I am not aware of any scripts, though I guess it is possible, that don't hide without downvoting.
And I wasn't meaning hiding from everyone.

Basically, if you can't tolerate a member here, you can have their posts hidden based on their username, but that uses the REP minus option to do so, which of course also downvotes, and you have to be viewing a thread for those posts within to be hidden.

No doubt some could write more exotic scripts to troll all forum threads and hide (downvote) all by a specific user, but I've not noticed that.

Appearances might be deceiving. No response is not a good indicator of not being aware. Us customers would just be guessing otherwise. Management, who probably never reply themselves, probably keep tabs on the forum, or have someone else do so and report anything significant back to them. We would be fools to make hard & fast assumptions.

The first rule of Rep Club: Don't talk about Rep Club!
The second rule of Rep Club......

The entire forum is outdated and borderline abandoned. Why would GOG change anything here? A storefront bringing back abandonware running a forum as abandonware. That's poetry.

^this

That's interesting. I'd like to know more. I keep hearing of this magic bot that supposedly downvotes all the posts but it hasn't actually made sense 'cause it seems to occasionally miss posts. However, in posts it affects, seems to hit all replies. The behavior your state actually makes sense, and would explain the aforementioned "downvote abuse." People are just using a script to hide posts by a certain user by downvoting said posts, rather than actually hide the posts. What's the name of this script and where can I find it? Although i don't expect them to, GOG could crack down on users of this script. Perhaps some of the people genuinely concerned about the "downvote trolling" could bother modifying the script to hide posts without actually downvoting. The alternative is, if GOG addresses the issue by getting rid of downvoting, the script quits working. I'm aware of this, but still, there are posts that normally get targeted for engaging in certain topics that can go unchecked for long periods of time, but then suddenly get addressed, meanwhile usually when those crop up similar new posts get addressed immediately. It would appear that GOG's moderation staff has other tasks and they get assigned to "forum duty" when things suddenly start to "get out of control" which might come ot their attention via private messages. Once things cool down, they could be going back to their regular work (which could be everything from sales to support tickets, etc). I mean, sure, i could be wrong, but moderation on GOG certainly does seem to come in short bursts.
I doubt they would, but i figured posing the question would be worth it. My biggest issue with GOG is the inability for customers to give proper feedback. Seems we really, really have to poke the nest ot get the bees out, since they're so drunk on smoke. Meanwhile, i've heard alot of people complaining before about "downrep bots" so i wanted to create this topic to get people questioning. Obviously, precious little is going to happen, but the point is to get the gears turning. You know the parable of the emperor's new clothes, right? Everyone but the child was afraid to speak. I'm trying to help the adults build a case. There's certainly plenty more examples, but the fact the rep system doesn't apply to mods should raise eyebrows, even if it's common practice to have two sets of tiers. Why subject customers to something that the staff don't even want to deal with? it shows that a company has an "us and them" mentality, and "them" happens to be the customers it's trying to appeal to. Clearly a lack of empathy, and any GOG staff who might happen upon the post should immediately catch that what i'm really saying is that the company is completely out of touch with it's own customers. You'd think this would be obvious, but, i wouldn't be too surprised if this was a shock to them.

This. This forum is a service that GOG provides. For free.

Yep, and they often cop a lot of flack on here, so go figure.

Perhaps they believe in any news is good news, and generates sales regardless.

nah it is part of their products
just look at how many people whines about epic store has no forum , clearly a forum increases the value of the sold games

I'm not allowed to share as it can all too easily be abused.
I'd have to kill you if I told you .... ha ha ha ... just joking.

Can't give you a name, and I did not create one myself (not my skill set) ... but I am sure they would be out there.

The only way GOG could stop it, would be to totally disable the REP feature, or somehow block the JavaScript (I presume) that is being used ... not sure if they can. A user name change can avoid the script, until catered for ... but won't undo existing count.

Personally I dislike the REP feature, but do appreciate being able to hide posts by those who deserve to be automatically hidden from me. I don't like that it means even innocuous posts get a downvote, but that's the flaw of the REP system ... hiding should be a separate feature.

There are some people here, who have a lot of positive REP, which another script may be responsible for ... no idea about that, but certainly some don't seem deserving of such high REP, so perhaps that might be why.

Honestly, I find REP to be so meaningless, as so many abuse or misuse it ... favoritism, bias, unnecessary, etc.

I've been told the initials of this script are "JM." Woudl this be the case for the script you're aware of? I skimmed through the code and didn't see anything that stood out as actually hiding the posts, but did see stuff that "hid the reputation bar." My guess is this is the one. Similarly, all one would have to do is find the line in particular that downvoted and just turn it into an upvote instead and open it with a bunch of alts.

But, to be clear, the thing you're describing is indeed written in JS, correct? I've been talking to a few people in PMs about it, and the one guy is almost certain that there's a bot. However, the strange behavior he's described of the downvoting does indeed correlate with an "ignore all rplies from this user" script. It manages to "be thorough within topics" but "avoids certain topcis." I would find it strange to have someone to go through all the trouble to make a bot that scanned through all but a few topics. If you were that bad after someone, why go through th work to make an exceptions list? So i'm thinking it's JM, especially since all but a handful of posts mentioning it are missing.

Ok, then not the jerk thing, but a different one entirely. Thank you for the info.

Maybe it shouldn't be free. Not to the degree of requiring a separate fee for entrance, but a reliable, "Buy this value of games to be entered."

After all, one of the most legendary forums (until Rich Kyanka went nuts) had a 10$ entry fee that went towards hosting and maintenance costs, along with other cosmetic buyables.

A very interesting, thought-provoking idea. Regardless of whether they ever do this, it is worth considering.

It could be even scaled to more than two categories, establishing, say, an entry level (that would require an investment) but would be limited to a certain number of posts per day, and one or more advanced levels, with more posts or eventually without limit.

Moderators < Customers < Administrators < Moneymakers

They're already at the bottom (usually by their own choice to not get paid for a thankless job) why would you want to downvote them to make their lives worse?

Not sure what this democracy hype is all about but if feels a bit like this is dreamed by people who don't even live in a democracy..... if you life in a democracy you should by now know what democracy means, like the first rule you know.

the state can never be sued ........
the state is the state and by definition inviolable
people representing the state are by definition violable and can be demoted voted against or even punished if the state deems this to be necessary

capice ?