How do you feel about post dislikes and like based "rating" system?

[TesalionLortus]

Now, I'm not sure what exactly Cordovan meant by it and whether he means to apply this globally or not. But he mentioned something like this on the stream and that he wants to try it.

He mentioned that a dislike/like system may have benefits - like, make it more visible what people really want/don't want as "quality" feedback loop. While likes alone, as a way to express some sort of silent agreement, don't strike me in a bad way, the dislike system does - forum (or any sort of online engagement for that matter, so that would include something like the official reddit or discord too) would be really just a minority of total player base, no? So there is no logical argument that the thing mostly disliked here on the forum would be necessarily a totally bad idea for the game. This appears as a logical conclusion to me, unless all their money SSG gets really lies with all those vocal players from the forum... but I highly doubt it - most likely than not, there is a huge portion of unvocal players who contribute to the game's earnings. Even some of the frequent posters wouldn't bother to just follow up on every single thread and click their like/dislike to make sure SSG gets a "proper feedback loop." Thus, I feel like SSG should judge all ideas on merit and their own grey cells, because any idea or feedback given may be insightful in some way - and restrain from any sort of bias based on what's liked or disliked the most here on the forum. It's worth to mention it's easy to hit a like or dislike button. It's harder to actually explain yourself in more detail and true, not everyone has the time or patience to do that, but if someone does, isn't that worth of any consideration and fair treatment, even if some happen to dislike it and clicked a button en masse?

Furthermore, he said that a "rating" based on those likes (I think?) may prompt some threads more than others (on main page?). Personally, I don't think it's a good idea either. The only threads ever prompted would be lag ones and screaming game is dead ones, without any coherence, even worse than before - any sort of constructive discussion and interesting story/world design/housing/and whatnot threads falling even more behind and buried, due to "low engagement" (likes) numbers. It's the truth of the matter people massively like/dislike such "trending rage" threads, easily written, and very general so "whatever goes there" - if they're a simple controversial title - rather than something very specific with a larger text. Something like this may work with reddit - which is usually a short format anyway, to talk about the game but as far as feedback goes the reddit rule is to blindly downvote anyone who says a single bad word about any aspect of the game into oblivion. Doesn't really sound like a format good for a forum though. Plus, I like the chronological aspect of the forum, and thread rating/prompt system based on some kind of factors really sounds like it would do away with that chronology, to some degree

That's my two cents, what do you think?

[elvenes]

it is something the lotro forums used to have back in the days and was then removed. if Cord wants to reintroduce a rating system now tho, it will be just like reddit: any post that is not of undying praise to ssg will be downvoted into oblivion, or viceversa, any post from someone who likes something will be downvoted, turning this place into one massive circlejerk one way or the other

[DavidmeetHal]

OH HELL NO! Just in case I wasn't clear, let me say it one more time. OH HELL NO!

Like/Dislike options in a forum are nothing more than popularity contests, and targets for intimidation.

I am against this in the strongest possible sense. Horrible, terrible idea.

it is something the lotro forums used to have back in the days and was then removed. if Cord wants to reintroduce a rating system now tho, it will be just like reddit: any post that is not of undying praise to ssg will be downvoted into oblivion, or viceversa, any post from someone who likes something will be downvoted, turning this place into one massive circlejerk one way or the other

Agreed all the way.

[TesalionLortus]

Plus, one more thing about the dislike button - it's very easily a passive almost-harassment tool. I say almost because it's not exactly harassment = can't really blame someone for disliking a post when there exists such a feature nor do you have any idea why they clicked the button. But if people continue to dislike your posts under specific threads based solely on the main post - and it no longer matters what you might say or explain further in a thread, but just who you are and how you phrased things previously - then it's almost like you're being targeted, so pretty much results in "feelings of harassment." Something like this can be experienced on places like reddit firsthand.

I mean, sure, it's true "forum" format is the archaic format, but seriously, in general... the internet and discussion formats of today aren't as ideal as they might appear. There are plenty of issues there that are worth to consider and "modern traps" not to fall into/behavior not to encourage.

[Elmagor]

Can we like or dislike posts from "blue names"? And what benefit we have from such system? Likes and dislikes counts like feedback? We have many things - we ask for them for years, and have silence in response. Like why they remove bonus rep scrolls without decreasing grind for some factions, or when ex-end game stuff will be revamped like they revamp Hytbold. If such questions have huge amount of likes, how it bother developers? Don't see it. But what I can see is huge war using with likes and dislikes between creeps and freeps, especially discussion related The Moors.

[TesalionLortus]

Don't see it. But what I can see is huge war using with likes and dislikes between creeps and freeps, especially discussion related The Moors.

lol... yeah. I get maybe something like a thumbs up/like in case people want to agree without saying anything (though there is something like a ripple effect too, and likes given for whatever reason breed more likes, it's not exactly based on any merit, that's how social media works). But having both likes and dislikes is really a bad idea

[paintpixie]

They used to have this, and it was abused. It still worked fine for the most part, but the frequent posters either had really high or really low reputation, regardless of the quality of their posts, and a few people would try to game the system too.
Not sure how it would do now. The forums are less active, and there are more people that just lurk.
Having a rating system is nice because then I can just say "I agree" or "I disagree" without typing something out.
But for that same reason, it leads to LESS community interaction on forums, so I'm not sure.

Personally, I'd rather they did things like...made it so we could upload personalized icons, maybe just made it have to be approved and something lotro related. Or other features to make it more social, like maybe having a page for information about your characters, servers, what you like to do in-game, etc. Even just adding some of the features the site used to have like location, etc.

There are so few posts here a week, I think it would be a waste and not really change much. Spam would obviously get downvoted pretty fast, but other than that, I think it would be abused to downvote different opinions, and I don't like that idea.

[paintpixie]

...While likes alone, as a way to express some sort of silent agreement, don't strike me in a bad way, the dislike system does - forum (or any sort of online engagement for that matter, so that would include something like the official reddit or discord too) would be really just a minority of total player base, no? So there is no logical argument that the thing mostly disliked here on the forum would be necessarily a totally bad idea for the game. This appears as a logical conclusion to me, unless all their money SSG gets really lies with all those vocal players from the forum... but I highly doubt it - most likely than not, there is a huge portion of unvocal players who contribute to the game's earnings. Even some of the frequent posters wouldn't bother to just follow up on every single thread and click their like/dislike to make sure SSG gets a "proper feedback loop." Thus, I feel like SSG should judge all ideas on merit and their own grey cells, because any idea or feedback given may be insightful in some way - and restrain from any sort of bias based on what's liked or disliked the most here on the forum....

This actually did happen on another game I played years ago. There were a bunch of people on the forums very vocally insisting that the game force people onto the pvp server to play. (It was a pvp game, but had a pve server that you could swap to and from.)
The game managers did so, thinking it was the popular desire of the playerbase, and then the forums blew up with outrage over it because the people who enjoyed the game for the story, etc. didn't frequent the forums, and all-of-a-sudden were being forced onto the pvp server where they were being ganked while questing. I thiiink the change was reversed, or maybe there was some middle ground reached. But it really took the people in charge of the game by surprise since the people who frequented the forums HEAVILY favored the pvp aspect of the game.

[grallonsphere]

it is something the lotro forums used to have back in the days and was then removed. if Cord wants to reintroduce a rating system now tho, it will be just like reddit: any post that is not of undying praise to ssg will be downvoted into oblivion, or viceversa, any post from someone who likes something will be downvoted, turning this place into one massive circlejerk one way or the other

Amen. These mechanisms are nothing but disguised censorship. If you dislike someone's opinion, you offer counter arguments, you don't silence them with a downvote.

[TesalionLortus]

This actually did happen on another game I played years ago. There were a bunch of people on the forums very vocally insisting that the game force people onto the pvp server to play. (It was a pvp game, but had a pve server that you could swap to and from.)
The game managers did so, thinking it was the popular desire of the playerbase, and then the forums blew up with outrage over it because the people who enjoyed the game for the story, etc. didn't frequent the forums, and all-of-a-sudden were being forced onto the pvp server where they were being ganked while questing. I thiiink the change was reversed, or maybe there was some middle ground reached. But it really took the people in charge of the game by surprise since the people who frequented the forums HEAVILY favored the pvp aspect of the game.

Nice example. I feel like all spaces would be heavily biased here in some direction, whether that's the forum, reddit or discord. But not exactly indicative of lots of other - silent - players, who may - completely silently - find some ideas beneficial/unbeneficial. The devs have their analytics of course but even that does not always help - you can't monitor things that you've never even tried, for example, right? And even regarding things they can and do monitor with great efficiency, something like the most played/replayed quest does not always equal the most appreciated flavor in the game nor is that the only type of thing that should ever be in the game, most likely. So, regarding certain matters, like suggesting features that not even exist in the game yet, would be very much subject to that category - logic and reason should ultimately be guiding factors, not just some "numbers" and "clicks." Both for the devs in general (though it's understandable if it gets lost or ignored sometimes) and the Guide of the team who can decide to roll with certain ideas and concepts, so someone like Sev.

Actually, I think LOTRO does strike that balance well when they really try. But I feel like introducing likes/dislikes wouldn't help with that and yeah, would be rather counterproductive and serve to maybe obscure things. Consider a basic psychology and time constraints - A dev: "don't have time to read too much right now, ohhh, there is that trending thread with so many heavily liked and disliked posts, I'll take a look and thoroughly read those." It's basic psychology that creates a bias here, it's natural really. While it's good to be aware of what many amongst your most fanatical, vocally active community may like/dislike, it's really not that important as to become a sole highlighted thing... in the grand scheme of things of developing the game for everyone - and not just any game, but an old engine game that should look into the future and try to survive years into the future, on our present day market, by appealing to all sorts of players - the IP is strong and there is no open world/mmo Middle-earth substitute in sight, so they can still manage a lot here, in theory.

[maartena]

NO. Absolutely not.

If you do not agree with a post, or agree with it, post it with an intelligent response. "Downvoting" is typically anonymous, and doesn't serve any purpose whatsoever. This isn't Reddit.

[Cordovan]

This was just a bit of theorycrafting chat in the middle of a livestream since weighing features do exist under the hood of the new forums and we could give it a try if we wanted to, but this is not a matter of "Cordovan wants to..." But, since people want to discuss it here:

The main thing it could help address is to give the wider community an opportunity to weigh in lightly without having to commit to the stress and anxiety of defending themselves from often intense responses by a small but loud group of people with a differing opinion who consider themselves the majority. The fallout of not agreeing with the opinions of regulars can be tough sometimes. It's true that only a small percentage of players post but far more read, and this is probably the biggest reason a majority read but don't post. Many players who otherwise disagree with an idea tell us privately they don't reply due to the difficulties they would face if they tried to speak, and it can lead to people believing "players want X" when in fact it is maybe a dozen or so frequent and loud posters representing their opinion every time the topic is raised on the forums. Ideally people who enjoy the forums would be willing to listen to others without engaging in negative behavior, but we've seen too often how things actually go, both on the part of people who are more supportive of ideas and those more opposed. Instead of posting on the forums, these folks get their feedback to us elsewhere. I frequently get Twitter/Discord/Forum Private messages along the lines of, "I don't dare disagree with 'the forums' on this, but here's what I and everyone I know actually thinks:".

By adding a no-impact unlike/downvote, it gives people an additional perspective. If a post has twelve people across a six page thread insisting that "everyone" wants X but the post has 50 likes and 2000 dislikes, it could be informative, and it is not the kind of information you would get by the current way things work. As people have stated, there are of course a bunch of reasons NOT to do an up/downvote as well. I was a big opponent of the Reputation system, getting rid of it was one of my first orders of business when I took over forum management here. If anything like this was ever brought to the new forums it would have to work differently from that old system. But I don't want to simply not consider it due to the issues caused by a different and very outdated system from a decade-plus ago.

Would a different system be able to help counter the belief that six people who post a hundred times over the course of a month about an issue represent the majority? Maybe, maybe not, but it's at least worth thinking about, since nothing is actually being proposed at the moment.

[paintpixie]

...The main thing it could help address is to give the wider community an opportunity to weigh in lightly without having to commit to the stress and anxiety of defending themselves from often intense responses by a small but loud group of people with a differing opinion who consider themselves the majority. The fallout of not agreeing with the opinions of regulars can be tough sometimes. It's true that only a small percentage of players post but far more read, and this is probably the biggest reason a majority read but don't post. Many players who otherwise disagree with an idea tell us privately they don't reply due to the difficulties they would face if they tried to speak, and it can lead to people believing "players want X" when in fact it is maybe a dozen or so frequent and loud posters representing their opinion every time the topic is raised on the forums. Ideally people who enjoy the forums would be willing to listen to others without engaging in negative behavior, but we've seen too often how things actually go, both on the part of people who are more supportive of ideas and those more opposed. Instead of posting on the forums, these folks get their feedback to us elsewhere. I frequently get Twitter/Discord/Forum Private messages along the lines of, "I don't dare disagree with 'the forums' on this, but here's what I and everyone I know actually thinks:".

By adding a no-impact unlike/downvote, it gives people an additional perspective. If a post has twelve people across a six page thread insisting that "everyone" wants X but the post has 50 likes and 2000 dislikes, it could be informative, and it is not the kind of information you would get by the current way things work. As people have stated, there are of course a bunch of reasons NOT to do an up/downvote as well. I was a big opponent of the Reputation system, getting rid of it was one of my first orders of business when I took over forum management here. If anything like this was ever brought to the new forums it would have to work differently from that old system. But I don't want to simply not consider it due to the issues caused by a different and very outdated system from a decade-plus ago...

This is a good point. I often see threads with many views but only a handful of comments. And perhaps if the votes were showing up, people would be less hesitant to post their different views here, too. Even those in the minority, if they realized there were even a couple people who also agreed with them, might be more likely to say something.

[grallonsphere]

...

Would a different system be able to help counter the belief that six people who post a hundred times over the course of a month about an issue represent the majority? Maybe, maybe not, but it's at least worth thinking about, since nothing is actually being proposed at the moment.

If the intention is to have a way to gauge the mood of the player base who frequent this forum, then I would invite you to look at how Paradox Interactive handles this on their own forum. Under the Like button, there are several choices:

- Respectfully disagree
- Agree
- Like
- Love
- Amused

Please, no reddit-like upvote/downvote.

-----

Edit: note that the above mechanism is open to the lurkers, so long as they're members.

[Elmagor]

We have famous quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry book - "We are responsible for those we have tamed". Yes, forum hostile and tough for some people who prefer more user-friendly acitvity or play game without go deep into details. You can blame players who harsh to other people (especially when they disagree with their opinion). But in same time, you can blame developers, because they focus discussions in other places, and kinda forget about forums. Since people don't get full information (for different reasons), they consider something shady here and blame developers, or other players. You can blame panic and pain, because we see our servers slowly dying, we see players go away from Lotro, and we don't want to see that. We want to see Lotro getting more players and more $$, but don't know how to do it. Because of that, people don't like changes, because they like Lotro what used to be that 15 years and don't agree what we need changes. For good, or for bad. But we truly need them.

Yes, forum need some changes, and some changes will be great. But how it change people here? They keep acting same way.

[Bothketbog]

...By adding a no-impact unlike/downvote, it gives people an additional perspective. If a post has twelve people across a six page thread insisting that "everyone" wants X but the post has 50 likes and 2000 dislikes, it could be informative, and it is not the kind of information you would get by the current way things work. As people have stated, there are of course a bunch of reasons NOT to do an up/downvote as well. I was a big opponent of the Reputation system, getting rid of it was one of my first orders of business when I took over forum management here. If anything like this was ever brought to the new forums it would have to work differently from that old system. But I don't want to simply not consider it due to the issues caused by a different and very outdated system from a decade-plus ago.

Would a different system be able to help counter the belief that six people who post a hundred times over the course of a month about an issue represent the majority? Maybe, maybe not, but it's at least worth thinking about, since nothing is actually being proposed at the moment.

All this. So many earlier were worried that the button would work as it does on Reddit; that's a pretty broad assumption. As far as frequent posters go, you don't have to read/respond to a thread that ticks you off. A "no-impact unlike/downvote" would be just fine with me.

[TesalionLortus]

To be precise, I wasn't trying to say "Cord wants to do that". It wasn't exactly clear to me how any of that would even function, in theory, if it ever came to pass.

Instead of posting on the forums, these folks get their feedback to us elsewhere. I frequently get Twitter/Discord/Forum Private messages along the lines of, "I don't dare disagree with 'the forums' on this, but here's what I and everyone I know actually thinks:".

I mean, it's clearly an issue if trying to take everyone into account, but this sounds a bit like they don't want *a forum* at all though, more like they wish for some special pools linked by SSG in private messages - and fully anonymous - which would be far more useful (as feedback I mean) than any illusory, subject to "hype" likes and dislikes situations. I would dig the pools idea, actually, if you actually asked about brand new things as well, not just the typical ones that are already in the game or in development but you just need specific feedback on them. Would be far more useful to have periodically than any bickering at the forum and like/dislike wars.

By adding a no-impact unlike/downvote, it gives people an additional perspective. If a post has twelve people across a six page thread insisting that "everyone" wants X but the post has 50 likes and 2000 dislikes, it could be informative, and it is not the kind of information you would get by the current way things work.

It might but still, does that really matter, if 2000 people passively disagreeing with a click (which means they bother to frequent the forum because they've registered here in the first place) may not even be the majority of the entire player base of the game (many of which may not even frequently read the forum/reddit/etc), so that's just a surface level info anyway - having it displayed would only convince people it's the other side that "is the majority!" and should be listened to by the devs, which is more like changing the appearances, but the mood stays the same (plus maybe less people actually type things since now they can just click things?). Well, I don't know how many players the game actually has, but certainly far more than the number of people frequenting the forums???

If the intention is to have a way to gauge the mood of the player base who frequent this forum, then I would invite you to look at how Paradox Interactive handles this on their own forum. Under the Like button, there are several choices:

- Respectfully disagree
- Agree
- Like
- Love
- Amused

Please, no reddit-like upvote/downvote.

Yeah, that's certainly a better idea than your typical like/dislike button, and maybe make it somewhat neutral too, with fun lotr-based reactions or something? No idea how it works at Paradox and how it looks in practice, but isn't a respectfully disagree pretty much an equivalent of a dislike here, nevertheless? As I see it, even though it's prevalent online these days because the space has become what it is, one of these major negatives here is that people can massively disagree with facts/reality itself, without having to put in an effort to put it into words (and miserably fail at it if they try to put into words, since reality and logic tend to verify such things, always).

[grallonsphere]

...No idea how it works at Paradox and how it looks in practice, but isn't a respectfully disagree pretty much an equivalent of a dislike here, nevertheless? As I see it, even though it's prevalent online these days because the space has become what it is, one of these major negatives here is that people can massively disagree with facts/reality itself, without having to put in an effort to put it into words (and miserably fail at it if they try to put into words, since reality and logic tend to verify such things, always).

It's nothing more than a visual indication. In other words, threads don't disappear, or they are not displaced at the bottom of the page, when they are massively 'disagreed upon'. On the other end, even such a light-weight mechanism can skew perceptions and induce 'peer pressure' in one direction or another. But the damage is limited. That being said, and in my experience online, trying to cater to the 'safe-space' crowd almost always lead to further and further encroachments, until censorship becomes the norm... I would avoid it altogether if it was up to me.

[YamydeAragon]

This was just a bit of theorycrafting chat in the middle of a livestream since weighing features do exist under the hood of the new forums and we could give it a try if we wanted to, but this is not a matter of "Cordovan wants to..." But, since people want to discuss it here:

The main thing it could help address is to give the wider community an opportunity to weigh in lightly without having to commit to the stress and anxiety of defending themselves from often intense responses by a small but loud group of people with a differing opinion who consider themselves the majority. The fallout of not agreeing with the opinions of regulars can be tough sometimes. It's true that only a small percentage of players post but far more read, and this is probably the biggest reason a majority read but don't post. Many players who otherwise disagree with an idea tell us privately they don't reply due to the difficulties they would face if they tried to speak, and it can lead to people believing "players want X" when in fact it is maybe a dozen or so frequent and loud posters representing their opinion every time the topic is raised on the forums. Ideally people who enjoy the forums would be willing to listen to others without engaging in negative behavior, but we've seen too often how things actually go, both on the part of people who are more supportive of ideas and those more opposed. Instead of posting on the forums, these folks get their feedback to us elsewhere. I frequently get Twitter/Discord/Forum Private messages along the lines of, "I don't dare disagree with 'the forums' on this, but here's what I and everyone I know actually thinks:".

By adding a no-impact unlike/downvote, it gives people an additional perspective. If a post has twelve people across a six page thread insisting that "everyone" wants X but the post has 50 likes and 2000 dislikes, it could be informative, and it is not the kind of information you would get by the current way things work. As people have stated, there are of course a bunch of reasons NOT to do an up/downvote as well. I was a big opponent of the Reputation system, getting rid of it was one of my first orders of business when I took over forum management here. If anything like this was ever brought to the new forums it would have to work differently from that old system. But I don't want to simply not consider it due to the issues caused by a different and very outdated system from a decade-plus ago.

Would a different system be able to help counter the belief that six people who post a hundred times over the course of a month about an issue represent the majority? Maybe, maybe not, but it's at least worth thinking about, since nothing is actually being proposed at the moment.

I recall that system being used at LOTRO forums more than a decade ago & it got removed because justified reasons. That system got abused to give bad reputation to other players, as a form of harrasment. I'm not gonna describe the ways that it got exploited (no need to give ideas), only tell that it was bad. Please, don't bring it back!

[J-Moneyforever]

This was just a bit of theorycrafting chat in the middle of a livestream since weighing features do exist under the hood of the new forums and we could give it a try if we wanted to, but this is not a matter of "Cordovan wants to..." But, since people want to discuss it here:

The main thing it could help address is to give the wider community an opportunity to weigh in lightly without having to commit to the stress and anxiety of defending themselves from often intense responses by a small but loud group of people with a differing opinion who consider themselves the majority. The fallout of not agreeing with the opinions of regulars can be tough sometimes. It's true that only a small percentage of players post but far more read, and this is probably the biggest reason a majority read but don't post. Many players who otherwise disagree with an idea tell us privately they don't reply due to the difficulties they would face if they tried to speak, and it can lead to people believing "players want X" when in fact it is maybe a dozen or so frequent and loud posters representing their opinion every time the topic is raised on the forums. Ideally people who enjoy the forums would be willing to listen to others without engaging in negative behavior, but we've seen too often how things actually go, both on the part of people who are more supportive of ideas and those more opposed. Instead of posting on the forums, these folks get their feedback to us elsewhere. I frequently get Twitter/Discord/Forum Private messages along the lines of, "I don't dare disagree with 'the forums' on this, but here's what I and everyone I know actually thinks:".

By adding a no-impact unlike/downvote, it gives people an additional perspective. If a post has twelve people across a six page thread insisting that "everyone" wants X but the post has 50 likes and 2000 dislikes, it could be informative, and it is not the kind of information you would get by the current way things work. As people have stated, there are of course a bunch of reasons NOT to do an up/downvote as well. I was a big opponent of the Reputation system, getting rid of it was one of my first orders of business when I took over forum management here. If anything like this was ever brought to the new forums it would have to work differently from that old system. But I don't want to simply not consider it due to the issues caused by a different and very outdated system from a decade-plus ago.

Would a different system be able to help counter the belief that six people who post a hundred times over the course of a month about an issue represent the majority? Maybe, maybe not, but it's at least worth thinking about, since nothing is actually being proposed at the moment.

This reply is why it's important to have a diverse set of players on CM staff in my opinion. Obviously I understand that SSG is a small operation and to my understanding Cord is the only CM.
But my point is this, Cordovan engages with the game in a relatively casual manner (nothing wrong with this, casuals make up a large majority of the population), which means he is naturally more inclined to sympathize with the casual segment of the population. Terms like "loud minority who think they're the majority" have been thrown around consistently by SSG CM staff to refer to primarily endgame players (raiders and PvPers).
Here is my issue. The current system certainly does not properly represent the wants or needs of the greater lotro community. But Cord's proposed replacement does not necessarily create an improved feedback system either. It could certainly be abused to create incorrect assumptions about what the population wants. What it does do, is amplify the opinions of the player group that Cord specifically sympathizes with. Again nothing wrong with being casual, and it's natural to sympathize with people who are similar to you. However, the issue is that when a CM sympathizes with a specific player set and has a distaste for another player set, that will color their CM decisions and their communication with the team even if it's not intentional.
Currently this isn't really an issue as Orion and ONN are very active on the forums in development discourse. But should we ever return to a time where the CM is the only way to pass info to developers it could become a real problem that there's no diversity of player type on the CM staff.
My final thought that I'm sure the CMs and devs are already aware of, majorities of players aren't necessarily always right about what would be a good or bad change to the game. I think there's a decent chance that the *majority* of players thought that trivializing the acquisition of endgame gear was a good idea in the darker years of this game. But it turned out creating a proper endgame treadmill to acquire BIS gear actually creates higher player retention and is part of why the game has seen a boost of population in the last few years relative to the dark times (Flower picking-Mordor Xpac). But all of that is fairly irrelevant to my original point. Just a thought on how players sometimes have incorrect notions of what makes a game "good."

[Fantomex]

The main thing it could help address is to give the wider community an opportunity to weigh in lightly without having to commit to the stress and anxiety of defending themselves from often intense responses by a small but loud group of people with a differing opinion who consider themselves the majority. The fallout of not agreeing with the opinions of regulars can be tough sometimes. It's true that only a small percentage of players post but far more read, and this is probably the biggest reason a majority read but don't post.

The problem with this is it gives the wider community the power to change how a post is perceived regardless of whether they actually read it thoroughly or not. That was my experience on the lotro sub-Reddit recently when I was giving a new player advice about classes and the majority misinterpreted it as "Lore-master is an easy class" which was the exact opposite of what I said. Thankfully one person engaged me on the topic so I was able to clarify and hopefully interested parties were able to see that. But by lowering the barrier to engage, I think the only thing you're accomplishing is encouraging groupthink over critical discussion, which is not really what a forum is for in my opinion. And to the extent that developers need help sorting out which is which, the current level of discourse on class changes lead me to believe they don't need it.

It's also true that, quite often, the majority is wrong. Faster horse and all that.

Many players who otherwise disagree with an idea tell us privately they don't reply due to the difficulties they would face if they tried to speak, and it can lead to people believing "players want X" when in fact it is maybe a dozen or so frequent and loud posters representing their opinion every time the topic is raised on the forums.

I can sympathize with people who want to express themselves but have anxiety about being "wrong" in a given discussion. To those people I recommend the following strategy: make your post and move on like I do. You have no obligation to engage reply guys with a chip on their shoulder. But at the same time maybe they do have some knowledge to share on the topic worth looking at. So give it a look if you're comfortable. But then move on.

Instead of posting on the forums, these folks get their feedback to us elsewhere. I frequently get Twitter/Discord/Forum Private messages along the lines of, "I don't dare disagree with 'the forums' on this, but here's what I and everyone I know actually thinks:".

Of course there's no way of verifying anything about the anecdotal "everyone I know" qualifier, and thus no way of knowing whether they're actually the silent majority or just the opposite. But if the majority of these messages are all expressing the same opinion on a subject, then you have useful data that should be consolidated into its own private feedback channel rather than trying to merge it into forum functionality.

[Fadil]

This was just a bit of theorycrafting chat in the middle of a livestream since weighing features do exist under the hood of the new forums and we could give it a try if we wanted to, but this is not a matter of "Cordovan wants to..." But, since people want to discuss it here:

The main thing it could help address is to give the wider community an opportunity to weigh in lightly without having to commit to the stress and anxiety of defending themselves from often intense responses by a small but loud group of people with a differing opinion who consider themselves the majority. The fallout of not agreeing with the opinions of regulars can be tough sometimes. It's true that only a small percentage of players post but far more read, and this is probably the biggest reason a majority read but don't post. Many players who otherwise disagree with an idea tell us privately they don't reply due to the difficulties they would face if they tried to speak, and it can lead to people believing "players want X" when in fact it is maybe a dozen or so frequent and loud posters representing their opinion every time the topic is raised on the forums. Ideally people who enjoy the forums would be willing to listen to others without engaging in negative behavior, but we've seen too often how things actually go, both on the part of people who are more supportive of ideas and those more opposed. Instead of posting on the forums, these folks get their feedback to us elsewhere. I frequently get Twitter/Discord/Forum Private messages along the lines of, "I don't dare disagree with 'the forums' on this, but here's what I and everyone I know actually thinks:".

I get what you're saying, but maybe just add a like/ support vote then?
It means people can express approval of something and it's less likely to be abused (imo) than dislike/ downvotes.

If you post an idea and only 10 people like it, you can let it go and think: oh well apparently its not something others support/ want.
If you post something and 200 people downvote you, it feels really bad and might even further stop people from posting.:P

[maartena]

I get what you're saying, but maybe just add a like/ support vote then?
It means people can express approval of something and it's less likely to be abused (imo) than dislike/ downvotes.

I have seen a few forums where none of the likes/dislikes were anonymous, and that could help with trolling. One would hover over the "dislike" and "like" buttons, and much like Facebook you would get a list of people who liked/disliked the post. Additionally, each user profile would show the amount of "likes" and "dislikes" they have issued.

This way, the ones that are only here to troll and have nothing meaningful to contribute, will get noticed quite quickly, and perhaps they won't be taken as seriously when they actually post something.

Another thing to note is that regardless of the above, when a post gets say....7 likes and 39 dislikes.... the author might be inclined to add a post with "39 dislikes, really guys?" and get upset about it.... which would increase the amount of moderation needed on a forum, because that will without a doubt get out of hand at some point.

I was always on the "we need a dislike button" side when it comes to Facebook, but I totally understand why they didn't do that, as it would become a much bigger and more massive trollfest than it already is. As such, if anything is going to be implemented I would say do it like so:

1) Only allow like/upvote, nothing else. If you don't agree/like the post, you don't do anything and move on.... if you like it and want to show some support, like/upvote the post.
2) Make it visible to everyone: Show exactly who liked/upvoted your post, and who liked/upvoted other posts.

[DoRonRon]

As far as I see it is that the players come here to give their honest opinions. We would not have had Orion's comms thread if he'd realised this.

Sadly we don't have truth and honesty as part of the Community Guidelines. As a result of needing some token journalistic support where none was to be found elsewhere alliances were formed. That two CMs fell into the same pitfall has been a shame for the game.

Back door whispers to someone shown to be duped in such a way has harmed the game beyond their understanding.

I'm unlikely to contribute to the Lore or Artistic discussions because they are not in my field of expertise. I can appreciate the efforts of other players who try to better the game on such matters as I can those who construct a scene with housing items, one memorable one a Hobbit Bakery. I'll likely take some time to go look at the efforts of those engaged in the current competition at it's conclusion.

We seem to be locked into a world where decisions are made without much thought with a lot of wasted effort trying to justify them and refusing to look at all the evidence. Some take a few hours of a mantra "it was stolen" others can take 100 days of "I was right" to restore their "faith".

For me decisions are a line rather than one for a fixed point in time. Adapting to changes with further intel over time. I'm still open to evidence that dissuades me that the championing of "victims" of the forums are any more than not having such a champion come to the rescue in some past. My "bully" found himself in a finger lock on the bus home, my unconcerned continued reading of my book suggested I didn't care so much for his pain nor some lasting damage. Try it; put your thumb on the nail of a finger, close the finger and tug a bit. Freed me from taking it into my future.

The coven of whisperers have been open about it in their own channels for all to see. If you bother to look. I always forget if it's the seventh or ninth level of Dante's hell that houses the panderers. Comes down to your own moral compass if you choose to exploit such chums or attempt to help them.

Where is the review of Valaring when you have not made the journey to cap before? A new burglar on another server because it was only going to be a big fail at outset, and were told it would be? More an attempt at distancing from past errors of judgement but still wary of the backlash?
How does avoiding so many game systems give you the context to take our grievances up the chain and represent all of us?

All this does is make it easier for other victims to be marshalled by those with a following from the gift of a prime slot or favoured Discord or YouTube channel to further harm and direct the game in their ignorance, chasing other motivators outside of the game itself.

How else do you get to the point you actually hire one victim and give an interview to the architect of it all? "Being interviewed by a friend, how does that work?"

Come to the forums with an open mind and up for discussion just don't come as obvious victims of the spin, even your own.

Fundamentally such systems pander to the mob rather the 99 Percentile that might be in a better position improve things. Like the reporting system that would be better served with a forum (as with other Daybreak Games) and more input on the merits and means for any fix.

I fully expect another slap so bye bye, just in case. Will take some time to marshal followers... and pull those strings...

[Ryvick]

I could only see something like this as a bad thing. The last thing this games "marketing" dept. or EP needs is a way to point at random posts and say "See its popular" before getting a dumbass change made. The Bifurcation of the Dwarven gender would undoubtedly be popular with people who have NO idea what Lotr is and yet it would be all the more to the detriment of the game as a whole when trying to maintain some semblance of continuity with the books. ("See all those random upvotes from completely clueless randos?! Now we NEED to put it in the game.")