Forum Topics Down votes should be public and require a reason
Froxy
Added 5 years ago

I think people need to take some emotion out of this. We are on an anonymous forum where the objective is to improve reasoning and investing skills. 

A million people up voting your valuation does nothing to improve it. Often people disagreeing means either they or you are missing something and is an opportunity to take a closer look. 

Strawman rankings are great for some but I just want good ideas and conviction to hold. 

If someone downvotes my opinion I try to find their straw or valuation to see how it differs from mine.

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Bear77
Added 5 years ago

@Froxy - you say: "If someone downvotes my opinion I try to find their straw or valuation to see how it differs from mine."

How do you manage to do that @Froxy?  The problem with downvotes is that they are anonymous.  That's the issue.  You can't learn from them because you have no idea who gave you the downvote or why.

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Storge
Added 5 years ago

Everything I post now, for months now, whatever it is gets 2 down votes.  I wish I knew what it was that I did to tick these two people off.  I don't mind getting down votes if people disagree with me but what's the point of automatically giving a down vote.

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CanadianAussie
Added 5 years ago

@storge

I'm pretty sure it's a certain departed members duplicate accounts. Sometimes they spam downvote everyone but often it is/was members threatening their position in the top 10 members section or anyone who disagreed with them. With the removal of the downvote they'll have to find a new hobby to spend their time on.

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Bear77
Added 5 years ago

To @CanadianAussie and @Storge - I agree with your assessment that there was probably some gaming of the system going on with those regular 1 or lately 2 downvotes, and often targeting the same individual members.  I did suggest weeks ago that there might be a tactical element to the downvoting and that alone was reason enough to remove the downvote option.  Rankings should be based on contributions, involvement, performance, and community endorsement of content, not based on tactics, and especially not underhanded tactics like we suspect was occurring with these strategic downvotes.  However, on other occasions, there was no rhyme or reason to the downvoting, like everybody is getting a downvote tonight.  It's a huge shame when that behaviour deters people from further contributions to this site, i.e. posting further content.  The sooner the downvote is removed, the better!

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Bear77
Added 5 years ago

To @TheEnforcer.  I take your point.  However it has not become the main topic of conversation, it is just confined mainly to one forum thread, which has an appropriate title relating to the topic discussed.  My main suggestion to people complaining about the quality of content is to create some yourself.  You can also use the "Filter Newsfeed Options" to switch off (untick) "Show Forum Posts", and then you will only see straws and valuations, and trades too if you've ticked that box, and you will no longer have to endure the hardship of having to scroll through forum posts that do not personally interest you. 

I am personally against any type of censorship, unless it relates to the reduction or elimination of abusive behaviour or content, or the reduction or elimination of inappropriate content - and, in my opinion, content relating to the way this site operates is entirely relevant to this site.  This site is still being developed and improved, and feedback from community members is a valued input into that process.  

If you think this site is not for you, that's fine.  Horses for courses.  I personally can NOT find another Australian-hosted site that is as useful, well-run, tolerant, and helpful as this one when it comes to the topic of sharemarket investments.

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Chalky1610
Added 5 years ago

Well responded Noddy, Seems like the snowflakes smelt very easy in this day and age I wonder if those snowflakes are woke in nature as well. By the way I do down vote but what the snowflakes and the woke seem to forget is that whether a snowflake received a vote up or a down vote, the action of the vote still adds to their contribution. A snowflake or awoke individual was always most likely to bring an apple to the teacher in grade 2 as for me I bought Whoopie cushions and a playboy magazine with Elle McPherson. As for the snowflakes, well some mothers just do have them unfortunately. Hey Noddyol boy, I up voted your post. Back to my hustler magazine my bottle of Jamesons and my Cuban cigar. 

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edgescape
Added 5 years ago

As I just received a downvote for my latest valuation update, it would be good if it was accompanied by a reason or a private message note by the user.

I also don't mind if the user keeps themselves anonymous after posting the note.

At the end of the day, people make mistakes in their valuation but also you need to consider the amount of time I spent doing it. This included downloading the financial data, doing a rough balance sheet/income statement forecast and "plugging" the numbers and revalidating the figures while correcting mistakes. It was also part of my assessment which I spent a few weeks on and then spent another 2 days revising it after the latest company results.

Hence it would be good to get a little feedback on what went wrong and why I deserve a downvote.

And I would also mention if the downvote should be ruled invalid because I didn't put the full balance sheet/income statement data in (this is actually the norm in most DCF reports).

I do put my hand up for my initial valuation mistake but that doesn't deserve a downvote either.

I also have a IT background so going back to mathematics after more than a decade has been a real challenge for me especially in an area not familiar to me (financial maths) and I'm bound to make mistakes as I learn along the way.

Sorry for the rant!

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edgescape
Added 5 years ago

Thanks Mark. I'm also looking forward to the upcoming changes to the site so will leave it as it is for now.

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Noddy74
Added 5 years ago

Edgescape, the haters are always going to hate and as Mark said that functionality is being taken away imminently.

If you put up a valuation backed up by a solid DCF you're already miles ahead of the pack in my view.  The quality of some of the crap that gets put up here is abysmal - and they're just my posts! 

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Noddy74
Added 5 years ago

Notwithstanding Strawman's intention to remove the downvote button, how about a poll?

Upvote this post - Keep downvote button with OR without justification being required (in whatever form)

Downvote this post - Remove the downvote button 

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Bear77
Added 5 years ago

So Darling, in summary:  Negative feedback is bad for the site and the community.  Positive Feedback is good, or at worst is relatively harmless.  Right?  According to that Stanford Uni paper.  I've given that a big fat upvote!

 

 

P.S.  'Remove the Downvote Button" - chant it with me people!

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Strawman
Added 5 years ago

Sorry guys -- it really is coming. We've been flat out working on something big, but removing the downvote is scheduled for the next release.

 

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Noddy74
Added 5 years ago

Well the poll has run for 24 hours and the winner is...Remove the downvote.  7 voted the post up i.e. Keep the downvote and 12 voted the post down i.e. Remove the downvote (Yes, I did like the irony of having to use the functionality you wanted removed in order to support having it removed).  So the people have spoken with 63% in favour of removing the downvote.  Although...last I heard Strawman had something around 17,000 members so you could argue 0.0004% were in favour of keeping it and 0.0007% wanted it gone, with 99.9989% not caring a Jack Cracker one way or the other...

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