Hiding a comment hardly changes anythin, you have to read it before you know you don't want to see it. And it certainly wouldn't affect other users.


BTW, a resourceful forumite with a bit of javascript skills can make a hide button script. The hiding part of "-" is still there, and you literally only have to change "1" to "0" in onclick event of "+" to functionally make it "-".

No, I didn't imply you're responsible for the botting. But this response is a perfect example of how a toxic user may use the least charitable reading of a post and react accordingly.

I just want you to think about the implication of such habitual downvoters and "hiders." It only takes a few to give a post the "anonymous fuck-you"; a rather small group of people with such habits is sufficient to give a lot posts that flair even without any botters involved.

And that's exactly what I've observed on these forums in the recent years. Yes, there are threads where bots automatically downvote everyone, but outside of those threads, there are also lots of threads where lots of downvotes are flinged around so obviously even without any bot involvement because the community has turned so toxic. "I disagree with you / I think you're a troll / I think you're stupid / your text is too long -> downvote" just leads to a lot of red all around as long as there are enough people who have a habit of doing that.

The botting is easy for me to ignore (bots have no feelings and as such there are no feelings behind their actions), it's the active users going around downvoting people that sets off a toxic and unwelcoming vibe.

Well that's true.
However - usually you notice pretty quickly what comment is "hide-worthy".
And then you're done with it.

I don't entirely agree with the second part.
If people would not engage in senseless arguments (by simply ignoring comments - be them hidden or not) - I dare say, the forum as a whole would definitely profit from it.

Well, that may be (and I think, someone has already successfuly tried it (or something akin to it) on the first day of the new "design"), but I'm not a tech savvy guy, so I wouldn't be able to do that on my own.
Besides: I am not really interested in messing around (behind the curtain) with GOG's forum software.
That's also why I don't use any of the available scripts that some other users here regularily use and/or point to.
Now, THAT is funny.

In general, I agree about not interacting with a downvote worthy comments. I was merely trying to point out that if a comment is hidden for you, others have no way of knowing it. So it doesn't affect them in that way.

I kind of expected exactly that response.. had I been talking to some of the worse users here. Not from you :/

I'll leave it at that, since it is clear that nobody here is interested in having their opinion challenged.

Let's say upvotes are removed as well, and the option to hide posts is coming back, nothing would be won. Indeed, if all discussion is senseless anyway, there's really no need to have a "General Discussion" forum anyways.

Back in 2013, the website Popular Science closed down their comments section entirely.
https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/why-were-shutting-our-comments/

According to their evaluation of the psychology, the disruptive comment always dominates the discussion. But it also can not be ignored. As much as I liked the "hide" button, it was plainly just substituting a stain with a hole.

The secret of active community management is, well, active community management.

Officials must step in and draw lines in the sand, or voluntary moderators will have to.

They will have to make absolutely clear where xenophobes can stick their minority hating and their gamergate crap. They'll have to make clear to people how many business clients they'll lose when shitstorms are organized on the platform those business clients make less than one percent of sales with, just because they are behind a bit on updates. They'll have to say in no uncertain terms that they're not interested in pathetic infowars conspiracy theories or Trump propaganda. They'll have to pump up their rhetoric and clearly communicate that sales to Russia will rather sooner than later co-finance a Russian invasion of Poland and the genocide of the Polish people, as advertised on Russian state TV.

A community that knows what disruptive "opinion" is plainly not welcome will discuss content in a civil manner.

But I don't care if the commenters that I hide, know about me hiding their comments.
Honestly, if GOG had given me the opportunity to hide them without using the (-) function, I would have done that instead.

My overall point is: if we have an option to simply ignore people we don't want to engage with (again: still doable, but not as comfortable anymore), then we ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ could see less meaningless "discussions" where all people do, is calling each other names, while completely ignoring the (sometimes valid) points that their opponents make.
Seriously: if someone doesn't want to (possibly) learn something in a discussion - then why engage in it in the first place?
We see that here all over the place.
These threads that got downvoted completely?
I am 100% sure that wasn't done by scripts/downvote-bots...that was simply an effect of posting on a public forum, accessible 24/7 from all over the planet, and people being fed up with the same old arguments cooked up, over and over again.

User clarry just admitted something in his last post, which most of the "downvoted" people didn't want to admit for years: you were not downvoted by a single guy with "a score to settle"...it was simply the fact, that thousands of people could read your comments at any given second of a day and react to it.
And if that comment was seen as "offensive" or "trolling" or whatever - it got downvoted...by maybe hundreds of people at a time.
And given that it only takes 5 to 10 downvotes to mark a comment as "low rated"...

Fun fact, if you would have some time to spare, you could look up old comments of mine, where I stated exactly, what user clarry has just admitted.
Wanna know, what happened then? I got downvoted for it. Because the downvoted folks didn't want to hear such an ordinary explanation for their "suffereings".
For them, it had to be a personal attack, executed by some mastermind, who wanted to suppress their "uncomfortable-for-the-masses" opinion.

So we have a user admitting to abusing the downvote system just to hide comments he doesn't agree with. And by "comments" I mean "if I enter this thread and see User I Hate posting, then automatically downvote all their posts."

Nice.

Ouch! That stung. /s

See? We wouldn't have any of this...if GOG would get its forum in order.
With functions that other forums offer to their users, without those functions being tied to different functions.

You're missing my point.
I have nothing against "normal" threads and their "normal" content.
But if I find a thread that I'm generally interested in, being drowned in comments that do nothing but insult others (be it users, or just people of certain groups in general), I don't want to see these comments.
I don't want to be constantly reminded, how narrow-minded many people in this world still are.
It's bad enough, that I have to see and hear that IRL (where I can't simply hide these comments, but have to engage with the people who make them).

And please, before you ask: "but where's the difference?": IRL, I have at least a change to confront someone with actual consequences.
Online? Nope. Online they can simply carry on with their shit. And there's nothing I can do about it.
With one exception: hide and ignore them.
Won't make the world a better place - but will save me from going postal.
And sometimes that's good enough.
Nice indeed.

Imho, it is a baby step in the wrong direction. I posted in the other thread an example which is still ongoing:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/forum_update/post190

This is going on for three (!) years now. Reporting these spam posts doesn't make sense. The troll is using a script/bot to create these messages with new accounts again and again. Threads are getting broken because of all the deleted posts and the constant bumping of these threads is annoying. Right now, you can see new messages here:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general_de/vorbestellung_bstalker_2_heart_of_chornobylb_55576/post34
(Note the gap between post 30 and 34)

and here

https://www.gog.com/forum/general_de/neuerscheinung_bcastaway_of_the_ardusta_seab_6d8ab/post3

Also wait and see when the spam message appears again in this thread:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general_de/neuerscheinung_bxelb_7b776
You can look in the Spam/bot Report thread how many posts were already reported in this thread. (Spoiler: posts 5-11 have been deleted.)

Hiding these troll posts was much more effective than reporting them. That's why several German users used the downvote button to simply hide these posts. This option is gone now (and none of them have basic knowledge in JavaScript).

To be clear, for all we know, BreOl72 might have been downvoting just the right toxic/troll/abusive comments (these do exist). Can't pass judgements on anonymous votes.

However, I don't think that kind of habit is a scalable solution. It can work fine when the the community is small enough, but my experience is that it inevitably leads to negativity. People have different opinions, including about which posts or users are bad.. and as Vainamoinen said, people are more likely to express negativity, so there are not that many upvotes to offset the negatives.

Given a large enough pool of people who habitually downvote comments or users they don't find worthy, the likelihood that any one comment has enough haters for it is high enough that we see exactly what's been going on here for the past few years (and I'm not talking about the bots now).

It looks like there are plenty of reasons not to have a hide button.No more hugboxes and echochambers.

You could set an example instead of parroting PC nonsense which you should know is false especially the gamergate part where those in the games media were exploiting their genuinely privileged lives to attack gamers from other races and the less well off after their scams and schemes were brought to light. So unless they take part in unwanted censorship someones going to cause trouble for them?

Popsci.com is apparently politicised trash too so it's no surprise for them to turn off comments.

It's operation was more in line with bots or groups organised from elsewhere in order to give the impression that it was normal users to sway public opinion for whatever reason.

Oh, boo hooo censorship. Wasn't censorship when you drove hundreds from this forum by downvoting the ship out of them. About those BS conspiracy theories that shouldn't get a megaphone here ...

... one of the central things that 2014 taught anybody with a brain was: "When you decline to create or to curate a culture in your spaces, you're responsible for what spawns in the vacuum."

And, no surprise and no coincidence, it applies in this forum.

Does anyone else think Orkhepaj is posting more often? Or are my worries skewing my perceptions?