Being a forum regular, who has taken a few lumps on the forums, it sometimes seems like the forum needs changes as far as reporting/flagging and the like, in a way that it almost seems to go against what Blizzard wants. I can understand wanting a safe space for discussion, but at the same time while making it safe for one/one group, it can feel unsafe for another, more so cause there are conditions that inhibit ones ability to see what is wrong with what they post as they see nothing offensive about it. As such I think the forums could use at least a few of the following changes:
change or get rid of the flag/report system and bring back dislikes/downvotes in some fashion. I am more for changing as there are times that posts do deserve to be reported/flagged but such should not be the only way to deal with posts one does not like. By that token, some can take downvotes as they can always look to see who did that and some might wear such with pride, but they have issues with getting punished for something they see nothing wrong with aside from maybe upsetting the wrong people.
Take context of the topic/conversation into account. Some will be kind and courteous at first but as buttons are pressed they can become less and less so, in this case maybe the best answer is to punish both the one that was pushed and the one that pushed them. As far as topic, sometimes a post can be taken a certain way but in the theme of the topic is not meant to be bad or upsetting in any way, it could just be the poster being, well, blunt and calling things as they see them.
Accidents happen, we really should not punish posters if they are not meaning to do something, more so when the judgement is in the eye of the beholder.
As a final note, I am one that seldom flags or reports because I long ago learned that with things like forums, you have to take things with a grain, if not a full shaker, of salt. I would rather save my flags/reports for those that really cross the line but would be more happy to downvote posts that I personally don’t like but others are fine with.
I’d rather they just force Btags first, then see if behavior changes. I’m betting it will when people can’t hide behind their throwaway character names.
I think the OP is tired of the minority of forum knights that just kind of gate keep these forums from any critical discussion of the game. They either abuse the flagging system, or they just derail threads into oblivion by spamming non-stop posts 24/7. They get under your skin a lot, and this causes discussions to get heated, which usually leads people to getting a forum vacation. They have mastered it over the years.
This, and the idea that one can posts in topics that are not really meant to be taken too seriously and their post might be a bit crude in language but not really calling others our or anything and they get a forum vacay because someone did not like the language they used.
Their goal is to get under your skin and drive you out of the discussion, or to quit posting all together. This happens on a lot of gaming forums, and gaming subreddits. They basically just turn into an echo chamber of fanboys. The WoW subreddit is just as bad.
Which is why they should bring back dislikes but simply make it such that regardless how many dislikes a post gets, it will never hide the post. So long as this happens, I see no problem with bringing back dislikes.
This is why bad games don’t get better. The feedback gets drowned out by the handful of apologists. It has been happening in WoW now for years. The vocal minority seems to have the ear of the developers, just by sheer brute force.
Flag/report system is the cheapest way to manage a forum, it’s not going away.
Upvote/downvote shouldn’t even exist if the goal is to have a discussion, but again they are used for Blizzard to know how much people could agree with an idea and to give more spotlight to threads that get an heavy number of them. One could simply argue that number of views should be enough.
There’s not much excuse to insult people directly, but there are a lot of ways to do it indirectly or to let someone know that you strongly disagree with them.
I really don’t see how it’s blacklisting. The likes/dislikes will do nothing to the post itself. I mean, unless you’re tying self-worth into the like/dislike ratio. Which is kinda sad for those that care about that sort of thing. But I guess lots of people do or things like Facebook and Twitter wouldn’t exist.
If the trolling is obvious, and the poster is a known troll or likely knows they are trolling, the report function will serve just fine. But why should I be marked as a troll if I am just trying to stoke discussion or stating my views in, perhaps, a less then ideal way?
I don’t., and I see dislikes as a sign I got someone to think and possibly reflect on themselves.
Well what is your average joe suppose to think when they come across a poster with 5 likes and 100 dislikes, with more posters still bashing them through-out the topic?