May I add my tuppence worth? This subject interests me as I have been (I’m not going to use the word “victim” - too emotive) a ‘subject’ of this random down-modding.
A little while ago, I came into the Forums on a Friday night and eventually noticed that my points had dropped by one. I still remember the mixture of shock, confusion and hurt (yes - hurt) that I felt. I immediately assumed that I had caused offence, but could not for the life of me fathom what I had said that would do that. I went searching in my posts list, and discovered that someone had picked an entirely innocuous post (an entry in the alphabet game) from several months back and modded it down. I think that’s the kind of thing that Beef Row was talking about when he started this thread.
Now I’m not for a moment suggesting that I shouldn’t ever be modded down, but if someone disagrees so much with something I’ve said here, I would like to know what and why; I would like to have a rational discussion about it. I felt much the same way when 2 of my Contest Holds were voted 1. People are perfectly entitled to think that I have made really poor holds, but it is not remotely helpful, particularly to someone as new to Architecture as I was, just to vote 1 without offering some kind of explanation as to why it was so poor, some sort of useful crit.
That though is a slightly different issue from the kind of down-modding I described above. In my case there was nothing in that post that could be disagreed with - it was a game answer. Going to an old post and down-modding is fine if the writer is bumping the post and adding something to the arguments within, but that was not the case either. It appears to have been done simply out of spite, which is why it is disturbing.
With great respect to Kie and Banjooie, an anonymous “vent” ability is something I would be very much against. If anonymous, negative down-modding can be upsetting, consider how much worse anonymous “venting’ will be. Where people can say pretty much what ever comes into their heads in the heat of the moment, we are opening a door to abuse and saying “walk right in”. I accept the need for modding to be anonymous, but I firmly believe that if one makes any kind of comment or statement, one is obliged to put one’s name to it and to defend it if necessary.
No system is ever perfect and all systems can be abused, but I believe that the mod system we have here is generally a positive and enhancing one (to the extent that I have tried to encourage the Writing Site that I’m in to adopt it). If we try to restrict its use or to alter the ways in which it is used, we not only run the risk of making something technically very unwieldy, we may end up throwing the baby out with the bath water. As much as I would like to see the random, backwards down-modding, stop, I can’t see anyway of doing that without harming what we have.
As an addendum, may I comment on this:
Niroz said re “frivolous modding”:
Except those who already have hordes of them. I don’t think that having a healthy supply of mod points necessarily means that one is going to spend them “frivolously”. In fact I’m completely certain that the one does not follow from the other.
____________________________
Winner of: Novice Architect Excellence 2006.
FAPCA - Technical Design Excellence in Layout and Aesthetics