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Remove "Upvote/Downvote" Feature on Game Pages

A topic by Noe created Nov 13, 2023 Views: 496 Replies: 8
Viewing posts 1 to 5
(1 edit) (+2)

I know, I know, crazy idea right here.

However, I don't think its addition has any practical use on itch.io.

On things like Q&A websites, they are useful to gauge which response is best, and is visited by people who are inclined to share real knowledge and thus vote very legitimately while doing so. Note, voting is perceived as a near objective quality of somethings correctness on these websites, which is why it is used.

However, useful itch.io comments are all game feedback and criticism, while the site is mostly visited by people who are inclined to play the game rather than build on to it. Game development has no "correct answers", so allowing people to vote on things they might not like for personal reasons and having them feel like objectively bad ideas is hurtful to the idea sharing space. What we need is constructive progress, not destructive progress.

People already have the ability to reply to comments and give their own feedback on why their response may be good or bad, which; is far more productive, allows the developer to know more about the issue, and also gives commenters trying to give constructive feedback a chance to elaborate on their point. Replying to comments with a description of your feedback is the ultimate filter to people who don't actually care about the game, as they won't bother to put themselves out there if they themselves have to be prone to criticism as well.

Overall, upvotes and downvotes make feedback discussions feel more like a court wherein you're trying to appease a faceless group of people who don't have to say anything besides agreeing or disagreeing completely with you. This is detrimental, as feedback on things you love should feel more like a room full of enthusiastic people sharing their ideas equally instead of anonymous judgement where you are punished for putting yourself out there and making yourself prone to criticism.

Pinned ReplyAdmin (1 edit) (+1)

The community owner can determine the type of post voting they prefer for their comments or community, including opting for no voting at all. To find the settings for voting options, go to the edit project page, click on “More”, then select “Edit Comments” (or “Edit Community”).

As for the default option of Up/Down voting, most posts are not voted on. However, when a standout post is shared, we often see viewers expressing their opinion through a significant number of upvotes or downvotes. It’s an effective way for viewers to gauge how others feel about a specific post without having to come in and write a comment themselves. Without a way for community members to give feedback on a post, every post may be viewed with equal weight, which may give a misleading impression to a reader.

Currently, the up/down vote score does not influence the display order of comments. They appear chronologically for now, although we might consider changing this in the future.

(+1)

I agree. Likes, upvotes, downvotes, etc are all pretty much worthless unless they have something meatier like a comment to go with them. Maybe someone upvoted a game because they liked the thumbnail. But that doesn't mean they actually like your game -- or even tried it. 

Admin

This person is referring to the upvote/downvote system on comments on a game page. We don’t provide upvoting/downvoting for games in general (with the exception of the Release Announcements forum).

Moderator(+1)

In case it helps: if you switch to a discussion board on your game page, you can decide whether to enable full voting on topics, only upvotes, or nothing at all.

Admin(+1)

Just want to add, it’s not necessary to switch to a discussion board to control how post voting is handled. You can change the voting options even for comments, and there is an option to disable it entirely .

(+2)

I am not sure what this is about.

Is this about comments on games? It is a standard feature in social media like interaction. Community threads even had that, but it was removed for various reasons.

In game commenting it still has a benefit. If someone posts something opinionated, people can express agreement or disagreement with said opinion. Instead of posting their own opinion below it. There is the silent users, that do not post, like ever. If someone posts crap, you can still voice your disagreement, without exposing yourself to the troll.

Also, as a new user to a game, if you browse the comments and look at up and down votes you can get a grasp how the general disposition of the regular users might be.

If comments are getting out of hand, it is possible for the dev to switch the comment mode, like notime explained.

In much of social media the idea of upvotes and downvotes (mostly downvotes on social medias platforms) have been very tossed around as a negative addition of late as , and at least the way I see it: justifiably so. But, that's not my main point so I'll move on to the other stuff.

The issue is that without actually having a loose understanding of why somebody agrees or disagrees with something, it quickly becomes impossible to know exactly why an opinion is 'bad' or 'good'. It is a lot more productive for people to give a very brief explanation of why they think its a great idea or a horrible idea, because the people judging a comment might actually be the troll (or similarly ill intended in their judgement of what may actually be a fair, thoughtful and caring critique), and there is no way to know that.

Plus, the best discussion is founded on disagreements-- but only disagreements which people openly share. Without knowledge of why people might disagree the original poster can't defend themselves and just feels shame or even sadness for putting care into an idea, while the people voting might have done so just because they did not like the fact that somebody thought the game they liked could be improved on.

What we ideally want is for people to feel comfortable sharing their ideas, and know that after they do they are going to be given opportunities to show off that idea instead of being shunned silently. Everybody wants to be heard, and by helping show them a better viewpoint or listening to their controversial but maybe actually well thought out viewpoint, everybody is made better by discussion rather than silent voting.

Additionally, as a side note of things I've seen, voting is hard to moderate as you don't know what individual you are meant to be reporting. I have seen some unfortunate voting where people asking if support for other languages would be added, and did so in a very polite tone, and got downvoted far more than any other comment.

(+2)

My personal observations tell me, you usually know exactly why a comment was downvoted.

The problem if we wanna call it one, is the interaction willingness of people. Not everyone bothers to write replies. Actually, most people do not. And if you look at some of the discussions that spawn if two people meet that do bother, it often turns out awful. The comment section should be about the game, not about having an escalating discussion. And it would explode if all those 20 people up and downvoting would take part and make replies and comments themselves. It is the comment section, not the discussion section. And I would say, up and downvoting is usually appropriate to comment a comment.