Is there any reason why it happens? I usually see good stuff, but it gets a turn for the worse in story or content.

Alexander_X said:
Is there any reason why it happens? I usually see good stuff, but it gets a turn for the worse in story or content.

People have opinions. Maybe they don't like something about it: Too flashy, not flashy enough, too detailed, not detailed enough. Too sexy, not sexy enough, too overtly sexy, too prudish. Too natural, too unnatural, too shiny, not shiny enough... Too blue, not blue enough... it's all preference, man.

well when it comes to newly uploaded post . my theory is there a groups of trolls waiting at the bridge to ambush them before it's fan come to it rescue.

apart from that if we're talking about art that isn't grotesque or "not someone cup of tea". usually it because of the stigma of the subject. whether is suicide,abortion,etc. as long as most user can relate to it, there going to love or hate together. then there the history of the post that should be considered. for examples comic like servant of the servant was crowdfunded but it had a terrible plot so of course people started to get a little peeved. sometime it the artist/character themselves people have a problem with. i can't find the post to prove it but when I searched score: <=-50 -blood -scat -what , I found a anthro canine that was down voted because he was in it

Good is subjective. Care to provide links for what you label "good", or what you believe is getting unwarranted downvotes? There are also matters like irrelevancy, huge file size, or illegibility (say, a comic page in less than 500x500). I know of people that don't like low or huge resolution sizes either; downvotes are basically irrelevant to the quality of an image at these points.

I know if someone shovels up more SFM "Art" and it looks like crap, Is badly framed, All the models and materials don't complement eachother or it shows zero effort, I'll downvote it. Same with the average screenshot from skyrim.

Quality is ultimately subjective.

FoxFourOhFour said:
I know if someone shovels up more SFM "Art" and it looks like crap, Is badly framed, All the models and materials don't complement eachother or it shows zero effort, I'll downvote it. Same with the average screenshot from skyrim.

Quality is ultimately subjective.

SFM?

MyNameIsOver20charac said:
SFM?

Source film maker. Aka: "Garry's mod for would-be artists." Not saying there's not good stuff out there in it as far as engines go, Just there's a /LOT/ more low-quality shlock for it as well.

FoxFourOhFour said:
I know if someone shovels up more SFM "Art" and it looks like crap, Is badly framed, All the models and materials don't complement eachother or it shows zero effort, I'll downvote it. Same with the average screenshot from skyrim.

Quality is ultimately subjective.

Is that why, despite the fact you've bashed so many artists and have demeaned their work constantly, you still have yet to be banned?

I went through your history, and half the time you rarely give out any real criticism. Instead you call their work terrible, and whenever somebody calls you out on it, you just call it " another day in the zoo" like it's nothing and you didn't hurt anybody.

Care to explain yourself?

SnowWolf said:
People have opinions. Maybe they don't like something about it: Too flashy, not flashy enough, too detailed, not detailed enough. Too sexy, not sexy enough, too overtly sexy, too prudish. Too natural, too unnatural, too shiny, not shiny enough... Too blue, not blue enough... it's all preference, man.

People may have opinions, no matter how right or wrong they are. Some people are just rude and downvote "because I can", etc. It's really sad.

Ok these threads are really starting to anoy me:
"Er ma gawd, people are downvoting things they don't like!!!!!!??:O:OD:D:D:"
What exactly do you people feel is the "suitable use" of the downvoting feature? It actually feels like your problem is the downvoting feature itself. ...no wait, that's not right. YOU and everyone that thinks like you should obviously be allowed to vote, while everyone else should be perma-banned, expelled, and executed with rusty spoons.
If you have a problem with the downvote feature existing then that should be your complaint, not people using it as intended.

MyNameIsOver20charac said:
Ok these threads are really starting to anoy me:
"Er ma gawd, people are downvoting things they don't like!!!!!!??:O:OD:D:D:"
What exactly do you people feel is the "suitable use" of the downvoting feature? It actually feels like your problem is the downvoting feature itself. ...no wait, that's not right. YOU and everyone that thinks like you should obviously be allowed to vote, while everyone else should be perma-banned, expelled, and executed with rusty spoons.
If you have a problem with the downvote feature existing then that should be your complaint, not people using it as intended.

... yet people want their votes to carry over from parent-deleted images, not realizing the unintended side effect that occurs that occurs when people uses their votes as intended.

But that is just me being spicy, there is more than just using votes to show favor/disdain to an image. You can use it in your search with meta tags, and theoretically we can *eventually* use votes to affect what see due to our blacklists. The votes do have a meaning, it just doesn't mean "votes = quality".

*edit* my god, my autocorrect is trying for homicide today... it's killing its fellow words.

MyNameIsOver20charac said:
Ok these threads are really starting to anoy me:
"Er ma gawd, people are downvoting things they don't like!!!!!!??:O:OD:D:D:"
What exactly do you people feel is the "suitable use" of the downvoting feature? It actually feels like your problem is the downvoting feature itself. ...no wait, that's not right. YOU and everyone that thinks like you should obviously be allowed to vote, while everyone else should be perma-banned, expelled, and executed with rusty spoons.
If you have a problem with the downvote feature existing then that should be your complaint, not people using it as intended.

Well maybe if people used the damn blacklist to block fetishes they don't like, provided REAL constructive critique and/or weren't so rude about things they dislike, maybe people wouldn't complain? It's one thing to downvote, it's quite another to downvote and then attack an artist or downvote something one can easily just blacklist. Is that so hard to understand? >.> People aren't being banned for downvoting, people are being banned for attacking artists for fetishes they hate, abusing the downvote system and refusal to use the blacklist as it's intended, among other things.

If there's anything that pisses me off, it's when people hate art for the sake of hating and then attacking artists for no reason.

fox_whisper85 said:
Well maybe if people used the damn blacklist to block fetishes they don't like, provided REAL constructive critique and/or weren't so rude about things they dislike, maybe people wouldn't complain? It's one thing to downvote, it's quite another to downvote and then attack an artist or downvote something one can easily just blacklist. Is that so hard to understand? >.> People aren't being banned for downvoting, people are being banned for attacking artists for fetishes they hate, abusing the downvote system and refusal to use the blacklist as it's intended, among other things.

If there's anything that pisses me off, it's when people hate art for the sake of hating and then attacking artists for no reason.

The ironic thing is users like FoxFourOhFour and so many others are the primary culprits.

I've seen the type of rude, demeaning trap they say to other users and their art, and they never learn that they should try to lighten up and quit taking this stuff so seriously.

They go about like they own the site and shit on people constantly, and that's the biggest reason why I hate Fox and the people on here like him.

They think they're making this place better, but they aren't. Especially when they aren't even artists themselves.

I was coming to conclusion it was trolls since I uploaded this piece at night where the traffic is slow.

https://e621.net/post/show/1437463

It had a good start of +2, but so far the domino effect is leading it down to -5. Should I flag it for deletion or leave it as it is?

I recently uploaded this at night, hoping it wasn't bad luck and just something sinister. It was at +2 but now it's a -5

https://e621.net/post/show/1437463

But I could be wrong because it does sound cringe when I read it.

Alexander_X said:
I was coming to conclusion it was trolls since I uploaded this piece at night where the traffic is slow.

https://e621.net/post/show/1437463

It had a good start of +2, but so far the domino effect is leading it down to -5. Should I flag it for deletion or leave it as it is?

You most certainly should not flag it for deletion. You should message an admin about your suspicions, if it is being targeted by an individual with multiple accounts. They can take action on that, but if it isn't then they won't take action.

*edit* huh, deja vu... even that post is familiar.

Mediocre art with fringe fetishes (such as anal vore) will often get downvoted simply for being what it is. Votes play no role in deciding if something stays or goes.

fox_whisper85 said:
Well maybe if people used the damn blacklist to block fetishes they don't like, provided REAL constructive critique and/or weren't so rude about things they dislike, maybe people wouldn't complain? It's one thing to downvote, it's quite another to downvote and then attack an artist or downvote something one can easily just blacklist. Is that so hard to understand? >.> People aren't being banned for downvoting, people are being banned for attacking artists for fetishes they hate, abusing the downvote system and refusal to use the blacklist as it's intended, among other things.

If there's anything that pisses me off, it's when people hate art for the sake of hating and then attacking artists for no reason.

This is why I'm not supportive of efforts to enable score filtering in blacklists. People using downvoting and abuse the feature instead of actually blacklisting tags is already a problem with certain subjects and such a feature seems like it'd just encourage it.

fox_whisper85 said:
People may have opinions, no matter how right or wrong they are. Some people are just rude and downvote "because I can", etc. It's really sad.

It's very true. I don't understand that mentality, but, y'know, people are what people are, I guess. :( I just don't get it myself--I'm pretty depressed and angry and miserable a lot of the time, and even then, my desires to lash out at others rarely leave my own head.

Alexander_X said:
I was coming to conclusion it was trolls since I uploaded this piece at night where the traffic is slow.

https://e621.net/post/show/1437463

It had a good start of +2, but so far the domino effect is leading it down to -5. Should I flag it for deletion or leave it as it is?

No flagging, hun :)

Seriously, it's good art! It's just niche fetish stuff. Macro/micro stuff, anal vore territory. It's stuff that's going to have strong reactions, no matter what.

The other day, I uploaded a piece of body horror art. conjoined twins, demonic monster stuff. Gorgeous art: but one of my most downvoted images. (post #1436397 for the curious) Doesn't mean anything. Just that people looked at it and said "noooo..." Don't take it personally. It's jsut peopel being people.

On the other hand, I like to think I upload some gorgeous artwork that doesn't get nearly enough upvotes:

post #1437560 post #1437345 post #1434859

It's just... the randomness of people. No statements about the quality of anything. Just randomness, honestly.

LaplaceLaw said:
Care to explain yourself?

No.

LaplaceLaw said:
The ironic thing is users like FoxFourOhFour and so many others are the primary culprits.

I've seen the type of rude, demeaning trap they say to other users and their art, and they never learn that they should try to lighten up and quit taking this stuff so seriously.

They go about like they own the site and shit on people constantly, and that's the biggest reason why I hate Fox and the people on here like him.

They think they're making this place better, but they aren't. Especially when they aren't even artists themselves.

Funny how your only examples point to a user who was banned for the exact sort of "Calling out" behavior you're pulling now. I'd drop this.

Ratte said:
Mediocre art with fringe fetishes (such as anal vore) will often get downvoted simply for being what it is. Votes play no role in deciding if something stays or goes.

So the more vanilla something is, the more likely it is to be upvoted?

fox_whisper85 said:
So the more vanilla something is, the more likely it is to be upvoted?

Honestly, yeah, at least from what I've seen. You have a higher chance of someone liking the same-ol' than you do someone liking macro/micro anal vore.

fox_whisper85 said:
So the more vanilla something is, the more likely it is to be upvoted?

Well, vanilla is better than chocolate. Or strawberry, or blueberry, or cookies & creme, or lemon curd...

fox_whisper85 said:
So the more vanilla something is, the more likely it is to be upvoted?

Excluding animations, here are the top 10 most upvoted images on e621:

post #243179 post #204756 post #670411 post #187778 post #381706
post #298483 post #650512 post #270632 post #518675 post #705437

Excluding animations, here are the top 10 most faved images on e621:

post #381706 post #391224 post #1039 post #1247423 post #706383
post #298483 post #279644 post #650512 post #693130 post #270632

In short... yes!

Vanilla means wide appeal. Just about everyone will eat vanilla icecream, even if their favorite is Rocky Road or Strawberry. Even the most hardcore scat enthusiast can appreciate a nice butt. Vanilla is easy.

Vanilla's also hard because you've got a lot of other posts to compete with, but generally, yeah. Vanilla is appreciated by everyone.

Thanks for the knowledge guys! Really helps to figure out issues and solutions with you guys.

Alexander_X said:
Thanks for the knowledge guys! Really helps to figure out issues and solutions with you guys.

Don't think of it so much as a problem that needs fixing, honestly. There's *nothing wrong* with what you're uploading. The majority of people might not like it, but the people who *are* into what you're posting? Appreciate it even more.

There's not a high score list, or a reddit-style karma score for most upvotes on pictures you upload.

Just share the content you want to share.

Alexander_X said:
Is there any reason why it happens? I usually see good stuff, but it gets a turn for the worse in story or content.

Here's a rare case of somebody not just saying "I downvoted", but also explaining their action:
comment #3649851

SnowWolf said:
Excluding animations, here are the top 10 most upvoted images on e621:

post #243179 post #204756 post #670411 post #187778 post #381706
post #298483 post #650512 post #270632 post #518675 post #705437

Excluding animations, here are the top 10 most faved images on e621:

post #381706 post #391224 post #1039 post #1247423 post #706383
post #298483 post #279644 post #650512 post #693130 post #270632

In short... yes!

Vanilla means wide appeal. Just about everyone will eat vanilla icecream, even if their favorite is Rocky Road or Strawberry. Even the most hardcore scat enthusiast can appreciate a nice butt. Vanilla is easy.

Vanilla's also hard because you've got a lot of other posts to compete with, but generally, yeah. Vanilla is appreciated by everyone.

Damn, that's what I figured -_- I'll keep the more exotic stuff on my FA and ask that people not repost is on here. C'est la vie I suppose.

fox_whisper85 said:
Damn, that's what I figured -_- I'll keep the more exotic stuff on my FA and ask that people not repost is on here. C'est la vie I suppose.

Naw, man. read my other post:

Don't think of it so much as a problem that needs fixing, honestly. There's *nothing wrong* with what you're uploading. The majority of people might not like it, but the people who *are* into what you're posting? Appreciate it even more.

There's not a high score list, or a reddit-style karma score for most upvotes on pictures you upload.

Just make sure you tag things right so that people can blacklist it AND people can search it out. People who are 'into' that art won't care about score. And they're the ones who'll come check out your gallery, and be most likely to ask for commissions etc.

Vanilla gets more views. Fetish content gets more devoted fans.

SnowWolf said:
Naw, man. read my other post:

Just make sure you tag things right so that people can blacklist it AND people can search it out. People who are 'into' that art won't care about score. And they're the ones who'll come check out your gallery, and be most likely to ask for commissions etc.

Vanilla gets more views. Fetish content gets more devoted fans.

Even when I do tag things correctly (and I try to the best I can) people still bloody downvote it out of spite. It really annoys me, almost makes me want to ask these people "Gee, who pissed in your cheerios this morning?" Ugh...!

fox_whisper85 said:
Even when I do tag things correctly (and I try to the best I can) people still bloody downvote it out of spite. It really annoys me, almost makes me want to ask these people "Gee, who pissed in your cheerios this morning?" Ugh...!

It can eventually self-correct. Because most people who don't know how to blacklist downvote fetish content aren't seeking it out, you'll only get downvotes for the first few days to a week when it's still going to be recent. After it's buried deep enough to no longer pop up when someone who doesn't use their blacklist is browsing, mostly people seeking it out will see it and they'll upvote it. Eventually you'll get back up to the low negatives or even a positive score.

fox_whisper85 said:
Even when I do tag things correctly (and I try to the best I can) people still bloody downvote it out of spite. It really annoys me, almost makes me want to ask these people "Gee, who pissed in your cheerios this morning?" Ugh...!

I know, but *don't* take it personally. Seriously. Life is WAY too short.

and I think some of those people jsut down vote because "no sir, I don't like it" rather than any deliberate malice.

I just try to remember: there is no top score list. Most people don't browse by score, only tag. If you focus on score, you'll only see the same old art. the top images haven't changed too much, over the last few years. Repeat visitors look at the new stuff.

But yeah. I understand. Most of my most downvoted posts are the last 2 dozen images of a nearly 100-page comic that had been finished in the last 3 years since it's last post on the site. Several people were very appreciative. And yet: downvotes. (I can't blame them though. the artist's style basically had a pretty bad turn.) Yet I still feel resentful, because, damn, that wasn't my kink, it wasn't my artist, it wasn't anything to me--I just uploaded it because it was *finished* and yet the readers here had been left hanging for 2 years.

But it's just numbers. I rarely upvote anything because it's annoying to scroll and find the text over there-. It's just numbers. They don't matter.

regsmutt said:
It can eventually self-correct. Because most people who don't know how to blacklist downvote fetish content aren't seeking it out, you'll only get downvotes for the first few days to a week when it's still going to be recent. After it's buried deep enough to no longer pop up when someone who doesn't use their blacklist is browsing, mostly people seeking it out will see it and they'll upvote it. Eventually you'll get back up to the low negatives or even a positive score.

Sadly, I can't say that about my most recent submission, I don't see that ever balancing out.

SnowWolf said:
I know, but *don't* take it personally. Seriously. Life is WAY too short.

and I think some of those people jsut down vote because "no sir, I don't like it" rather than any deliberate malice.

I just try to remember: there is no top score list. Most people don't browse by score, only tag. If you focus on score, you'll only see the same old art. the top images haven't changed too much, over the last few years. Repeat visitors look at the new stuff.

But yeah. I understand. Most of my most downvoted posts are the last 2 dozen images of a nearly 100-page comic that had been finished in the last 3 years since it's last post on the site. Several people were very appreciative. And yet: downvotes. (I can't blame them though. the artist's style basically had a pretty bad turn.) Yet I still feel resentful, because, damn, that wasn't my kink, it wasn't my artist, it wasn't anything to me--I just uploaded it because it was *finished* and yet the readers here had been left hanging for 2 years.

But it's just numbers. I rarely upvote anything because it's annoying to scroll and find the text over there-. It's just numbers. They don't matter.

Unfortunately, I struggle with being positive.

fox_whisper85 said:
Unfortunately, I struggle with being positive.

Have you tried drugs? Not the illegal kind, but therapy might be worth it if you're struggling with depression / anxiety.

NotMeNotYou said:
Have you tried drugs? Not the illegal kind, but therapy might be worth it if you're struggling with depression / anxiety.

Most of it was due to my job situation not being ideal. I recently started a new job that is a better fit, better hours, etc. No, I haven't, I'm also not in shape and exercising would help as well. That said, I feel I haven't hit a "jackpot" with my submissions as far as consistently getting upvotes. It feels there may be certain individuals downvoting my work as a means of trolling.

I'm not in any financial situation to afford insurance or therapy for a while yet.

fox_whisper85 said:
Sadly, I can't say that about my most recent submission, I don't see that ever balancing out.

I posted something that had a worse score than that. I think it had -15 or -14 at its lowest. Five months later it's up to -1. So yeah. It's possible.

And yeah, that's another problem with using scores to block weird stuff- if the art is decent, the score will get corrected eventually. Unless someone goes through and mass vandalizes tags for fetishes, those are going to stay put.

regsmutt said:
I posted something that had a worse score than that. I think it had -15 or -14 at its lowest. Five months later it's up to -1. So yeah. It's possible.

And yeah, that's another problem with using scores to block weird stuff- if the art is decent, the score will get corrected eventually. Unless someone goes through and mass vandalizes tags for fetishes, those are going to stay put.

Well that, I should know better than not to post that type of character on here, much less in conjunction with those fetishes. If I'm going to post that here, I should stick to vanilla.

i don't like something, I'll downvote it, nothing much else to it. maybe there was a fetish or art style that bothered me, reasons vary. Would absolutely never go out of my way to downvote bomb though, that's being petty

i should probably get into the habit of checking if the drawing was uploaded by the artist themselves, maybe start saying what it is exactly I think is wrong in the most constructive way possible and bank on the chance that criticism is allowed, especially if it was some as innocuous and broad as fan art or wholesome R34

fox_whisper85 said:
Most of it was due to my job situation not being ideal. I recently started a new job that is a better fit, better hours, etc. No, I haven't, I'm also not in shape and exercising would help as well.

I'm glad you have a better job. Jobs can really drain you if they're not a good fit.

That said, I feel I haven't hit a "jackpot" with my submissions as far as consistently getting upvotes. It feels there may be certain individuals downvoting my work as a means of trolling.

Well, searching for fox_whisper85 order:score might give you hints on what people are more appreciative of. But your own enjoyment of creation's important too. order:score_asc will show you the least upvoted first. order:favcount will .. well, order it by number of favorites.

Sadly, I can't say that about my most recent submission, I don't see that ever balancing out.

It might! It might not. Who knows. But numbers aren't everything. Enjoy making your art and, remember: vanilla gets views. Fetish/kink gets devoted fans.

I think the best way to avoid something that isn't their taste is by using the minus (-) sign for every unwanted tag. It's also common in Google if someone wants to be search specific.

I try not to downvote things just because I don't like them, but I can't say I never do. Also I will sometimes post comments like this That said, I would never hate on an artist because I don't like his/her art. What an artist draws is his/her buisness and as long as it's not 'objectively bad' aka 1000_hours_in_ms_paint I won't pick at an artist for what he/she draws.
But e621 has a downvote feature, and if it's not to be used on art you don't personally like, then I don't know o_o

SnowWolf said:
I'm glad you have a better job. Jobs can really drain you if they're not a good fit.

Well, searching for fox_whisper85 order:score might give you hints on what people are more appreciative of. But your own enjoyment of creation's important too. order:score_asc will show you the least upvoted first. order:favcount will .. well, order it by number of favorites.

It might! It might not. Who knows. But numbers aren't everything. Enjoy making your art and, remember: vanilla gets views. Fetish/kink gets devoted fans.

Hmm, can I send you a PM to ask a more in-depth question? I wish to show you art that I want to submit here, but not quite yet.

fox_whisper85 said:
Hmm, can I send you a PM to ask a more in-depth question? I wish to show you art that I want to submit here, but not quite yet.

Anyone is always welcome to send me a PM if needed. :) I like being helpful.

SnowWolf said:
Anyone is always welcome to send me a PM if needed. :) I like being helpful.

I sent a PM, not sure if you had time to read it.

fox_whisper85 said:
I sent a PM, not sure if you had time to read it.

I did! I sent a reply :) I just read the forum first! :D

Downvoting is not rude.

Downvoting without comment is not rude.

Providing constructive feedback to an artist who may not even see it is not the responsibility of users here, nor is it required in order to use the voting system.

What I'm really hearing as I read these comments is that some people are just offended by downvotes.

CCoyote said:
Downvoting is not rude.

Downvoting without comment is not rude.

Downvoting based on content, not quality, is abuse of the voting system and is totally rude towards creators who feel unwelcome just because people fail at using blacklists.

post #503708

Score: –49 (+73 –122)
Favorites: 107

Comment about misleading thumbnail: +75

Totally fair score, right?

KinkyGlutamate said:
Downvoting based on content, not quality, is abuse of the voting system and is totally rude towards creators who feel unwelcome just because people fail at using blacklists.

So instead of using the feature to say "OMG I find this fetish despicable D:" I should use it to say "hey, yeah you there, you SUCK at drawing. Yeah, just so you know that". I really don't see how that would make any artist feel better about downvotes. But then again what do I know, my horses look like cows from minecraft XD

Oh, and let me get this straight: you expect people to vote purely on art quality on what's mainly a porn site? Wether that's a good or bad idea I simply think it's unrealistic.

KinkyGlutamate said:
Downvoting based on content, not quality, is abuse of the voting system

[Citation needed]

NotMeNotYou said:
[Citation needed]

IIRC, abuse of the voting system would be going around and spamming negative or positive votes ad infinitum, right?

fox_whisper85 said:
IIRC, abuse of the voting system would be going around and spamming negative or positive votes ad infinitum, right?

It needs to be targeted and visible that it's done with malicious intend beyond "I dislike this piece."

NotMeNotYou said:
It needs to be targeted and visible that it's done with malicious intend beyond "I dislike this piece."

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification, just making sure.

NotMeNotYou said:
[Citation needed]

What is the purpose of having a voting system?

1. Providing users with more information about the quality than they can expect just from looking at thumbnails alone.
2. Searching for best pictures having some set of tags.
3. Feedback from users who are too lazy to write a meaningful comment.

Now, what does downvoting based on content achieve?

1. More information:

1.1. If you use the blacklist to avoid seeing stuff you don't like, it doesn't affect you.
1.2. If you like the content in question, it ruins your experience as you can no longer judge quality (you can only see upvote/downvote ratio through very user-unfriendly UI).
1.3. If you fail at using the blacklist, then downvotes will be useful.

2. Searching:

1.1. If you use the blacklist, it doesn't affect you.
1.2. If you like the content in question, it ruins your experience as you can no longer sort by quality (while upvoting is consistent, downvoting is not, so the scores become random).
1.3. If you fail at using the blacklist, then downvotes will be useful.

3. Feedback:

1.1. If you use the blacklist, it doesn't affect you.
1.2. If you produce the content in question, it ruins your experience as downvotes are disheartening even if you understand their source.
1.3. If you fail at using the blacklist, then downvotes is your way of telling the world about your failure.

Do you notice the pattern?

Users who don't have unpopular fetishes and use the blacklist, are not affected. Users who have unpopular fetishes, who view, post or create such art, suffer. Users who fail at using the blacklist, benefit.

If you support downvoting based on content, you morally support bad users who don't use the blacklist.

Obviously, not much can be done about this behavior by moderators, as there's no reliable way to read the thoughts of users. However, I don't understand why this behavior is considered fine.
______________________________________________

There're some technical measures that can improve the situation.

1. I'd totally love a way to more easily access exact upvotes and downvotes — through search operators, through UI, through API.

2. If a user consistently downvotes some tags, the system may detect this and suggest to blacklist tags. It's a complex solution with unclear benefits though, so I don't think it'll be implemented.

KinkyGlutamate said:
2. If a user consistently downvotes some tags, the system may detect this and suggest to blacklist tags.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/clippy

KinkyGlutamate said:

Please do continue telling us how to use our voting system, I haven't had quite my fill of your words in my mouth yet.

If you support downvoting based on content, you morally support bad users who don't use the blacklist.

thank you sir, may I have another?

EightyNine said:
Please do continue telling us how to use our voting system, I haven't had quite my fill of your words in my mouth yet.

I'm just saying what's good for other users, and how to improve experience of other visitors instead of clicking random buttons for random reasons with zero gain at best. You can still click random buttons for random reasons, obviously, it's fully within your rights.

KinkyGlutamate said:
1.2. If you like the content in question, it ruins your experience as you can no longer judge quality (you can only see upvote/downvote ratio through very user-unfriendly UI).
...
1.2. If you like the content in question, it ruins your experience as you can no longer sort by quality (while upvoting is consistent, downvoting is not, so the scores become random).

Okay, so... if I like the content of an image, I am utterly blinded by the quality of it and can no longer tell what I like or dislike.

I'm so glad to know that I have no personal agency and no ability to determine what I do or do not like.

SnowWolf said:
Okay, so... if I like the content of an image, I am utterly blinded by the quality of it and can no longer tell what I like or dislike.

I'm so glad to know that I have no personal agency and no ability to determine what I do or do not like.

I think what they're saying is that for downvoted subjects, it's difficult to use score as a quality/relevance filter. For unpopular subjects, ordering by score or filtering out low scores is likely to filter out art of good quality. Score also can't be used as accurately as a gauge for quality or possible trolling from thumbnails where it's difficult to tell.

There's grey area when it comes to subject matter and downvoting because of images made/posted with intent to piss people off. It's hard to really tag for this stuff so downvotes are the only way to really filter them. I guess that's really where the frustration comes from- downvotes based on content that CAN be easily blacklisted and people using votes as a substitute for the blacklist.

regsmutt said:
I think what they're saying is that for downvoted subjects, it's difficult to use score as a quality/relevance filter. For unpopular subjects, ordering by score or filtering out low scores is likely to filter out art of good quality. Score also can't be used as accurately as a gauge for quality or possible trolling from thumbnails where it's difficult to tell.

There's grey area when it comes to subject matter and downvoting because of images made/posted with intent to piss people off. It's hard to really tag for this stuff so downvotes are the only way to really filter them. I guess that's really where the frustration comes from- downvotes based on content that CAN be easily blacklisted and people using votes as a substitute for the blacklist.

(deletes grumpy post)

I'm grumpy, I'm old, and I think that people should be minimally polite and I just can't get my head around walking into someone's house and telling them that they used FAR too much sage in the stuffing, that little Bobby shouldn't use ketchup with his ham, and that we really should have made a cake from scratch rather than buying premade one from the store if we have any interest in serving dessert.

SnowWolf said:
I'm grumpy, I'm old, and I think that people should be minimally polite and I just can't get my head around walking into someone's house and telling them that they used FAR too much sage in the stuffing, that little Bobby shouldn't use ketchup with his ham, and that we really should have made a cake from scratch rather than buying premade one from the store if we have any interest in serving dessert.

Wrong analogy. e621 isn't exactly your personal house, there're other visitors who matter.

Imagine a party. A group of people go to a separate room to relax from the loud music and play cards. A content based downvoter would be a man who barges into that room, spills water on cards and, when asked to go out and enjoy the party the way he likes with people he likes, tells that he has the right to tell how to party correctly and that playing cards sucks, so keeps being annoying by telling cards in hands to opponents.

KinkyGlutamate said:
Wrong analogy. e621 isn't exactly your personal house, there're other visitors who matter.

Imagine a party. A group of people go to a separate room to relax from the loud music and play cards. A content based downvoter would be a man who barges into that room, spills water on cards and, when asked to go out and enjoy the party the way he likes with people he likes, tells that he has the right to tell how to party correctly and that playing cards sucks, so keeps being annoying by telling cards in hands to opponents.

I've been mostly on the same position as you up to here. You're being told not tell people what the rules are when you don't make the rules. If that's not what you're trying to do, maybe try rephrasing stuff so it's more clear. In any case, you kinda just need to chill. It's annoying, but it's not like, a big deal.

And that's a bad analogy. It's more akin to leaving a one-star review on a sushi restaurant because you hate sushi. Sure, you can do that, it's not technically abuse of the review system, but it's unhelpful to people looking for good sushi.

KinkyGlutamate said:
Wrong analogy. e621 isn't exactly your personal house, there're other visitors who matter.

Imagine a party. A group of people go to a separate room to relax from the loud music and play cards. A content based downvoter would be a man who barges into that room, spills water on cards and, when asked to go out and enjoy the party the way he likes with people he likes, tells that he has the right to tell how to party correctly and that playing cards sucks, so keeps being annoying by telling cards in hands to opponents.

*deep breath*

Nope. See, you're--actually no. No more silly analogies.

NotMeNotYou is the lead administrator. He's the boss. He has been for several years. He is the boss here because he is trusted to know the way the site works, and to have the site's best interests in mind. That doesn't mean he's infallible. It means he's familiar with the rules and how they works. He's familiar with what the *spirit* of the rules is. Not the letter, but the spirit. He makes the rules. He understands what abuse of the rules is.

He's not perfect. But neither are you. And you have 107 forum posts. 40 of them have been in the last month. The last posts before that? over 3 years ago. You are not a regular participant in conversations.

To go back to your analogy. you're the guy who shows up every couple months to the regular every-friday party. That's fine, you're welcome here. But you're bitching about the music, and you're telling the host that she made her cupcakes wrong.

It doesn't matter what the guy with the water is doing.

What matters if that you're REALLY LOUDLY complaining about that ASSHOLE OVER THERE and the host is asking you to please not curse because her kids are in the next room watching The Lion King, and you jsut keep going on about what a JERK that guy is and how he's TOTALLY ruining your party experience, and WHY WON"T anyone DO something about THAT FUCKER?

Yeah, I get that it's annoying. I get that you don't like it. but stop assuming that you understand how the system works better than everyone else does. Stop telling the admin that he's wrong. Stop telling 'me' that 'I' don't know what's good art if I like something. You're not being polite. You're not being considerate. you're not presenting any of your arguements in a way that will make anyone WANT to listen to you. You're being frustrating and you're not going to win anyone over to your side unless you lay off a bit and be more accessible.

There are WORLDS of difference between politely presenting an opinion and *telling the lead admin* that he's wrong and doesn't understand how *his rules* work. o_o

I imagine that art is downvoted for the same reason why non-offensive comments are downvoted. It all comes down to one's preference, I suppose. But I rarely downvote anything.

KinkyGlutamate said:
If you support downvoting based on content, you morally support bad users who don't use the blacklist.

Bender said it best.

I very much morally support the freedom of users to use the voting system as they please, as long as they don't negatively target specific users or artists.
People can search for their own votes and use that power for themselves as they see fit. If you want a measurement that's objective and can't be "abused" by other people then sort by number of favorites.

All of that is simply because voting systems are volatile by nature, as everyone has different expectations for them. This has the result that they're quite bad at being objective. We also won't be able to change that as long as it's a binary voting system. Any sort of attempt to make it work objectively would require a more finely grained system like quality tags or 5 star voting systems.

SnowWolf said:
Not the letter, but the spirit. He makes the rules. He understands what abuse of the rules is.

Technically also the letter because helped Dave write them since their inception.

NotMeNotYou said:
Technically also the letter because helped Dave write them since their inception.

Ah, I didn't mean "He isn't familiar with the letter of the rules" but intended to emphasize the idea that the spirit of the rules is more important than the letter--known too many peopel who will split hairs over exact phrasing. :)

But that's neat trivia to know :3

All of that is simply because voting systems are volatile by nature, as everyone has different expectations for them. This has the result that they're quite bad at being objective. We also won't be able to change that as long as it's a binary voting system. Any sort of attempt to make it work objectively would require a more finely grained system like quality tags or 5 star voting systems.

A star-based voting system would be pretty neat actually!

I also wonder: Maybe there would be benefit in giving to option to hide score (or, maybe even just display number of upvotes, instead of a total score)... also, potentially counter-intuitively, it'd be nice if the voting buttons were easier to see--highlighted like the favorite button, or next to the edit buttons, etc. *shrugs* I think people are more motivated to express displeasure--so making it 'easier' might attract more upvotes. Who knows :D

regsmutt said:
I've been mostly on the same position as you up to here. You're being told not tell people what the rules are when you don't make the rules. If that's not what you're trying to do, maybe try rephrasing stuff so it's more clear. In any case, you kinda just need to chill. It's annoying, but it's not like, a big deal.

I'm not inventing "rules", I'm explaining how behavior of users affects experience of other users. Being considerate and caring about others can't be put into rules, of course.

And that's a bad analogy. It's more akin to leaving a one-star review on a sushi restaurant because you hate sushi. Sure, you can do that, it's not technically abuse of the review system, but it's unhelpful to people looking for good sushi.

It isn't analogy at this point, it's exactly the same thing. 😀

SnowWolf said:
Nope. See, you're--actually no. No more silly analogies.
(...)
To go back to your analogy. you're the guy who shows up (...)

You failed at following your own suggestion. 😛

Stop telling 'me' that 'I' don't know what's good art if I like something.

https://youtu.be/8Gv0H-vPoDc?t=2m31s

There are WORLDS of difference between politely presenting an opinion and *telling the lead admin* that he's wrong and doesn't understand how *his rules* work. o_o

You failed at understanding my point. Several times.

OK, last try. All I want is for users to understand the consequences of their actions and be considerate about experience of other users, if they desire to do so. I'm not proposing new rules, not reinterpreting existing rules, not forcing anyone to do anything or anything of that sort. I just want people to be nice to each other, but it's merely my silly wish. All users are still allowed to be jerks, it's still within the rules and will always be.

A star-based voting system would be pretty neat actually!

The problem is, it never works. Literally never. Remember YouTube having star-based voting? Well, turned out that Five Stars Dominate Ratings. Even when people are forced to give meaningful scores (by splitting into subscores, by requiring comments), they still only use 1 star or 5 stars.

NotMeNotYou said:
If you want a measurement that's objective and can't be "abused" by other people then sort by number of favorites.

Considering how well hidden and useless voting is, number of favorites is more precise too, which is kinda funny, as on most websites voting is used more often than adding to favorites.

Just looked at the lists of top posts both by score and favcount. Except for rare outliers, favcount is consistently 3x-5x bigger than score.

You know, you convinced me. I'll just hide the stupid score completely. I made a checkbox in my userscript for this after all, finally found a use for it. 😁

KinkyGlutamate said:
You failed at following your own suggestion. 

For fuck's sake. Please scroll back up and observe the part where I very bluntly said things before, as you so astutely observed, noted going back to the silly analogy.

Also, good job ignoring all of that text in favor of sniping at my details.

https://youtu.be/8Gv0H-vPoDc?t=2m31s[/quote]

and apparent grammar! Awesome.

Okay, so now I will explain, since apparently all uses of quotation marks are not understood here...

You said "Users don't know." You did not say "SnowWolf doesn't know." You did not, personally and specifically, target me. So I put quotations marks around I and me to indicate that it was the metaphorical non-specific me/I. Y'know, people like me, not me specific. Because I figured most people would understand, and not need to me to explain in full, but I guess not.

You failed at understanding my point. Several times.

If I am failing, repeatedly, to understand your point, maybe you're doing a poor job of explaining it.

OK, last try. All I want is for users to understand the consequences of their actions and be considerate about experience of other users, if they desire to do so. I'm not proposing new rules, not reinterpreting existing rules, not forcing anyone to do anything or anything of that sort. I just want people to be nice to each other, but it's merely my silly wish. All users are still allowed to be jerks, it's still within the rules and will always be.

And this is a great idea. The problem is, you are assuming that users don't understand the consequences of their actions. Further, you are assuming that there *are* these long, deep consequences involved with a downvote. It's a popularity score. This is not facebook where we hide posts because they've been downvoted too much. You've got to go through gymnastics to even sort by score, and most people never bother. Most people don't blacklist, or search by score. Except the people who don't want to see inspecifically 'weird' or 'gross' things, at which point, score is working as intended.

That said, you *are* reinterpreting rules.

I mean, seriously:

KinkyGlutamate said: Downvoting based on content, not quality, is abuse of the voting system
NotMeNotYou Said: [Citation needed] <-- clearly implying that this is not an aspect that he, the writer and enforcer of the rules, considers to be a part of the rules.
KinkyGlutamate said: (long post about why you believe downvoting based on content is abuse of the voting system, an offense that can, does, and has, as recently as 9 days ago, gotten people in trouble.

The problem is, it never works. Literally never. Remember YouTube having star-based voting? Well, turned out that Five Stars Dominate Ratings. Even when people are forced to give meaningful scores (by splitting into subscores, by requiring comments), they still only use 1 star or 5 stars.

Hm, fair point. Now that I think about it, there are 2 'types' of star rating systems-- one is the system that takes all votes and compiles them into a score, while the other does the same, but also displays the numbers of individual star ratings. In the case of the second, we could easily assume that 1 star ratings are people who simply don't like the content. But all that said, it wouldn't, ultimatly, be all that different. However, as I said, it could be interesting, as a difference.

... On an aside, I wonder how voting on a scale ranging from -5 to 5 would be different than voting on a 1-10 scale. Hm. I mean, not specifically for us here but in a generalized human-psychological sense, since we seem to have trouble 'remembering' that a 3 star rating is supposed to be an 'average, whatever, It's okay' rating. Anyway.

... Just a random comment passing by this loud conversation of yours ...

I'm actually quite new here and not as long into furries as you guys are, but I have to say that I don't really look at the upvotes in the first place. I always look at the favcount. The fav counter always tells me something like: x people liked this artwork. And I feel this is the right way to approach an artwork. Even if some art got more than 100 downvotes, there is always someone who likes that particular art!

For example: I just recently stumbled across the artwork of Todex

I don't know if the voting system was here all the time, but sometimes I got the feeling it has been added later as the site was already in use.

For example: here is an (7 year old) artwork which got more than 40 favs but not a single upvote.

So I've learned to not look at the upvotes in the first place. I favorite artwork I personally like and not because "it got many upvotes and I should like it too then".

Rotoxy said:
For example: I just recently stumbled across the artwork of Todex

I don't know if the voting system was here all the time, but sometimes I got the feeling it has been added later as the site was already in use.

Todex was DNP artist. What this means their artwork was deleted and thus favoriting and voting did not work with those posts. Now the artwork has been restored, so the posts work and can be accessed.

KinkyGlutamate said:
...I don't even know what part to quote ._.

So you are not asking for a change in the rules, just saying that everyone that doesn't agree with you is a destructive idiot. K, got it.

1. People can only care about content they care about. You can't force people to like content they feel nothing toward or actively dislike because most people are ruled by irrational, incorrigible things like emotions and morality. However, exceptional execution of content can appeal to a broader audience than less inspired execution of that content. (That's probably backwards, though: content garnering appeal outside its normal demographic proves exceptional execution, not the other way around.)

2. Let's say every vote required users to also answer a one-question survey; that this requirement discouraged no one's votes; and that voters understood the question, answers, and were honest. Simply, "why did you [upvote/downvote] this post?" with answers like "I liked the content" and an optional "More Info" text field. Okay, so conceivably everyone can see how and why users vote. What would we see?

(pause to think of answers)

I strongly suspect a majority of our downvotes and upvotes are for content, then specific content with above average quality, not quality regardless content. We already know most people aren't here looking for just anything of quality, and they're especially not upvoting every quality post they see. Exhibit A: all those safe-rated posts with obvious skillful execution yet relatively low scores invariably bandied about whenever this topic comes up. Even if the survey allowed multiple answers, doesn't everyone fully expect to see more ☑ Content ☐ Quality and ☑ Content ☑ Quality answers than ☐ Content ☑ Quality?

Let's say artists and other "concerned parties" cheerfully ignore content-based downvotes. Fine, but that's the problem. This whole "don't downvote based on content" sentiment feels like such a crock of self-deception and bad faith when what's left unsaid is "(but it's okay to upvote based on content)". Echo chamber, much? The height of irony would be seeing realized this counterfactual "vote for quality only" system with the current userbase where, surprise surprise, voting is down 50-90% across the board but popufur art still leads score by insurmountable margins. Job well done.

3. We aren't grading art. This isn't a school or museum; it's an archive. We're not trained art educators or curators. Not our profession, not why we're here, not something "we" even credibly know how to do. I can't even. Get your heads on straight.

The notion that laypeople should or even can separate "quality" from "content" when assessing "content quality"/"quality content" is delusional. "Quality" is literally a modifier of "content", proof of quality depends upon the existence of content, quality is secondary to content by every possible construct. You can't have "good art" without the "art".

post #254736

Well this has been a fun mess to read through.