richlind33: I'm not suggesting that there isn't a problem. I just happen to hate the victim culture that is turning us into ugly, whiny caricatures of what humans are meant to be.

RWarehall: All this talk about how supposedly hard it is to reprogram the software...

All that really needs to be done is the removal of one icon on the output page. That's it. Remove the minus button. Any programmer here should be able to tell you, that it should be a trivial matter to edit one output page like that. Let the narcissists who want big rep numbers click that plus button to give themselves a false sense of worth. A little bit of a swinging Johnson contest isn't as abusive as down-repping has been.

As to moderation in general, the people of the forum (as a whole) have shown they cannot govern themselves and are not responsible enough to be trusted with that button. That is proven by how that button is often used to downvote people regardless of content just for who they are. There are plenty of examples all throughout the forum where certain cliques downvote innocuous posts just because of who said it. Entire threads where every post by certain individuals are orange even the ones that just said "Hi". That is abuse of the system. Using the downvote button as a weapon is bullying and harassment. It's certain individuals or groups intentionally trying to piss off others in their vain attempts to push them away from the forum. What gives them that right to decide who "belongs" on the forum and who should or shouldn't be harassed off it?

richlind33: I'm not suggesting that there isn't a problem. I just happen to hate the victim culture that is turning us into ugly, whiny caricatures of what humans are meant to be.

Tauto: Well,they could do a ''Tommy''on me.

paladin181: There is far more than removing an icon since anyone abusing a script won't be physically clicking the button, but rather accessing the link function. You'd have to disable the down vote function entirely which may be far more ingrained in the system. So, no it's not just disabling an icon.

kohlrak: Well, ever notice bullies aren't afraid of getting in trouble? They just like to make sure someone goes down into their misery with them.

I agree, though. This victim culture is a problem. Dr. Jordan Peterson on the topic. There is real oppression in the world, but pareto principle should rule when targeting it: a bad use of a pronoun rarely causes problems, but making an issue out of it and trying to form a mob allows the mob to do things without individuals in the mob taking sole responsibility for anything, making them far worse (a march is different, as you have a goal of marching and chanting, not breaking things or others, thus you have a specified goal and plan on how to get the change you want, not some fluid idea that can change at an instant in the face of an insult).

RWarehall: Again, if you read my follow up rationale, you see I talked about that. It's possible GoG would want to know who has been abusing the system too. If the button is removed then you know the "average" user isn't doing it because there is no button to press.

Yes, a script user could get around it, but this solves 99.9% of the problems since it stops the normal users from creating discontent. As to removing the function itself, its one function. How integrated can it really be to the software functioning besides adding or subtracting to rep? How hard can it be to adjust one function? Back in the day, I used to remove copy protection myself. Most of the time it was just a matter of finding the function calling the routine and putting NOPs over the bytes of the function call. If one has the source code, the function or it's parts can be commented out. This is nowhere near as complicated as you try to make it look. It's not like trying to program hooks into dozens of Steam API function calls to make a game work. It's a single function.

richlind33: Isn't it wonderful that Alaric is here to defend the hapless, downtrodden plebs against the savage, rep-raping mobs that have mercilessly abused and harassed them since time immemorial?

USERNAME:RWarehall#Q&_^Q&Q#GROUP:4#Q&_^Q&Q#LINK:320#Q&_^Q&Q#Again, if you read my follow up rationale, you see I talked about that. It's possible GoG would want to know who has been abusing the system too. If the button is removed then you know the "average" user isn't doing it because there is no button to press.

Yes, a script user could get around it, but this solves 99.9% of the problems since it stops the normal users from creating discontent. As to removing the function itself, its one function. How integrated can it really be to the software functioning besides adding or subtracting to rep? How hard can it be to adjust one function? Back in the day, I used to remove copy protection myself. Most of the time it was just a matter of finding the function calling the routine and putting NOPs over the bytes of the function call. If one has the source code, the function or it's parts can be commented out. This is nowhere near as complicated as you try to make it look. It's not like trying to program hooks into dozens of Steam API function calls to make a game work. It's a single function.#Q&_^Q&Q#LINK:320#Q&_^Q&Q#