Since Jax made the voting hidden, I would suggest that people do not try to work around that by posting they voted in a comment to a posting.

I tried to edit it out, but was not allowed to do so. Everytime I tried I was brought back to the editing page. I'll pm the person that did it, I am just posting this so others don't do it.

(assuming that we shouldn't do it, not trying to "overstep my bounds" here.)

Bounds aren't being overstepped - i don't have a problem if someone wants to out themselves though. It's a bit different than W1K's reason's for being anonymous. Here's it's more to protect anonymity against retaliation. At W1k it's more to protect the contest integrity itself. If someone isn't afraid of retaliation, then they can definitely out themselves :)

Okay, thanks for the clarification Jax!

Hmmm, I'd like to see a comment as to why someone would vote another person low. Why would I get a 1/5 vote? Seems vindictive, which is what anonymity brings. Maybe I've stepped on toes but I'm not aware that I've stepped on more than have had done likewise, just not something I'd vote down for. Seems wrong to not be given a reason.

I agree! I've gone to vote on a few people, and been really surprised to see some of the low votes. I guess there will always be retaliative voting, but it would be nice to know how I stepped on someone's toes.

If by "stepping on toes" you mean giving your opinion, than I see a whole lot of issues with "opinion voting" in this plimosphere, especially after a heated election. Yeah, I can't see a 1/5 vote being anything but vindictive, and complete crup.
Speaking of voting problems after an election, if I vote someone a 5 but don't click hard enough, and maybe just dent the star, do we have any means of a recount? We might want to work on that.
I recently received a low vote but since it's a 3/5 I would believe it's a legitimate vote, but just like dolly, I would like a comment in order to know what it's for. Is it a submission? Is it a personal opinion I gave on a story? Is it my awesome choice of plimy colors? I can't fix it if I don't know what's broken.
I know you said your working on that Jax, just thought I would chime in.
Having member's voting history available would also be peachy.

I've had a few 1/5 votes against me. I feel if someone has a problem with me they should message me. I'm not here to be in a popularity contest, I'm here because I'm a compulsive web surfer, but I surely don't mean to be unpopular.

P.S Hoosker, love the new avatar.

This is just my way but I either vote you a 5 or I don't vote for you. Being that I'm at a 9 level I don't want to hurt anyone. If I don't agree with your opinion but you're still a good contributing member I'd still give you a 5. If you come out with both guns blazing, only here to flame people I just won't vote for you and give you any of my vote power at all.

I think that would be a better system. A vote should be positive only. If you don't like someone, for whatever reason then you just don't vote for them at all and they gain no levels. Just an opinion but it would save wondering "wtf" when you see a 1 vote :/

Btw, Hoosker, can't you revote for that person? Or is it a one time only thing now?

That's what I've been doing. Just a 5/5 or nothing at all.

and thanks Bornbad, I think I'll wear this for awhile.

I might vote lower than 5/5 for

--lazy entries (no picture, no category, duplicate of something (especially if the other entry is on the same page!)

--Mischaracterized entries (pseudoscience--"the lunar landing was faked"-- if labeled as real science, for example)

--Repeated vote humping (Sooner or later someone will post five "OMG! Check this out!" entries in a row....)

I think it might be important to set some expectations early, so as the site grows, there is some consistency.

What do you think? Too harsh?

Then I can save 5/5 to reward someone who makes a really good contribution of some kind.

It would help to know more about the formula--is 4/5 going to benefit a member, or hurt them? Because if it is positive, I'll use it a lot more!

I can understand the "if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all" attitude, but even trolls and spammers have their admirers.

If the 99% of us who see Joe-Jerk as nothing but trouble can't vote him down, but the 1% who think he's the cat's whiskers can vote him up, he'll climb. He'll climb more slowly than others, perhaps, but he'll eventually reach a point where he can do damage.

A forced comment system would be a better solution. Maybe a "reveal your identity?" checkbox to go with the comment would be a good thing, too.

If this begins to happen, or a set of voting guidelines is implemented,then I will change my voting habits. I'm a little sceptical about a troublemaker spending enough time and effort here to actually do "damage"

As far as your anonymity button idea, I like this idea and thought that maybe if it was set up in the "settings" area of a members home page it could have a separate choice of, only friends that have been added by you would know your identity.

It's true that someone can get voted "up" even if they're a troll, at this point they can also vote the non-trolls down and do damage to that person's voting power. If voting only gives you an "up" he cannot do the damage to someone's vote power. Right now he can gain anyway, but he can also do damage right now. Not sure I'm making sense....need coffee.

Maybe creating a dropdown menu (with a list of general reasons for voting up or down) would help..so that a selection would have to be made before the vote would register. That would preserve anonymity, and give a clue concerning the vote too. It would also be a nice guideline/reinforcement as to what we should be voting others on.

What the hell is going on? Who am I f**king with. I got this! For what???
7 hours ago 1 / 5
12 hours ago 2 / 5
You guys can play your petty games. Grow up! I'm out for now.

I'm curious why anyone would complain publicly every time they received a negative vote. Not only does it do no good, it looks like whining, which likely attracts more negative votes.

Not to mention it's just a website. Stars aren't money. You don't lose a year off your life every time someone votes you down. Placing that much importance on little star icons seems rather silly. Telling us to grow up after such a rant is just goofy.

Enthusiastically seconded. Some specific guidelines as to how to vote are needed..it seems a very active but awfully arbitrary process right now.

I haven't seen a need to vote anyone down, personally.

Disagreements, a little tension, these things are normal, and even fun- that's why I'm liking this place so much. Get rid of every opinion that differs from yours and you've got a pretty dull forum.

There are a few posters here who consistantly post comments that I disagree with, or even outright irritate me, but they aren't stupid, and they are entitled to their point of view. I may not be inclined to drop a 5/5 on them right that *minute*, but they contribute a lot, and the way I understand the system, they deserve to be rewarded for that.

Trolls are different. I've only seen one, and I've only seen him once. These are the guys who will be getting low votes from me, and they are the ones I would expect retaliation from if the system isnt anon.

Anyway- Bornbad, relax. It'll even out in the end.

dude, it couldn't matter any less than you think. I'm going to be dumping user voting shortly anyhow (instead relying on voting on people's actions instead) to build a karma score.

Anyhow, why didn't you notice that everyone else gave you 5s? The vast majority of people seem to like your stuff. Does it really matter if one or two didn't?

Buddy, don't. Some of my favourite finds on here have been your posts, don't let a couple of people out of hundreds/thousands/millions (Jax, little help... How many users we got here?) get to you, as Jax pointed out, virtually every vote you've got is 5/5... And you're getting tonnes! I'm barely getting one vote every few day; yes, it's a little annoying, I'm loving this site and would like to be higher ranked so I can do more to help Plime flourish, but I'm not going to fret about it.

I think it's a good idea to drop the user voting, Jax. When it was open, the system was abused. Now it's annoynous, there's a lot of heated discussion on the subject. Whatever system is applied there are going to be people that like it/don't like it/abuse it/misuse it.
It may well be voting on actions doesn't work out to well, I think it's a good idea but we won't know until we try.