Like and Dislike system

The Like and Dislike system has been automatically added by the system software.

At the moment you can like or dislike any post.

At the moment a like will mean your username will be attached to that post.

As far as I can tell there are no points or other indications to show whether a member has good posts or bad posts, it just seems to be a way of showing whether you like a particular post or not.

In your notifications area you should be able to control whether you are notified if someone likes a post you posted or dislikes it.

I will leave it on for a week or so to see how it goes.

Do not misuse or abuse this system please.

For now I will leave dislikes on but not displaying so if you dislike a post it wont reveal your username to prevent petty revenge activities... and as I said we will see how it goes.

I suspect in a weeks time I may be turning off the ability to dislike a post, or I might be turning the whole thing off... obviously you will get a say and any thoughts you might have can be posted to this thread please.

Please note that like and dislike are the default, so if you prefer we can change either to anything you like... they could be agree and disagree, or support and don't support, or even care and don't care...

OK I just disliked my own post and liked the two replies we have received so far just as a test.

Clearly it states I liked the posts that I liked and has a number one to record my dislike of the first post.

Please note this is just me testing it... I don't really dislike the first post.

Please continue to provide your views... there are no right or wrong posts... if you think it looks cluttered then by all means tell us and make us aware of this.

Thanks George... I will have a look in the scripting to see if I can change the position of the buttons to the right hand side of the page.

Also... try it and take the time to see if you get used to it. Feel free to post opinions here about it but also feel free to post again in a couple of days time... is it still great or is it still annoying.

As I said I will look at the code to see if I can shift the buttons to the right of the text box and we can see if that helps too.

On another thread where I had previously liked a photo post I tried liking it again but instead of two likes it disabled my previous like so I didn't like it any more and my username was no longer underneath it showing I liked it.

I then tried to dislike it and it added a number one for dislike.

When I tried to dislike it a second time it also removed the dislike...

So the buttons like and dislike are simply toggles... on and off.

Means you can change your mind, and also means you can't just troll and put 100 dislikes on one post. or Fanboy yourself and give yourself 100 likes per post.

(Have repeated) Will repeat this info in the thread on likes and dislikes.

I had a look at the section where I control the like dislike feature and it is not obvious as to how I can shift it but it should be possible.

I hear what you say but doing that will probably cause some unnecessary arguments. People's egos tend to get in the way.
To be honest I have not seen that many dislikes as well.

Personally I don't like the dislike option, personally I would prefer a few different options like "I agree" and "thank you for posting", because sometimes you appreciate the post but the content is negative... you are trying to thank someone for their contribution and insight but that insight was negative.

Obvious example was a comment from FP about how little money he got when he left service... I clicked on like and realised I liked the fact he shared the information but not the information he shared... would love to see those who serve their countries get enormous amounts of money and support.

I have had similar experiences with posts from Auslander and Airbornewolf.

Not sure how to make that happen though.

With the dislike button, I mentioned at the start it could create stupid bullshit, and the options are make the not anonymous or remove it all together so it is not used as a weapon.

The more I think about it the more inclined I am to think I might remove the dislike option.

Although there are options to create voting threads this is a discussion forum rather than a popularity contest, so rather than just clicking a dislike button I think it makes more sense to post a response and be more clear about what you disagree with and why.

Not to create arguments but to lead to discussions.

Obviously if your reasons for disliking a post have been bebunked as propaganda or just plain wrong then the person who dislikes a post will have to give that bebunked reason because they clearly didn't get the memo.

A good example of that was the autoloaders removing body parts from Soviet tank crew... now something nasty might have happened once or maybe even a couple of times, but if you listened to western comments about autoloaders in the 70s and 80s you would think HATO was going to walk all over the Soviet armoured forces because they must all have artificial arms by then and need to operate their tanks with their boots off so they could use their toes.

In actual fact men lose fingers and hands and sometimes limbs with manually loaded guns too and the number who have been killed when the guns fire as they load the round resulting in them taking the full recoil energy of the weapon to the chest is not enormous but also not less than double figures.

The point is that you don't know something is propaganda myth till someone points the obvious out.... and you don't get that if you just click the dislike button.

Of course the bloody minded who come here for an argument and don't care about the truth and just want to be right and for their side to be considered the good guys no matter what, then when shown to be wrong they flick to the next reason... which is never as good as their first reason and is often more shaky than the first.... you never hear them say... oh, well maybe I was wrong... but that is OK... look at western debate and discussion it is us against them and you can't afford to lose because this is war... it is better to be wrong but not admit it, that be right and change your way of thinking.

The Russians can remain drugs cheats out to destroy the west at every chance they get despite evidence to the contrary... if they wanted to destroy the west the money they are spending on the far east and far north to introduce a transit route from Asia to the EU and back that is shorter and cheaper would make no sense. Equally if all Russian athletes were doping and all of them have to be banned then it should be pretty easy to demand samples from them immediately to show they are taking illegal drugs and just ban them individually... when you have banned all the Russian athletes you can say... well it must be institutional and supported by the government for them all to be doping up and then ban the country.... they wont have any athletes left anyway.

If you say but hang on... they might pass the tests... but if a drugs cheat can pass tests how do we know all the athletes in the world are not cheating... perhaps olympic sports are what should be banned.... Vann just got a hard on then...

flamming_python wrote:

kvs wrote:I already said this before but I think both likes and dislikes should be owned by the people making them.   Anonymous dislikes are for anonymous cowards
and trolls.

Grow a thicker skin will ya

But, but many of us are thin skinned Westerners. Not you tough guys out east with Mongol blood coursing through your veins.

Thank you all for feedback, and feel free to continue to talk about your thoughts on the feature and the options.

Won't make any decisions soon, and even if I do change things it will be open to discussion too.