My reason for thinking of a "dislike" button was prompted by reading one of the more contentious threads where one contributor was doing their best to have a logical, reasoned discussion and was being met by vitriol and personal attacks by another poster. I would have liked to lend my support to one, while letting the other know that the tone of their posts was unwelcome - without actually buying into a thread that I had not been involved in, and without bringing down a torrent of abuse upon myself for interfering. Perhaps this makes me a bit of a coward, but to be frank the expectation of being "virtually harangued" does quite often make me wonder "why bother - I really don't need this type of feedback in my life, why invite it?" I wondered if a poster who was being quite disagreeable on a personal level (not simply disagreeing politely/respectfully with another) received several "dislikes" if that may get the message across to them that they'd gone too far?
Isn't it possible to compliment the person in this instance who is maintaining the sensible posting style, thus making it clear you don't like the aggression displayed by the sparring partner? On 'interfering', it's a forum, there for people to contribute their responses where they want to. The likelihood of then incurring some negative feedback surely shouldn't be a deterrent to expressing a view?
As I said earlier, I've not observed any of your posts receiving negative feedback, so I'm a bit puzzled about why you'd anticipate this. I guess few people are insensitive to nastily expressed criticism, but it's fairly rare here except for a couple of serial offenders.
I know what you mean, however. Some years ago I recall complimenting you on something, an absolutely genuine attempt of recognition over a particular issue, only to be sharply admonished for being patronising.
I was very taken aback, but there you go. Often criticism can occur as a result of someone's interpretation of a well meant remark. It's one of the very real problems in non-visual, non-tone of voice/facial expression that's part of internet communication.
Some ratings systems seem really silly to me. One forum has icons denoting 'Top Posters'. These are apparently the people who have made the greatest number of posts. Nothing to do with the quality of the posts at all. Frequently they're full of political partisanship and insults towards those who are disciples of the opposite side of politics.
ASF used to have Junior and Senior members, from memory also according to number of posts. Such a good thing to have abandoned that for the same reason.
Then in any sort of rating system I suppose those ratings are going to be totally subjective. What one poster 100% supports, another will decry. Someone could make good quality, thoughtful posts, but if they are not in sympathy with the predominant political/philosophical ethos of that forum, they probably won't receive the recognition they deserve.
Sadly, a post I made on a stock thread last week has gone unanswered, and another two companies I looked at this morning also had posts that had not been responded to for some time - BXB & ICQ.
With over 2000 companies listed on the ASX, I suppose the chance of someone else on a relatively small forum such as ASF following any particular company (except for some speccie gone wild etc) is not great.
So many interesting, thoughtful posters are no longer here, some because they just got busy with other things, but many who found the lack of stimulation because of the same few people regularly posting just not enough to keep them. So if people who just think about replying to someone's remarks, then just can't be bothered, ASF will continue to bleed people. Meantime, Joe's costs in providing this environment for us remain.