It really makes little difference, but wondered why apparently my posts do not have these arrows?  Just curious.  Thanks.

 

One cannot rate his own posts,hence no up/down arrows appear as you view your own post.

Well, that's a real bummer! 

What do they even do anyway?....short of adding a little tally on the post....

Does the poster get notified if I post them up or down?

What do they even do anyway?....short of adding a little tally on the post....

Does the poster get notified if I post them up or down?

 

They sort of work like Scout Bucks, you accumulate them here but you can't spend them outside of this forum.

Arrows?  We don't need no stinkin arrows!

 

(Mostly because very few of us are too shy to challenge someone with their own posts showing disagreement or displeasure).

Edited December 22, 20169 yr by CalicoPenn

I like it when I get the up arrows, it lets me know that I haven't said anything truly stupid for a change.  And of course the down arrows reminds me that I just did.

What do they even do anyway?....short of adding a little tally on the post....

Does the poster get notified if I post them up or down?

 

I don't know, maybe click on the green arrow and I'll let you know if I get a notification.

 

You can go and look at your profile and under "reputation" it'll show you all the posts that people have up or down ticked. If you hover over any user's name in green in the grey stripe between the posts, you get a pop up that shows that user's reputation, amongst other things. I suppose it's supposed to show it the user is a greenhorn or if they write a lot of stuff people (dis)agree with.

 

My most popular post is one about an accidental biker/scout camp in the 80s, and I've only ever had one down vote.

Edited December 22, 20169 yr by ianwilkins

Websites like Reddit have the upvote/downvote feature.

 

There are two schools of thought. One is to use the arrows as "I agree or I do not agree". The other is to use the arrows as "This is relevant vs this is not relevant."

 

I believe posts with a certain number of downvotes will be hidden automatically. Not sure.

 

On this forum total upvotes tallys into a thing called "Reputation." I'm not sure what that means beyond people liking what you say.

The green up arrows add to your reputation count and the red down arrows subtract to your reputation tally.  If you receive one red and one green for a comment it will show in the reputation list as a grey "0".  Both red and green are maintained in the reputation history.

 

There are also limits as to how many red and green arrows a person can give out on a single day, but no limit on how many one can receive.

Aw, there's a limit? I was about to give everybody here a green arrow just because I like y'all, but I would hate to hand them all out and find out that I missed somebody after reaching my limit. 

Aw, there's a limit? I was about to give everybody here a green arrow just because I like y'all, but I would hate to hand them all out and find out that I missed somebody after reaching my limit. 

You'll just have to go back to the old fashioned Christmas Card routine..... sorry.

I am not a huge fan of the green-arrow/red-arrow/reputation-points system because it implies that the members of the forum are in some sort of competition with each other, when we are really just trying to have a conversation with each other.  It would be nice to just talk without keeping score.  But I do understand that upvoting/downvoting etc. is an almost universal feature of online communications these days.

It also lessens the "Atta Boy" responses when someone puts out a good post that one agrees with.

I am not a huge fan of the green-arrow/red-arrow/reputation-points system because it implies that the members of the forum are in some sort of competition with each other, when we are really just trying to have a conversation with each other.  It would be nice to just talk without keeping score.  But I do understand that upvoting/downvoting etc. is an almost universal feature of online communications these days.

Maybe we all should just get participation trophies!

 

I think it matters a lot. If someone sees I've had tons of posts that nobody cares about, they will take what I say with a grain of salt.

 

Also, the topics we post are generally tough chestnuts, and often there is no perfect or best solution (as in my blindsided-by-BoR scout who then blindsided them back). But there are lots of really good ones. Maybe some that work for one person but not for someone else. So the +1's and -1's give a good sense of that.

 

I guess if there were someone who was always spouting off really terrible ideas (but not so vile as to be censored by the moderators), a swarm of -1's might give everyone else a sense to take what was said with a grain of salt. But, most everyone here has something pretty interesting to say, so -1's are more often an indication of thumb size than approbation.