should have the option taken away, but do this just for those users, on a case by case basis.
And one user consistently rating another user's posts in a certain way, or reporting them, or doing so to all posts in a thread, over a period of time, especially if this happens within moments of the posts being posted, should be a clear enough indicator of abuse to even warrant automatic action, not just raise a red flag.
3. When you (hopefully) reintroduce a rating system, make it openly display who rated a post and how.
toma85: I disagree. Every forum where you have any kind of rating system you can see the abuse of such a system. Even a "thumps up" or a "thank you" system gets abused. You can see a split in different groups in such a forum and the people are voting according to which group they belong. This will definitely also happen in this forum because you can already see the tendency.
Forums without any kind of rating system for posts don't have such problems.
All an open voting system where names are visible does is that people will do one of two things:
Use an alt if they got one, to be able to say their piece without hurting their reputation, or for being able to participate in certain topics about VN or something else that's considered a no-no by certain people.
It creates a picture that there's certain groups, just because some people use the voting system either which way, to rate some post of some member of the community and are consistent.
That mustn't mean that both parties hate each other or don't like each other or can't discuss with each other. Sometimes it's just a case of something you write that, if you are being honest, it just deserves a negative rating.
I know exactly what both negative and positive ratings do on a newspaper websites, where it is mostly about politics and where you know who all belongs to what party, who all follows which ideology and sure enough which names constantly rate you or someone else up or down or more or less try to silence you or attack you verbally for being this and that. You know even from nicknames where that person is coming from when they rate someone positive, for saying something that someone else belonging to some particular real-life group doesn't like, they are getting down votes where before they had the upper hand and got positive votes to no end and could attack people verbally and accuse them and violate TOS.
And all this plays out without many words being exchanged and some just try to alter the course of discussions with votes. Which, if you are around long enough, you really don't care and you really learn to say what you have to - even it's against a whole group of people trying to overthrow the whole system and attack anybody not sharing their opinion. It all happens with votes - the convenient way, because they know for some people it does drive home, socially anxious people, financal stresses, whatever it is the person writing something no matter how tame, they get hurt and start thinking what they have wrote that deserves being down voted.
Point being that, with names, without names, the abuse will remain. Where if someone has to post and can't ignore someone's opinion, this changes the whole situation. Then only some will go and speak their mind instead of pressing that button.
Clearly - when it came up, way back in early 00's and was introduced by Asocial-Media (must have been Twitter or Facebook), both cesspools you better stay away from, that then spread because the idea: Will improve the discussion culture was so strong, that many website owners could not resist. some 18 years on we see the result of all the good intentioned rating systems - all they do is earning the websites, and asocial media channels, count of visitors. All like drama and drama, brought about by whatever means possible, even with a voting system that all you got to do is register and press that button, will lead to increased ad-sales and unique page impressions.
That's not what GOG is, that's not what customers participating in a forum discussion are, participants in a drama that earns them money. Sure, people come back once they start participating, others just simply watch the drama and some vote to stir the flames. That's all that is doing, while many will not start to contribute at all, just because they could risk becoming a target. Either right from the start or some point in time. This, in turn, can lead to loss of potential new customers for the shop. So the system and the way it is and will again be used does exactly the opposite and hurts more that it helps.
Beside that, no one is taken away anything when that system is gone, GOG would be on the forefront in a very positive way if they kept it out, but instead come up with ways to make this a place everyone can feel safe to discuss and speak their mind. If something is violating the rules it should be reported and dealt with accordingly, exactly the way dtgreene suggested it should be done. That will do more for this place than the most well thought and intentioned rating system ever will.
The only way to have the cake and eat it too is by having a large enough number of community moderators, willing to enter into discussions, remove votes when they see they are abused and keep discussions on topic. With only just GOG employees this cannot and will not work and all would still be the same.
