Most of you are annoyed for no reason other than "this is different to what I'm used to so I hate it". Give it a bit and you will probably forget it's there.
Will I use it? No. Do I think it will change anything? Not really. I'm not voting until something happens enough for me to care about it being introduced. Anyone got any decent arguments?
There are three main arguments I can bring up:
Hopefully with the new emoticons you didn't feel discouraged from writing a long response. Some suggest that you'd have an overwhelming urge to just press the "Disagree" button instead.
a) Visual/usability aspect
The icons are both childish and unnecessary clutter. The oversized, animated emoticons are already annoying enough, but this is a "built in" feature that shows up in every post.
One could make the argument that the new brofist system actually reduces the number of oversized, animated emoticons given they're the same icons, only smaller, less bright and will be grouped together under the post instead of spread all through the thread.
Sure, half of it it only shows up on mouse over (unless you are using a mobile device, such as iPad, where you see all of them all the time). I prefer to mark text with mouse, which now brings up colourful animated icons that distract me from the reading I was doing.
I hope you aren't making an argument about it being inconvenient to browse the codex from an iPad or iPhone either. That wouldn't really fly too well around here would it? I'm not sure what you mean by "mark text with mouse".
Not to mention the sloppy technical implementation, effect of which can be negligible depending on the server resources.
If it slows down the server, then that's a problem that DU is probably going to want to deal with immediately given that it was a constant area of concern not too long ago. I think they're still working that out though.
b) Static of the alert system
Unless you were a veritable master of the fist, you got alerts on Brofists rather sporadically. With the addition of multiple options, especially of the highly attractive "retarded" and "butthurt" ratings, you're getting flooded with alerts that force you to disable them altogether. So the actual recognition for doing something of value gets lost in the midst of the childish drivel.
And even if we do remove the "butthurt" options, the static from agree/disagree remains.
Now, DU argues that this will die down as the brofist abuse did. Well, all customer studies show that people are always several magnitudes more likely to give negative feedback than positive one. So even if it dwindles a bit, it will always be more pronounced.
Well have a heart for all the people who used to get no brofists or alerts. Now they will get some, although they might be "I disagree" or "You are retarded". I guess that's the way most responses go on the Codex anyway isn't it?
I don't really know about a number stating "agree/disagree" as being something to be concerned about. Is there a chance people are taking these things too seriously? What happens if you end up with 100 agrees and 200 disagrees? Will you feel ostracised from the Codex hivemind? Will you feel like there is some kind of unresolved conflict lingering on the forum? If that happens, hopefully DU deals with it immediately.
If 90% of people hate the system, will they still use it?
If 90% of the Codex hates popamole games, will they still buy them day 1?
c) The negative feedback loop the downvoting options create
This is probably the most significant, and most fundamental result of the new system.
Now, the argument seems to be that the new options can act as regulatory mechanisms to prevent disruptive behaviour and general assholery. You act stupid, you get rated "retarded". DU argues that Codex has always been like this.
I strongly refute that argument. There is a very large difference between having to actually voice out the reason why you disagree with the poster, think he is retarded or butthurt - or simply clicking a button from the safety of your own home. Chances are, you'd actually get branded retarded yourself should you actually be forced to defend your opinion.
If you post disagreement on the Codex, does that cause a negative feedback loop as well, or is this only applicable to button presses?
Even if the individuals spamming the retarded/butthurt buttons to rank the post are generally identified shitposters and ignorable personas, they are still dragging down your "ranking" and making your post look bad to casual viewer. No matter how thick skinned you are, this has a psychological effect - as proven by countless of studies showing why giving positive feedback is better than negative.
I didn't take the illustrious god of honey and rape as one to be concerned about this kind of thing. It's a fair point for those who care, even if most of the Codex would probably respond with "harden the fuck up".
Picture this - you are delivering your thesis to your peers. There are opponents presenting counter arguments and testing the validity of your claims. And then there are 4-5 guys in the front row, shouting "retarded" and "butthurt much?". This is pretty much what the whole rating system does. Except the front row guys can now follow you around and do the same everywhere you post, regardless of the quality and the content.
If I was in the presentation hall, I would hope there would be some security around to deal with it. If I was presenting in a local shopping centre, I guess I'd probably be a little annoyed but then again it's the public. If I was presenting my thesis in a seedy bar in the worst neighbour hood in town, then I'd probably smile and nod. Which one do you think is closest to the Codex? Although obvious answer may be obvious, you might find that different sub-forums are actually more similar to the other scenarios. It is probably going to depend on where you spend your time on here.
No matter how thick skinned and grown up you are, social media is not a place where you go to engage in kindergarten level shit flinging contests (unless you are a special person). I've built my career in sales, which involves in dealing with all kinds of assholes, facing constant barrage of rejection and often strong personal insults as well (if you are selling shit to shitty customers). On my free time? Fuck that shit, I got better things to do.
Codex is social media. It sounds dirty. I guess that's one of those retroactively applicable terms that make you sit back and think "Goddamnit.
everything is shit This has gone too far". There may yet be a sense of social justice in the Codex anyway where a post being called retarded in an unwarranted way might actually increase the agree/brofist amount. This is something we will need to wait and see about.
Rating systems inherently lead to circlejerks of like minded individuals. Even for those degenerates who are here only for the "lulz" I'd argue - eliminating dissenting opinions does not quality lulz nurture.
Were there circlejerks on the Codex with brofists? Surely if you introduce negative options that will decrease the circlejerks that brofist introduced.
At Codex, we tend to make fun of the general decline and simplification of the gaming industry. We make fun of the next gen gamers and their inability to read text dialogue. Yet in our own forums we enable the equivalent of dialogue wheels and are supposed to be content with pressing a buttons instead of presenting an opinion.
I like you so I'm not going to get personal, but I think a lot of your arguments have an element of hypocrisy in relation to culture of the Codex in general. You aren't having the ability to post taken away, you're not even getting anything new which wasn't there in the form of normal emoticons. All the good posters like us won't be affected.
Still not convinced? Have a look at those who've voted for "yes" on this new ranking system. Then have a look at their opponents.
You're using an appeal to majority after complaining about circle jerks of like-minded individuals? Isn't a poll where you press "No, I don't like it" exactly the same thing as a bunch of people clicking the "Disagree" icon under a post? Anyway, I addressed this point earlier. It's a kneejerk reaction to a change. It doesn't reflect whether or not the system works. We will need to wait.
What's the problem with having people disagree with you anyway? I don't think you covered that point ("Disagree" is neutral not negative, btw). It seems people are using the argument "Other places like reddit have this feature, so that'd be decline of the Codex", as well as "Other places on the internet don't have a negative rating system, so that'd be decline of the Codex". I find it quite fitting that the Codex now rates on a negative scale instead of just positive. Isn't the Codex about the old school hate, dissidence and negativity? Isn't that the culture generally? I always thought so.
If you haven't yet noticed, I'm not emotionally invested in this matter. You made a good response so it was worth responding to it. I get the feeling you are over-estimating the extent to which these things will happen though. They probably will, just on a very limited scale. I think people need to calm down and wait and see what happens.
To finish, there is one problem that I can think of. People posting news reports that happen to be retarded (that's what the Codex is about) may end up getting their posts tagged retarded and have that show up as negative on their profile. That's not ideal. It already happened with brofists for news posts and interviews which didn't really make much sense a lot of the time. I think there should be some more thinking on this part. Crooked Bee and Infinitron will probably become two of the most "retarded" posters on the site, which is a shame because they're both good posters. Hopefully it doesn't discourage news posters from posting ridiculous stories. It may work to make it clear to people not to use it in that context. I suppose one counter point to that is the way "retarded" and "butthurt" might be used is that everyone will end up with a good amount of negative points, and as long as it stays less than half, nobody minds. A bit like % posts in General Discussion. Needs more analysis.
Here I got you this.
I meant to find different images but this is all I found.
) and this is worse. DU said it was impossible to get rid of a "like" system though, and that is why we had Brofists IIRC, so go back to that please.
We will adjust to this and get over this and yes I say this even though I voted against these changes.
, :buthurt: and :parrot: emoticons exclusivively for the politics forum, and :brofist: for everything else. Trust me, this is the best way to do it.
down was the best way a true BRO agrees with a post. As has been said before, it will just lead to dumbfucks clicking retarded on every single post. In fact it's already happening: 
