Have you ever accidentally hit Great Answer only to desperately wish you could take it back?

Maybe we need an “edit” on those as well!

Good lord, yes.

No. Not desperately. If it was something I entirely disagreed with, I regret it, but there are more important things to worry about.
(Like if I hit the freakin’ Great Answer button on purpose and it doesn’t register! Gah!)

@pete, yes I hate that too!

no I’ve never done that… but there should be more options
A great answer (5stars)
A ok answer (3stars)
A bad answer (-5stars)

and if it has to be removed by fluther moderators -10 stars

I could care less… They’re just little pixels on a screen.

Having already been a member of a site where other users can actually take away points for answers with which they disagree, I vastly prefer the Fluther system.

It comes down to this for me: some people (like, almost all of them) would rate answers based on ideology instead of fact, although I can see how some would confuse the two. Sometimes, well-thought-out answers of various schools of thought would be downgraded because the rest of the people who came along didn’t believe in that system.

As a result, the level of points (or gold or lurve or whatever) would come to mean less about the person’s overall quality, and more about how well they fit into the dominant paradigm. I’m not sure this is something I, personally, would enjoy here any more than I did at the other site.

Remember, sometimes there are only a few champions for an idea that turns out to be correct. If we always put the smackdown on dissent, we miss a lot.

@laureth, very true…I just felt like I accidentally inflated someone’s ego because I hit the GA when I didn’t mean it…I think taking away lurve would be a disaster, unless the fluther moderators did it for an inappropiate answer, that might be ok.

shoot!

Oh, not desperately. More like “oops.” But I don’t begrudge people their 5 points. It’s not as if it took something away from anyone else.

I would hate to have a system of take-aways (even though I have occasionally felt like making a deduction for rudeness) just because a punitive attitude is not good for the community spirit.

As far as I’m concerned, the present system is just great, and the only thing I’d change, if I could, is that I wouldn’t want to run out of lurve points for a particular person quite so fast. The ceiling is very low: after something like 20 GAs, you can’t award points to that person any more (although the GA count still goes up). Because the same people tend to be attracted to certain topics and themes, I see great answers from the same folks over and over, and I wish I could recognize that.

But even in this matter, I have to say that I trust the excellent judgment of the Fluthergods, who have called it just right on so many things that I’m disinclined to cavil.

I don’t like the idea of “Bad Answer”, or subtracting 5 lurve. It would turn the site into a giant flame war. The “Great Answer” button is only meant to be a small incentive for doing well. A whole spectrum rating system would be too complicated. Leave removing the bad answers to the mods.

I also understand everyone’s concerns with giving “accidental lurve”, especially on iPhones.

Removing someone from “Your Fluther” doesn’t get rid of the points you gave them for adding them. This was intentional. I believe Andrew said they didn’t want any negative. Or something like that.

I once tried to flag a question and hit GA instead. I sent a private comment to the mods to let them know, and the question, which was really bad was removed.

Hmm. Can’t say I’ve ever done that.

I have accidentally given a GA once or twice, and it ticked me off…but only briefly.

Not really. I agree with pete; it’s disappointing when lurve doesn’t register.

It doesn’t register when you max out for the person you’re giving it to.

I thought it did, they just didn’t get the points.

@Jeruba: by “register” I meant that I hit the Great Answer button, but the number in parentheses next to the words “Great Answer” doesn’t increase. Not that that user’s score doesn’t increase. Sorry I wasn’t clear about that.

Whenever that happens to me, if I hit it a couple more times very insistently! it usually changes. If that doesn’t work, I get really annoyed! I think sometimes it may show up if you refresh the page.

@Pete, sorry, I misunderstood. I’ve noticed that sometimes there is a lag of several seconds, but it does show up if I refresh. I don’t like to leave until I’m sure it registers.