You were trolling this thread:
http://www.gamedev.n...a-viable-career
...and those downvotes were a warning from the community that your trolling isn't helpful. N.B. "unhelpful" not "offensive".
You keep replying to that thread for some reason, which bumps it back to the active threads list, which makes more people read it and see your troll post about LSU, which makes more people down-vote you...

If the community didn't downvote you there, then a moderator might've had to give you an official warning, or just a polite PM instead. Would you prefer that?

P.S. I up-voted your post about the global variable because it was correct and helpful. Not sure why that one was downvoted, but you can see by now that that single 'incorrect' downvote has been counteracted. [edit]Actually, as noted below, you probably got that downvote because your 'correct' answer was a (less detailed) copy of the post immediately before you, with a 3 hours time gap. Nonetheless, it's still gotten 2 upvotes to counteract that 1 downvote.[/edit]

You'll be back up over 100 in no time.

nobody votes up

Really?
At the time of my writing, the topic that prompted you to post this currently has nine up-votes (not counting the additional three that are on off-topic responses), and the first response (which succinctly and accurately answered the question) currently has five of those up-votes. In the entire topic there are only two down-votes, and one of those is on an off-topic response. That hardly supports the idea that "nobody votes up"... It might have been a little harsh to vote you down for your response to that topic, but I don't really think it can be considered unfair, and our community has already counter-balanced it -- which is something many of our members choose to do if they see a vote they disagree with.

In the topmost (most recently active) topic in the For Beginners forum at the time of my writing there are nine up-votes, and no down-votes. Again, that particular topic doesn't seem to support your suggestion that "nobody votes up".


I think perhaps what you really meant was that nobody votes your posts up? Looking through your post history, that isn't true either, but you've collected more down-votes than up-votes.

I know several people here will say: "Look at your posts they contribute nothing, everybody is calling you out etc etc"

It's good that you recognised that people would probably respond that way... but have you actually done so?

Hodgman linked to an example where you seemed to be trolling; your responses were barely on-topic, it turned out [s]you didn't even seem to actually know which university was being discussed[/s](EDIT: upon a more careful read of the topic in question this is incorrect, my apologies), and apart from the very obvious "work hard and good luck" you didn't offer any useful advice.

In the first example I've linked you responded with a factually accurate answer -- but it was one that had already been posted by another user over three hours earlier, and your own version was less detailed -- not only that, but at the time of my writing you've actually only received one down-vote and two up-votes for that particular response. This particular topic isn't the only example of such a response either -- in this response you didn't provide any additional information than SimonForsman's response about four hours earlier, and you still received 3 up-votes for the post.


Do you really think the voting system (and I count the users that operate it in that) is treating you unfairly? Really?


To me it seems that the system is generally reasonably fair -- it certainly has some problems, and we do take steps to try to improve it and rectify any problems -- but I think it does a reasonable job and is mostly used as intended. You're also more than welcome to simply ignore it -- it's just a few small UI elements on the page -- although in your particular case I'd suggest that votes you've been given indicate some valid community feedback on the value and usefulness of some of your contributions.

Amusing, check out that post again, turns out, the guy who said I didn't know about the university I was hating, didn't know what he was talking about, why is nobody down voting him?

My apologies, upon re-reading the topic more carefully you are in fact correct -- I've edited my response above to also reflect this -- there are currently two down-votes on the other user's post however, so it seems the system is again working correctly in that particular case.

But lets discuss that post[...]

Sure, but in context with all the lengthy, advice-loaded posts before your own response in that topic can you really blame people for not considering your post useful?

Thanks for taking your time explaining the logic behind all this,I really appreciate it

Not at all -- I might sometimes seem like a bit of a nazi trying to squash such discussion when it comes up as an off-topic distraction in technical topics, but I think we would be doing a terrible job of running this site if we weren't willing to discuss such things with people who take the time to make a topic in the appropriate forum or contact us privately.

we live in a society quick to judge and that voting system is a prime example of i

What if users were able to change their minds and un-do their own votes if they later realised they had made a mistake? Do you think that would help to improve the system? Users would then still be free to rate posts based on snap-judgements, but if they were later corrected or had a change of heart they could un-do a vote, or even offer a vote in the opposite direction.

I'll be honest here: we're not going to remove the reputation system any time soon. We consider it to be valuable over all, and despite occasional problems and objections from some users it does seem to be reasonably effective. We will however be continuing to improve it over time, and suggestions for how we could possibly improve it are always welcome.

Amusing, check out that post again, turns out, the guy who said I didn't know about the university I was hating, didn't know what he was talking about, why is nobody down voting him? How can you hate something you don't know?

I'm going to go ahead and assume you're talking about me here. If not, I apologize and ask you to correct me. First of all, yes, when you said "LA" the first thing that came to my mind was "Los Angeles." Sorry for getting it wrong, and thanks for correcting me on that. Second, I'm not sure what you mean by "How can you hate something you don't know?" Is that directed at me? If so, I don't hate you, LSU, or your opinion of LSU. I said nothing hateful. At all. Third, I never claimed you didn't know the university you hated. I claimed LSU wasn't in Los Angeles, which of course was a mix up between us in communication. A summary of what I said would be: 1) nobody likes it when people troll; 2) cliche, generic, or unspecific advice doesn't contribute anything; and 3) "Good luck" (or similar sayings) can be misunderstood, and it's usually better to not say them than to be misunderstood (that is, if you say them, make sure you won't be misunderstood if you do and try to think of how others (who don't have access to your mind) may interpret your words). If any of that offends you, I'm sorry, but tough; sometimes you just need to thicken your skin. I'm not going to sugar coat things, especially because I didn't say anything rude or mean.

I'm not attacking you. I'm not demeaning you (at least not intentionally, and if I have unintentionally, let me know so I can fix my wording). I want you to be a helpful contributor to the GameDev.net community. I want you to actively participate. But to be honest, there's room for improvement in several of your replies.* I, and others, tried to inform you of some ways that I think you can improve (others may have downvoted your post to let you know you can improve). I did it bluntly, as I usually do things (and as I'm doing things now). It wasn't personal.

As to your questions, I don't think people downvoted that post of yours because you said "never give up." I think they down voted it primarily because it was a troll-ish post (2/3 of the sentences were troll-ish). A secondary reason people may have downvoted it is because "never give up" is the only constructive thing you said (that is, they didn't downvote it for what it said; they downvoted it for what it didn't say). "Never give up" is great and all, but it's not helpful to what to OP asked, and it's so broad, generic, and cliche that it comes across as "fluffy noise" instead of something of substance. Alone, it's useless. It needs to be paired with something in order for it to be useful (though even then it's cliche). These are at least my thoughts on why that post was downvoted. I can't read the minds of others. However, with these two points, I think a downvote is fair.

For the most part, votes don't indicate the post as "offensive" (that's what the "Report" link is for). They indicate the post as "not helpful." Your downvoted posts aren't offending people. They're downvoted because someone deems them as "not useful and [do] not improve the conversation" (quote from the mouse over text of the downvote button).

[size=2]*And I'm sure there's room for improvement in mine. I'm not claiming to be the God of Forums. If I can improve, I would appreciate if others helped point out how I can improve as well.

Personally, I like the rating system. I don't care about the number so much as I care about whether the number is increasing or decreasing. I'm happy to get an upvote because it signals to me I did/said something right so I know how to be more helpful. Also, I'm happy to get a downvote because it signals to me that I didn't do/say something helpful, and gives me the opportunity to stand back and say "This wasn't (apparently) constructive; how can I do better?" I'm glad people downvoted my post because it helped me stand back and say "How can I do/say this better?" Stepping back, I see I should've sent that message as PM instead of continuing to derail the thread. Hopefully that will help me in the future. I'm glad to get feedback from the community.

And for the record, I never down voted you (in these relavent threads, at least). If you have any concerns regarding any of my responses to you, feel free to PM me and we can discuss things more without derailing any additional threads.

What if users were able to change their minds and un-do their own votes if they later realised they had made a mistake?

This has been requested before, and I'd like to re-request it.

P.S. I up-voted your post about the global variable because it was correct and helpful. Not sure why that one was downvoted, but you can see by now that that single 'incorrect' downvote has been counteracted.

I don't think it can be called an "'incorrect' downvote" because it was likely proper usage of the system (that is, it wasn't some clown getting revenge or something like that). I'm guessing the downvoter downvoted because of the reasons jbadams mentioned. I don't think that reply deserves a swarm of downvotes, but a single downvote may be deserved (and the same with a single upvote). Either way, I think the real message behind the downvote was what jbadams points out, and regardless of what the reply "deserves," it's worth making the point that jbadam's shared. Sorry, I'm going off on this more than I meant. I just didn't want the downvoter to necessarily think their vote was "incorrect."