##No more vote score breakdown
The vote breakdowns aren't visible to users anymore unless they're a mod of the circle. The total score is still visible, but not the number of up and down votes. As always, if you think there is organized trolling or any other attempts at disrupting the communities here, message the admins by messaging the mods of /o/Ovarit.
##No more accumulating hundreds of notifications
We realized we were saving many old notifications, which was causing performance problems. Notifications older than 30 days which do not appear in the most recent 50 shown on your notifications page may now be deleted.
##New comment sort option: sort by "best"
You can now sort comments by "best" in new threads going forward. This option won't appear on threads that existed before we updated today. This is an attempt to make newer comments less deprioritized compared to older comments that have been seen more.
##Option to add post flair when submitting a post
You can now select post flair when submitting a post. Mods have the option to make selecting post flair required to post. If mods don't set up post flair options before requiring post flairs to post, no one will be able to post. Don't do that (unless you want to watch the world burn which is understandable).
##Odds and Ends
Mods can now un-remove content they previously removed. Pushing the wrong button just got a lot less bad!
Clicking "Load More" when viewing comments with "New" sort should be fixed.
Miscellaneous fixes as usual.
Thank you so much to our devs!
Aww, I liked the vote score breakdown especially for my Controversial Comments... Well thanks for all your work on the site. I hope the mod tools are getting easier to use.
Same, I appreciated that if one of my comments went in the negative... I could still see if some people agreed, even if it wasn't the majority. Or seeing that a comment was at +10/-10. I liked having that info.
In any case, thanks to the admins, mods and devs for the work you're doing here.
Maybe one day we'll be able to sort by Controversial. A girl can dream....
No more vote score breakdown
What is the reasoning for this? Youtube is currently trying to remove dislikes which has made me and a lot of people really upset. I am confused about the recent censorship of information.
I don't like the removal of vote breakdowns either. It also reminds me of YouTube removing dislikes from videos. I feel like it's just the first step of the slippery slope before turning into Reddit.
Wow, youtube already removed dislikes for comments (though the vestigial button is still there for some reason, pretty sure it does nothing), and I take from what you are saying that they'll be removing dislikes from the videos, too? That's kinda disappointing, it'll ruin that one Futurama clip about the neutral planet. (I know that's a really petty, silly reason to be upset about this, but it's the first thing that popped in to my head haha.)
I thought seeing the downvotes as well as the ups was good - you could see the diversity of opinions on controversial topics.
Can we? I can't tell from downvotes whether the downvoter has a beef with the person who's posting for other content, disagrees with/dislikes the post, dislikes/objects to the wording, or takes exception to certain words (e.g., anti-semitic). Or whether the downvoter is simply having a bad day and passing it on. Downvotes offer very low information.
May I ask, what was the reason behind no longer showing the vote score breakdowns?
My gut reaction to removing the vote score breakdown was that I didn't like it. But I thought about it for a bit, and I think it will really encourage more participation from diverse commenters in this community, especially those who weren't "raised" by the internet † and consequently may not have developed the requisite thick skin needed to post on controversial topics.
† raised by the internet of course being the modern-day equivalent of raised by wolves lololllll
I agree. From some people's comments, it seemed as though downvotes on display without any other response could be undermining their confidence.
The announced intent of downvotes was to push low quality/less useful content down some of the sorting orders, but their effective use tends to be to indicate disagreement/disapproval with an implied "I shouldn't have to tell you what you did."
Yep, exactly! I think this will be an overall positive change for the site. God I love this place & am so happy to see it thrive!
those who weren't "raised" by the internet † and consequently may not have developed the requisite thick skin needed to post on controversial topics.
In my observation, difficulty dealing with disagreement and controversy in a civil manner is much more common amongst those raised by the internet - or, rather, those who have learnt to engage in public discourse in the era of social media and anonymous posting - than amongst those of us who learned to debate and disagree in face-to-face settings and in old-fashioned print media like newspapers and books under our own names.
A majority of people I've encountered on social media who have developed their "debating style" mainly through interacting on social media seem to have the total opposite of "the requisite thick skin" you seem to think social media/the internet causes people to grow. They are very quick to take offense at views they disagree with, and instead of putting forth arguments against views they object to, they instead respond by hurling accusations, abuse, hackneyed slogans, tired memes, ad hominems ("you're trash," "TERF," "Nazi," "you're a garbage person," "Boomer," "OK Karen"), putting words in their opponents mouths, saying "STFU" and trying to get people silenced, ostracized, punished, and their reputations and livelihoods destroyed.
But maybe that's just me?
Hm, that's a good point. I think my experience of growing up WITH the internet (i.e. it grew and expanded as I was also growing up -- it did not simply "exist" in its current form when I was a teenager) was that I learned how to navigate different facets of it according to the sort of "unspoken" rules and practices of different forums, sites, groups, etc.
I think this native knowledge is what makes me feel like I developed a thick skin in regards to internet debates. I can easily see how a generation before or a generation after the heyday of the internet's initial growth and expansion might struggle with navigating the web in the same way, and perhaps either take or cause offense over trivia.
I hear what you're saying though, so perhaps it's related more to the individual than their generational and/or demographic affiliation.
And the early Internet of message boards and on-line communities was human-curated rather than driven by social media algorithms that expose people to more and more inflammatory content, as well as being less of an overall melting point. People tended to congregate over common interests (social objects) rather than social identity.
I agree. I think those of use who grew up speaking face to face are more likely to see others as whole people and not monsters/terfs/nazis to be destroyed/cancelled if they disagree with us on one specific topic. Complaining about feeling “unsafe” or “not included” or screaming obscenities at someone and demanding their life be destroyed because you don’t agree with a political comment they made isn’t having a thick skin.
Mods can now un-remove content they previously removed. Pushing the wrong button just got a lot less bad!
Oh thank goddess. I always have that fear that one day I'm gonna delete something by accident while trying to add a flair
Can't see the haters if there's no public dislikes 😎
As long as your score doesn't go into the negative 😆
But if your score did go into the negatives, you could have potentially still seen how many people supported your comment, even if they were outnumbered.
Seeing your comment is -3 alone feels pretty bad. Might make you think you had no upvotes and 3 downvotes. That hardly anyone saw your comment, and virtually all downvoted.
But knowing you had 10 upvotes and 13 downvotes tells a way different story.
Which tbf rarely happens. It did to me the other day but that was my own fault with phrasing, lol.
Granted, Ovarit is not a democracy, (no moderated forums ever are) or a Big Tent for that matter, but hiding downvotes seems kinda Nanny State to me. "Here's a single ill defined positive score, Honey! You can't handle the truth! Everyone gets a trophy!"
What's next? "All voting is harm, it's literal violence!!" "You are valid!" (Sorry, but I couldn't resist, given the context of all this.)
Jeeze Louise. Isn't one of the main missions of Ovarit exposing and challenging (and laughing at!) the beneficent authoritarianism of the Gender Ideologues? Did I miss something somewhere?
Yeah, I'm starting to fear that we'll be sliding into the same problems that plagued Reddit. Aren't we supposed to be against the whole special snowflake thing?
I sort of get it now. The mods want people to use the voting function one way, (for objective judgements on a comment’s overall discussion value to the topic at hand) but site participants want to use it as a quick Like/Don’t Like button.
Hiding downvotes is not going to address that. Downvotes based on Like/Don’t Like will continue regardless if they’re seen or not.
It’s a design & function issue. But people trample the shortest & easiest path to the building no matter where the sidewalk is.
I wonder if this is because of the few users constantly complaining about "vote manipulation"? Or partially influenced by them? Either way, I think this may indeed have a good influence on the community. We will see!
Thank you devs and mods for your hard work keeping ovarit running!
But I’m at 968 975
Unless you go look at your notifications, they don't get marked read or deleted.
Out of curiosity, how is the 'best' sorting done?
The 'best' sorting is done with some math I found here: https://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating.html
For the positive (or negative) ratings, it uses the net score (upvotes - downvotes). For the total number of ratings, the server now maintains a count for each comment of how many logged-in users it has been shown to.
Clicking "Load More" when viewing comments with "New" sort should be fixed.
Yay! This has been bothering me for forever. :P
Ah, this is why it felt like Ovarit was "down" for a few minute there, glad everything is okay. :)
Just FYI, that bug that used to come up when you sorted by "new" is now happening when you sort by "best." After you hit "load more," it shows the same comments more than once.
I just tried that on a couple of recent posts with a lot of comments, and didn't see it happening. Which post did you see it on?
Swear to God it was happening earlier, but now I can't duplicate it. Maybe it was just a temporary glitch.
It's possible, since we've had a little bit of duplicate comment glitchiness all along, where if other people's votes make the comment rankings change in between when you load the post and when you click load more, you might get a duplicate comment or two. I have not fixed that bug. The one I fixed was loading big batches of duplicate comments.
Several people have asked why the votescore breakdown has been removed. This is something that I talked about removing in o/ovarit many months ago.
Too many comment threads have been derailed with meta drama around downvotes - especially over posts or comments that had a tiny percentage of downvotes. Many people have gotten antagonistic and tried to start arguments over it. This is not quality discussion. It does not make the site better. It is not worth the space it takes up or anyone’s time reading it. We’re trying to encourage worthwhile discussions about topics, not endless derails that are ultimately about site features and how people use them.
I’m one of those complainers and I’m pleased the breakdown has gone!