Site Note – IOTW Report

Site Note

If you go into the comments you will see that we spent a little time correcting what had become a people problem. We changed the rating system for comments. No more down-voting. Only up-voting.

I say this was a people problem because we had the plug-in for long time (it was a Chinese widget) before it began being used as a hammer. If enough people down-voted the comment it would be hidden from view and an alert (written in Chinese) would tell the reader they needed to click the comment to see it.

If you refreshed the page you could vote again.

That’s where the trouble started. People were refreshing and down-voting some comments into oblivion out of spite. Some were refreshing and up-voting in order to resurrect their comment from the Chinese gulag. And back and forth it went.

This was disappointing. The plug-in was to be used on the honor system, and it worked fine for months.

Yes, we were able to rectify the problem, but I hoped it would be self-rectifying because the readership here is normally level-headed, even when we’re angry.

My hope is that if someone finds an exploit in the system that they resist the temptation to use it to gain an advantage. We’re better than that, that’s not who we are. 

Someone put a pillow on my face and kill me for using that line.

Okay, enjoy the new rating system.  I already am.

Thanks everybody.

-bfh

57 Comments on Site Note

  1. I enjoyed the up and down votes, and thought the Chinese stuff was amusing – particularly commentors who hilariously claimed that they couldn’t figure it out. I love some of these Bidenesque comments and commenters – like JohnS – “self depreciating,” indeed – that’s some funny stuff! iOTWREPORT is filled with subtle humor, puns, Rodney Dangerfield incredulousness, feigned outrage, and many, many thoughtful and pensive missives, &c!

    You have an incredible site, here, Mr. Hat, and you are a Master.

    I’d tip my hat to you, if I wore a hat (my head’s too big to wear a hat).

    Carry on, Sir!

    izlamo delenda est …

  2. But but but, what if I don’t get any likes, Does that mean that people didn’t read my comment, dont like it and cant tell me or just don’t give a hoot?

    Oh No! all I’ll do is wonder now.

  3. Now the danger is, if a comment only has one up-vote, it looks like you did it yourself.

    Auto-thumbing.
    Self-suck thumbing.

    Suck thumbing?
    What do we call that?

    And yes, I am going to suck-thumb my own comment.

  4. I confess to refreshing and thumbs downing (is that a word) Larry the Retarded Libturd once.

    I refreshed and Thumbs Upped some of Abigail Adams comments just because!!!! It offset some of themultiple TD’s.

    Ain’t nuthin’ like a pissing contest with TD skunks.

  5. Oh yeah, up vote me or in 10 days you will receive 1,001 chain letters and bad luck for eternity not to mention 5 smelly unwashed wanna’ be jihadi hippies on your door step.

  6. Sounds like we had an epidemic of snowflakes. That’s their standard way of doing things if they disagree with something. If you can’t silence them, then T/D them as many times as possible so that it looks like everyone agrees with them.

  7. The down vote spamming was only fun until it started getting used against the people doing the spamming. Then they squealed like stuck pigs about it.
    The only downside I see to removing the downvotes is that they are likely to complain to you in an effort to create a safe space for them.

  8. Gonna miss the comments turning colors based on the TU and TD. That was fun. I didn’t mind the Chinese quirky feature. TU and TD were too close and sometimes TD was accidentally checked. Definitely, understand things have to be done to maintain the integrity of the site.

  9. @wizzum:

    But but but, what if I don’t get any likes, Does that mean that people didn’t read my comment, dont like it and cant tell me or just don’t give a hoot?

    Oh No! all I’ll do is wonder now.

    You have a good point there¹. Heaven forbid you should be left in doubt, so…

    YOUR POST SUXXXX!!!1

    j/k

    1. But if you comb your hair just right maybe nobody will notice. (-;

  10. The down votes were only a problem when they became abused.
    When you see Chinese writing on the side bar, that meant the TD’s were coming in hard and fast.

    I could deal with the thumb downs if my intellectual musings weren’t banished to Shanghai.
    Hell, on the Cruz post the other night I had a dozen posts behind the Great Wall, even the most benign comments.

    Too many liberal-acting thought police creeping in to iotw like Sharia, doomed it’s existence.

    And finally Fur, it does indeed suck that O’preezy has ruined the “not who we are”, because that fit perfectly in this instance.

  11. Don’t worry, BFH, Barky ain’t the only one using that phrase, Rick says it all the time on The Walking Dead (probably where Barry’s teleprompter plagiarized it from).

    If you want a quick fix of cheer, stop by my place to see new pics I just posted of my puppies!

  12. No problem Eugenia.
    I only had TD issues when I went against Fur’s group-think.
    Kidding! I kid! 🙂

    Like someone noted earlier, this was a pardon from The Governor for JohnS who’s TD’ers were legion.
    (Another Walking Dead reference.)

  13. I suspected for a while the rampant TU’s were in part a couple assholes from The Right Scoop that discovered this place a couple weeks ago. I say that because that’s when it really got bad for a few of us. I’m willing to bet Robert T. is one of those ass holes.

  14. The only time I did the page refresh thing was by accident when I noticed that when I upvoted somebody my vote appeared to be worth 3 or 4 votes. And after refreshing the page out of curiosity, all the votes were gone — back down to zero. And in that case I did cast another vote, not knowing about the refresh glitch.

    My biggest complaint right now is this fucking heat!!! Anybody else having to put up with 101° temperature and a fucking 81° dew point? It sucks the air right out of your lungs!

  15. Poor Johnny Shitpickle
    He was short and fat and rode out of a Dell,
    With Mogen David and Art FN Bell,
    He was mean and nasty right clear through,
    Which was kind of weird cause he was yellow too…
    They called him Johnny.
    Johnny Shitpickle.
    Short Johnny Shitpickle.
    Short, fat Johnny Shitpickle.
    The hundred and forty-second fastest TD commenter in the West!
    He gonna miss that TD cuz he thought it wuz the best!

  16. Mortgages for the Masses, Mexico, South America? You’d think it would be even hotter down that way.
    Our low here at 35° North only got down to 77° last night. Right now the heat index is 120°. 🙁

  17. “Now the danger is, if a comment only has one up-vote, it looks like you did it yourself.” – bfh

    So, wanting to avoid looking like a suck-thunber, logic follows that if you see your own previous post with one TU – you’re better off TU-ing it so it doesn’t look like you TU it yourself.

    No possible mind f*ck there at all. Now you’re ALWAYS going to wonder. o.0

    heh

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