Crypt Cleanser
Posts: 714
Joined: Saturday, 5th December 2015, 06:56
Remove the thank feature
I may eventually make a longer post about ways to improve this forum but this would help staunch the bleeding so the patient can be stabilized in the short term.
Edit:
To expound on this a little, every site that includes a thank or support or upvote feature goes through a similar cycle:
First phase; People upvote quality, high effort posts that include a lot of reasoning, original content, etc. This is usually the intended function of the system and it works well... for a while.
Second phase; People upvote people they like/agree with, and downvote or ignore people they do not like/do not agree with. At this point the system is arguably neutral, neither encouraging quality content, nor discouraging.
Third phase; People upvote anything funny, or that attempts to be funny. This is the worst phase, and signifies that your forum has literally become a joke. People use it to feel good about themselves, to get a few cheap laughs, usually at others' expense, and everyone trying to be "witty" and feel smarter than others by trolling them, or being in on the in-joke.
Imo, this forum is hovering between 2 and 3. Prompt action is definitely needed to prevent system collapsing into full cesspit mode.
- For this message the author lethediver has received thanks: 2
- duvessa, wheals