Official Forums no longer have downvotes.

[Kynario]

Woe is you? Downvoting only promotes "silencing" opposing opinions. Just look at reddit and how quickly posts that don't follow what's popular get downvoted into oblivion.

Exactly. People who reasoned their posts fairly and constructively got down-voted to oblivion because certain individuals didn't agree with them. :-/
It was essentially a form of censorship. I'll upvote what I agree with, and I'll downvote what I disagree with even if it's reasonably put. Meaningful discussions should be encouraged way more than shallow upvote/downvote wars!

[Polybius]

@callipygoustp I meant to quote in line with another post but I dungoofed. Realized later and now thread is locked

Down voting was a way for people who disagreed to censor your opinions or ideas. When someone read a thread with comments down voted you had to manually open the comment which is counter productive to a discussion. It had zero to do with people's self esteem. Blizzard isn't here to police your mental health.

One can argue the same for downvoters. It fills the empty void in their ego and turns the thread into an echo chamber. Comments should be challenge, but you don't need a voting system. It encourages some to skip good points and circlejerk over a disagreeing poster, instead of adding anything useful.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Problem with downvotes and a public Internet forum is it all it really boils down to is groups of people hiding minority opinions. If you had a group of say 20 to 30 very active people on a forum (say a mythic roster) it would be very easy to target individuals and make them never heard.

End of the day if you don't like what your reading then stop reading it. Don't make it impossible for others to read as well. That just makes people into assholes. Specifically if you have a well moderated form like there, and here, that maintain a symbolism of rules. At least as well as one can do on a wide open internet space.

[Accendor]

Never should have had them in the first place it was nothing short of moronic.

If there are no downvotes there should be no upvotes also.

[DesoPL]

At last Activision did something good. At long fucking last...

[Sencha]

Even though troll posts can't be downvoted anymore, doesn't mean they will have more likes than other threads.

Yeah but they won't be buried.

[Mosotti]

Many years ago I started a thread about PvP gear, basically asking "what if there would be no PvP gear and everybody has like the same gear and let the skill be the major factor?". It was downvoted to fucking hell, but look, years later, something has changed. So to all that downvoted me years ago: FUCK YOU, I WIN! lol

[derpkitteh]

But forums are places for discussion, not popularity contests, and that was what the official forums were devolving into.
Glad they removed the downvote button, but I agree with others that the upvote button also needs to go. Pushing a button does not create discussion whether it points up or down, it only stifles it.

i see it as making it easier to see which pieces of game design are hated or loved. leading to more change in the game.

pro-flight people are always upvoted into the hundreds, while anti-flight people were always downvoted into nothingness. now, they will have at least some upvotes, giving a dishonest view of their ideas.

[Shakou]

And yet you seem to see nothing wrong with elevating posts that we agree with, even if they're wrong.

Cull the voting system entirely, or leave it be. You can't take one vote away, but leave the other.

Not the same thing in the context of a discussion forum. One thing has a side effect of making a discussion forum a toxic place, the other is a convenient way to show you agree with someone without posting, because nobody needs to see ten posts in a thread of someone quoting someone just to say they agree.

Beside all that, upvoting posts doesn't make them more visible on those boards.

[Lime]

I'm pretty surprised at how many on the Official forums want it back. They keep yelling that taking it away is censorship, but isn't that what downvoting was?

The forum's mindset sure has shifted over the years. Back when voting was added, everyone hated it. Now, some go as far to say that they can't use the forums without it.

I have a bad feeling that they're going to bring it back.

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And yet you seem to see nothing wrong with elevating posts that we agree with, even if they're wrong.

Cull the voting system entirely, or leave it be. You can't take one vote away, but leave the other.

Let me start by saying that I don't care if upvotes exist or are removed. So moving on, I disagree with you:

When making a forum, you want a great many things from it. An important two are - discussion and a way to reduced clutter posts. Let's go into each of those.

Discussion
The downvote system negatively impacts this. It dissuades people who are insecure about being downvoted from going against the hivemind. It allows users to bury a post, regardless of if it's good or not. And finally, it allows someone to put input without actually furthering the discussion. It's literally a "Fuck off" button.

Reduced Clutter
This is where Upvoting comes in. When you upvote a post, you're saying that you agree with it. Nothing needs to be said. It's not like downvoting where you're omiiting a potential discussion because you just want to tell someone "nuh uh" and nothing more. With upvoting, the goal is to reduce clutter posts that are simply, "I agree", "This", ect... Things that don't contribute and are as bad as just simply downvoting someone.

So I can see why they're keeping one and not the other, for the goals they achieve are very different. There are certainly other solutions though, should you feel like Upvoting should be removed. Look at how MMO-C tackles it - they make it so that you require a certain number of letters to submit a post and urge you against typing posts like, "This!".

[Armourboy]

Exactly. People who reasoned their posts fairly and constructively got down-voted to oblivion because certain individuals didn't agree with them. :-/
It was essentially a form of censorship. I'll upvote what I agree with, and I'll downvote what I disagree with even if it's reasonably put. Meaningful discussions should be encouraged way more than shallow upvote/downvote wars!

Just want to say, I very rarely saw anyone that posted a reasoned response that was posted constructively get down voted into oblivion. 95% of the stuff I've see down voted was generally more troll in nature " yall just sucks", " don't like it than quit ", etc. Very rarely did I see what you described happen.

Having seen Blizzard's response I also put some of the blame on them. If they wanted the dislike button to be used in a certain way, well they should have given it another name. " Dislike " is a pretty broad term to just throw out there.

[Irian]

It makes me laugh how many people are taking the "SJW/politically correct" stance like a bunch of mindless dunces on the official forums.

It is literally the opposite of that. If you had a controversial opinion it would be drowned in waves of downvotes because you didn't go with the whiny tide of the forums. Now exchanges can be had and a proper show of support can be seen with upvotes. All this does is not drown out the opinions that aren't the forum-accepted norm, and give a proper showing of how many people align with what views.

[SirCowdog]

They shouldn't have had downvotes to begin with, but at least they learn. In every system with downvotes - it gets abused beyond its purpose.
Don't like something - don't upvote it. Like something - upvote it. See something old with no upvotes - it's bad.

In theory that sounds good. But in reality it's not really much better than before.

The problem before is that people were downvoting for all manner of strange reasons. The problem wasn't necessarily that posts were being downvoted, but rather that they were being downvoted without context. Just removing downvotes, but leaving upvotes doesn't actually solve anything, because the upvotes also don't have any context.

We don't know if people are upvoting because they think the post is funny, or if they agree, or if they just approve of good grammar. It's the exact same problem as before, only without the negative connotations. Removing only downvotes doesn't actually fix anything. It only changes the way the problem is perceived. That's good from Blizzard's point of view, but in reality isn't a net gain for anyone else.

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i see it as making it easier to see which pieces of game design are hated or loved. leading to more change in the game.

pro-flight people are always upvoted into the hundreds, while anti-flight people were always downvoted into nothingness. now, they will have at least some upvotes, giving a dishonest view of their ideas.

This doesn't really have anything to do with the current topic; but I just wanted to point out that it wasn't me who brought up the flying/no-flying thing as an example of how the up/downvote system is flawed.

[Elim Garak]

In theory that sounds good. But in reality it's not really much better than before.

The problem before is that people were downvoting for all manner of strange reasons. The problem wasn't necessarily that posts were being downvoted, but rather that they were being downvoted without context. Just removing downvotes, but leaving upvotes doesn't actually solve anything, because the upvotes also don't have any context.

We don't know if people are upvoting because they think the post is funny, or if they agree, or if they just approve of good grammar. It's the exact same problem as before, only without the negative connotations. Removing only downvotes doesn't actually fix anything. It only changes the way the problem is perceived. That's good from Blizzard's point of view, but in reality isn't a net gain for anyone else.

Except there are examples of this approach that clearly work. Facebook. They had both buttons, then they removed both buttons then they returned the upvote (like) button.

Their reasoning was, if you don't like something - comment on it rather than downvote. if you like something - no point in commenting - just like it. It works.

[SirCowdog]

Discussion
The downvote system negatively impacts this. It dissuades people who are insecure about being downvoted from going against the hivemind. It allows users to bury a post, regardless of if it's good or not. And finally, it allows someone to put input without actually furthering the discussion. It's literally a "Fuck off" button.

How is that actually any different than someone(or a group of someones) bury an otherwise good topic in shitposts? I saw a LOT of that in the flying argument. People repeatedly spamming useless, trollish nonsense in an effort to drown out the normal constructive discussion. MANY such threads with otherwise healthy discussion got locked and deleted by Blizzard because of this.

What happens when someone makes a well-thought post, but the very first response is something to the effect of "Ur dumb and you should feel dumb for posting", and THAT reply gets all the upvotes? How is that different from the downvoting bomb in terms of psychological impact?

Reduced Clutter
This is where Upvoting comes in. When you upvote a post, you're saying that you agree with it.

False. As I said earlier, an upvote without context could mean any number of things, not necessarily agreement with the post. Your assumption that it automatically equates to agreement is a perfect example of how how only allowing upvotes colors people's perceptions. You don't actually know why a person upvoted, but you've already assumed it means they agree with everything that was written.

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Except there are examples of this approach that clearly work. Facebook. They had both buttons, then they removed both buttons then they returned the upvote (like) button.

Their reasoning was, if you don't like something - comment on it rather than downvote. if you like something - no point in commenting - just like it. It works.

And yet that system doesn't stop massive levels of spam and shitposts from going viral. As I said, it only creates a false sense of positivity. It alters the perception, not the reality.

[Elim Garak]

And yet that system doesn't stop massive levels of spam and shitposts from going viral. As I said, it only creates a false sense of positivity. It alters the perception, not the reality.

That's not the purpose of the system. Nothing can stop that.

[SirCowdog]

That's not the purpose of the system. Nothing can stop that.

Right...the purpose of the system is to make Blizzard's community(and by extension, Blizzard themselves) look better than they really are. A forum filled with nothing but smiley faces and rainbow colored upvotes is a much nicer picture than one that also has downvotes to contrast. Or even one with no up/downvotes at all and only discussion.

EDIT: It's not so much that I mind Blizzard trying to make themselves look better. After all, they're a business. It's part of their job to improve their image. What I dislike is the disingenuous attempt to make it seem like they're doing this for our benefit. If this was actually about improving discussion and promoting a healthy forum community, they'd nuke the voting system entirely and hire some halfway decent CMs and forum moderators.

[Super Kami Dende]

But how will idiots understand their stupid as fuck posts are stupid if they don't get a lashing of downvotes.

[Lime]

How is that actually any different than someone(or a group of someones) bury an otherwise good topic in shitposts? I saw a LOT of that in the flying argument. People repeatedly spamming useless, trollish nonsense in an effort to drown out the normal constructive discussion. MANY such threads with otherwise healthy discussion got locked and deleted by Blizzard because of this.

But that's not something that can be fixed with upvotes / downvotes existing or not. That's a completely different matter. At least now, that person's post will still be visible, rather than before where it would still happen and the person's post would be buried.

Spam and troll comments are unrelated.

False. As I said earlier, an upvote without context could mean any number of things, not necessarily agreement with the post.

The purpose of an upvote is that you agree with it just like the purpose of a downvote is that you disagree with it. Why would you upvote a post you disagree with? It doesn't improve visibility, especially now that burying doesn't exist.

If your argument is that people aren't using it as it's intended feature, then it's not something that can be fixed. It's like saying that someone who types out the post to say, "I agree with this", doesn't actually mean that he agrees with it.

[G3istly]

And yet you seem to see nothing wrong with elevating posts that we agree with, even if they're wrong.

Cull the voting system entirely, or leave it be. You can't take one vote away, but leave the other.

They most certainly can. Nobody is silenced by having someone upvote an opinion. You just seem like the kind of person who abused the downvoting system and now you want everyone to "suffer" as you have.