Not sure what you mean tbh. :P

I just wanted the downvote button to retain it's "hide post" functionality without affecting the poster's rep and consequences that came with a negative rep. (assuming of course the post isn't spam)

It was mentioned earlier by ciemnogrodzianin.
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/forum_update/post166

mqstout used the browser inspect tool to alter one character:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/minus_button_removed_from_comments/post22


As I said, I don't know what happend. We can only speculate here. But the two posts from above make me question the use of scripts or bots. I mean why would the bots stop right now? As you can see in the German forum, the troll hasn't stopped and re-posted his message in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 thread. I see this troll and then I try to think about someone using scripts and bots to downvote people here. These people have a certain kind of persistency. And the downvote trolls suddenly don't have this persistency? I honestly doubt it.

Well, it is a difference. The ripoff troll is still posting and everyone can see the post and so the "harm" is done and visible for everybody. That is not the case with the reputation since it is invisible. Those downvoters have and had a goal - to destroy the reputation of certain people. What "fun" is there in downvoting if the result of the downvotes is invisible? At least that is what I suspect - but as you said, we can all just specualate.

No, there is an option to hide them completely so no placeholders, etc., they are just completely swept into the dustbin of oblivion without any outward signs :)

Well, you can still do harm. First of all, you can still see whether a post is low rated or not. And there is still the option under "My Settings" called "Hide posts with negative rating". The reputation number still works. If you downvote the people enough they will have negative reputation and can't post links anymore. This is not gone unless you ask the moderators to reset your reputation to zero.

This (inability to post links with negative rep) I already mentioned as well - but it takes much longer to achieve negative reputation for someone who wasn't downvoted for real as well so it is very different from what it was before when EVERY downvote showed impact almost immediately. I do agree that it isn't still perfect but I've also learned to accept and appreciate when things start to go in the right direction. Give them time - obviously this time they try to make things right and this time they actually are not just listening to our feedback they also try to act accordingly.

I agree here. Imho, they should reconsider the current state. I think a better solution would be:

1.) removal of the entire reputation system with all effects
2.) re-introduce the minus button as a hide and report feature

After that they could think about whether they can add a "Thank you" feature where you can see the users who are "upvoting" a post.

There should be a report-post, hide-posts and an ignore-user feature, each accessible individually. The report and hide-button should always be displayed under each post, and the ignore-user feature could be placed in the user-profile drop-down menu or under the avatar.

The hide feature in particular should only collapse and hide posts for the individuals clicking on it. No matter how many people click on it, posts should always only be hidden, or displayed again after another click on the option, for them, but not the general public.

I've never used this feature, therefore I did not know, that there are no placeholders on GOG forums.
So, if you hide message by accident, it is impossible to restore? You might even forget, that there is a hidden post, while it can actually contain useful information.)

The irony is that you would have already wasted time to read and hide those posts anyway undermining a large part of that point unless you were hiding all the low rated posts previously, which meant it was also hiding whatever the low rep spammers were after. AlexTerranova made a similar point.

because they don't work anymore so it doesn't matter what they're doing.

Being strict about no off-topic really stifles a forum. And everyone's threshold may be different, and same with triggers. So it must be each user's choice, without affecting what the rest experience. (And sure, that requires each user to analyze a post once, and I'd definitely hope that they do so before rating it!)
And in general, mods should intervene in case of clear, unquestionable, rule violations. See the part about stifling if they'd go in heavy-handed for anything that might bother. Heck, they already did that with links to "competitors" and the result was bothersome to say the least.

Not at all, and it can be handy to check if you think there might be a reason to.

For me personally, because I am a quick reader, it is difficult to avoid reading at least some of a post in passing, and when scrolling back, you might stop before you see who wrote the post, and accidentally read what you really did not want to after checking out the next post.

The idea is to more easily ignore what you don't care for ... makes for a better day. I see it as sanitizing a thread.

There is another script that will nuke a user's posts altogether, with no place holder left behind. With that you could totally tune an obnoxious person out of existence in the forum. But I don't see the need to go that far. No matter what you do they still exist, that's life, and sometimes it is just better to know what such folk are up to, if not in detail.

P.S. Even with a hidden or nuked post though, if another member quotes it, you cannot avoid seeing it to some degree.
I don't know what processes they have in place here at the GOG forum, but at some other forums I know of, they get a summary of a Report, which is usually some text by the first reporter, plus a count of those who have reported it. Plus they can disable further notifications for the post in question. So basically they check it out once, and do what needs doing the once.

I have never been totally sure there is a bot or bots at GOG. Sometimes it certainly seemed like it, but it may have also been a group of the disgruntled. At times it seemed well targeted, at others not. I have often suspected it is just one or two very childish folk, and I have occasionally posted such for those poor deluded souls.

It appeared to me there was an element of chaos going on, and some of the downvoting was deliberately misleading.

In reality, I and others have speculated all sorts of things about the downvoting.

Could it be China, another store, even a rogue GOG Mod ... or worse, a sanctioned one. It could well be tied to an agenda. It often appeared to me, that new members were targeted. It may have been someone trying to force GOG to do something about the downvoting ... might have even been a bot involved with that, and now maybe no longer necessary.

I sometimes got up to 5 downvotes in one day, which at the very least indicates that many accounts. All bar one of those could be fake accounts, or it was definitely a group doing it.

I never saw any evidence of a trolling bot, that would go into older threads and target people. That certainly never appeared to happen to me anyway, and would have likely been easy enough to do.

And we certainly had some topics where there really wasn't any rhyme or reason for everyone to be downvoted in it but they were. They certainly smacked of deliberate sowing of confusion ... trying to keep us all guessing.

Scuttlebutt here long ago said that the current report button system was either disconnected, or the reports never reached the current staff if it ever was connected.

For sure, do something. But like everything else here they need to think like a troll and determine how to code it properly. At the least a system could involve linking the report post button to the support system, maybe with a templated form for customers to finish filling out? I dunno. Probably require some kind of "no bot" scripts would be needed even there...