Why there isn't a way to vote for a Bad Answer (thumb-down) ?

I think that it’s a great idea…‘cept for the hurt feelings.

Nah! People (troll) can use that media to abuse other users (most likely for personal reasons).

How would it improve things? I suspect it would make it easier for those who hold the majority opinion to squelch those with the minority opinion on any given topic. There is already a “flag” option.

I think every one, including me, can give sometimes a very bad answers, because of lots of things: not understanding the question or the issue, not knowing or just know something that is so wrong. We ALL have things to learn everyday.

I may feel bad if I get “Bad Answer” vote, but in real life we all get that all the time. Can not be perfect all the time.

@Ranimi23
Here are the reasons you can give for flagging an answer:
is spam
is a personal attack
is unhelpful
is obscene
has too many typos
is flame-bait
doesn’t meet quality standards
is off-topic
Something else…

Could you give an example of a “bad answer” that doesn’t fall under one of those options?

What if I gave you “bad answers” because I disagreed with your opinion? or I thought your username sounded foreign? or I hated the movie “Lion King”?

In summary: there is already a similar mechanism in place and adding a “bad answer” could easily be abused.

I think the mods usually “take care” of bad answers, if they have knowledge on the subject. (That’s my guess, I could easily be very wrong.) Or you could always post your disagreement with the person. :]

because they don’t want negativity, if you think someone’s answer isn’t helpful and you think it’s bad, then they want you to keep it to yourself. It’s frustrating am sure…

Explaining an error is much more helpful than a silent thumbs down,

I recall a few times when I learned something from people correcting me.

If you really have a problem with an answer outside of flaggable reasons, take it up with them in the thread or send them a PM, and give constructive criticism. If you don’t give an answer a GA, it can be assumed that you don’t particularly like said answer, and that’s as far as it needs to go. A “bad answer” is an unnecessary step further and doesn’t help users to learn from their mistakes. It would just turn into a big insult fest for those who couldn’t handle the responsibility that would come with this option.

Mods removing your answer is a way to see if your answer is bad or off topic.

We had up-rates and down-rates on Answerbag.

If your question was religion-based, political, or in any way controversial, it became a complete shit-slinging contest. An answerer could log in and their activity stream would show nothing but bright red -5s all the way down the page.

Not a very friendly atmosphere, IMO.

I agree with Dr. D. There are always those that will abuse the “negative” voting system in their childish games

@CherrySempai The mods do not judge the quality of an answer except as it relates to flags.

I think the quality of the answer is best left up to the questioner to determine. Jellies can and do post disagreements with answers they don’t like.

Bad answer, LOW GA count.
Good answer, HIGH GA count.

Fluther already has a counting system.

Unless you just want to stick it to people.

I think that all responses that aren’t blatantly sexual or offensive should be left in print. If they get a positive mark they should move up closer to the top of the thread. That way the most popular responses would be at the beginning of the thread. Other than that I don’t care about points, positive or negative.

What I meant was that if you see lots of people give “Bad Answer” to someone, it means not only one person think like that, so it is not abuse or something. It has some value to know how many people think it is “Good” and how many think it is “Bad” and the asker will know the ratio between the two option.

I can see now only how many people think it is a “Great Answer”, but I don’t know how many people think about the same answer as a “Bad Answer”, which may give me another point of view. The majority do not always right, the questioner is given consideration.

Because Bendrews mother says that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

I was part of another website that had the option to basically “thumbs down” an answer, and people used it to harrass other members they had problems with. Most of the answers were fine, but received negative marks just because of personal hatred.

@evandad That’s been discussed before, but the problem is that answers here often wouldn’t make sense if you changed the order (people responding to other people, etc.) What I would like is for answers GA’d over a certain threshold to be highlighted in some way so that it would be easier for me to find them as I scan down.

Because Fluther users are mostly stupid and rarely know what they’re talking about. Too many “bad answers” would lessen the fun for amiable nitwits who like answering questions while thinking they are being helpful.

“Because Fluther users are mostly stupid and rarely know what they’re talking about.”

Lets not forget insecurity. ^

No, no, no. For many of the reasons listed above, it’s not gonna’ happen.

I hate the idea…

As stated above, if the answer is truly “bad” it will be moderated. Otherwise, I like that we are all free to say what we want to say for the most part, and it can be left open for discussion. You have the chance to defend yourself, to argue with points you disagree with, and just discuss in general. This is what I love about Fluther.

I sorta like it this way. If you agree with something someone says, nodding in assent (or in the Flutherverse, giving a GA) is usually sufficient. If you want to disagree with something someone says, you have to write something—hopefully explaining why.

Why? Because it would do more harm than good and damage the character of fluther.

People who disagree can (and do) post a comment stating so and giving their reasons. That’s a better way of getting different points of view than counting votes. This is not a competition.

A horrible idea. There are alot of secular people on here that would always give individuals like me thumbs down on here. I do not think the option of giving people with certain veiwpoints BA would really come from the response being “bad” but being of a different veiwpoint. The option to just not give someone a GA should be good enough here.

I personally don’t like the idea, how do you exactly know what a bad answer is? there are a lot of points of views, to me every answer is a great answer, but some people really go all the way and then i give them a great answer, unless the answer is offensive that’s why we have mods

Same reason the site is not designed in yellow and purple.

Bad answers, good answers, great answers, etc. are in the “minds of the beholder!” What is great answer to one member is seen bad by the next guy. Just not that big of deal to me!

Imagine the wars that would break out in controversial threads like debates on religion or politics. People would routinely vote down answers that disagreed with their ideology. So a low rating might not mean the answer was bad, but that it went against the prevailing theology or politics of most ot the users here.

I have been on other social media sites that did allow thumbs down on answers and or questions. Users think they know who gave them a negative vote, and take offense at it even when they are often completely in the dark about who really cast the vote/s. I don’t see how it would add to Fluther.

Y’all have changed my mind. I had thought it was a great idea except for potentially hurt feelings. I was wrong. I now understand that it would bring out the worst in some folks. Thanks.

@MissA I’m glad that you’ve changed your mind. And it goes beyond bringing out the worst in folks. Yes, some people’s feelings might get hurt. For me, it is more about the fact that it defeats the purpose of Fluther. Isn’t this site about learning more information about a certain topic and learning from other people’s perspectives? The Jellies are offering up so much more than some people did where I worked for 24 years. I truly value their insights and opinions, whether I agree with them or not. Someone’s score for an answer has little impact; their message does.

Once a year you can give evrul.

@zenele Ha! Given the pain of that pun, this must be the day. :-)

It’s not a pun, @ETpro it’s a little bit of Fluther history. You’ll have to search a bit – but it has to do with April fools last year.

@zenele OIC. Thanks for the history lesson. I’ll look it up.

Bad news. As @Seek_Kolinahr explained, downrates are a trolls playground.

Hi ALL, 10x for your answers. You opened my eyes for things I did not thoght about before that may cause only harm.

I love Fluther.

Makes it so clear as to how and why the world ticks the way it does.

@zenele on Yom Kippur?

@phaedryx – Many responses don’t make sense, and they are already a jumble. If they allow the cream to rise to the top I believe it would help, rather than hinder, order.

There has been an occasion or two where I wish I could retract a GA vote after reading other posts. It just gets chalked up to connecting to the message at the time. In the big scheme of things, isn’t it all about what new knowledge you take away from the Fluther experience?

I don’t think there are bad answers. Just different opinions. Because of that, I don’t think that we should have that option. Also, I probably would be a hell of a lot more reluctant to post…if someone was dissing me all the time. Then, you will get some Snidely Whiplashes who will develop a dislike for anything you post and will hound you putting a “bad answer” on everything you write out of spite.

No…please, please do not use “bad answers” as an option.

On social sites I’ve used that had the thumbs down (negative rating) option, there were always the collection of trolls who routinely voted down people they targeted without posting anything or contributing in any way. They lived for the drama doing their dirty work created. Go figure.

Because Fluther doesn’t want people to feel bad?
It’s like Facebook. Do you know how many FB users have been trying to get a ‘dislike’ button? But instead, they got another ‘like’ button.

@Aesthetic_Mess I like that answer. :-)

There would be too much arguing, too much drama and too much confrontation if there was a thumbs down option or bad answer option.

Youtube has this thing called Flagging. It’s for reporting certain issues on Youtube, like inappropriate content, copyright material (understandable), and other “me no likey” things.
I know of one poor girl who does all of her videos with the best of intentions and they are all really well thought out and well produced and there is not a remote hint of anything wrong with her videos whatsoever. Always polite, always smiling, mostly sensible, never says anything that is likely to offend – yet some people have regularly abused that flagging system by flagging each and every video she’s produced.
I can see the same kind of thing happening if Fluther adopted it’s own equivalent for questions or answers.

@SamandMax

We do have a flag feature. See the “Flag as…” button just under the word “happening” in your post? Each of our flags are reviewed by real people – our lovely Moderators – and nothing gets buried for sheer number of flags.

If something is being flagged for no good reason, the flags are ignored. But if there’s real “me no likey” content, the post is removed. Generally, moddable offenses are spam, flame-bait, personal attacks, and really, really horrible writing standards (because words mean things, and we like to keep it that way).

Hmm..it was a poor example by comparison. Oh well.

Just saying, Fluther’s system is pretty awesome. Lots of “Lurve”, no hate. Flag if you want to, and the mods handle it as needed.

Not arguing there. Just saying it wasn’t a good example chosen by me.