Deals.Woot

i was wondering how people were using their downvotes especially in questions and "answers".
for example if the question is would you ever do _? and your answer is no, would people be downvoting that to express their no? or would they make the comment of no and downvote all the yes answers?

so interesting...

Honestly (and I have to be honest since people can see my voting history) I downvote deals submitted by people who downvote mine. I know those who downvote my deals have no idea if it's a good deal or not, they are voting against me personally. I don't think this is a big surprise to anyone.

What I find interesting is all this activity is causing my lingerie deals to hit the Popular tab...there hasn't been a popular lingerie deal in 6 months or more so I am happy with the experiment so far and exactly the opposite effect the haters were going for :-)

You knew there'd be more, right? I really like to vote comments up, when someone has said something funny, or helpful. Mostly, people still want to be helpful, and informative, and it's nice to see that.

I vote up most questions that are about the site workings (I'll vote this one up in a minute, but haven't yet), and appreciate it when someone has gone to the bother of thinking about something that may have been on all our minds.

[Edit] This question just went Popular, so there's no need to worry about down votes now.

[Edit again] I also try, very hard, not to do spite voting, nor to express my dislike of something by voting against it. That's what comments are for, and I'm happy to share my views (no matter how much trouble it gets me into, and it does, too). I think some people post dumb deals, but I don't down vote them (or comment on them).

I think we all went a little willy nilly with it at first, but I've started to tame my down votes and use them only for deals that I feel aren't deals. Like that Star Wars Xbox. That thing is awesome, but it was posted at full price. That's not really a "deal."

Great power and great responsibility blah blah blah, but I think we should all stop down voting deals that we just simply don't "like." I don't really feel that's what this site is for.

@snapster: You misunderstand, I was not making a "threat" merely replying to how I personally use the downvote. I can't imagine that the people who vote against me (since they clearly are not voting against the deal itself) are going to change their vote because of the way I vote.

I won't down vote unless it is a counterfeit item or something extremely offensive. I just posted my first deal and question since the down voting option was added. I got my first down votes and it stings! I always wonder why and who is down voting. What would stop some trolls from coming in and just maliciously down voting everything just for fun?

Haven't voted one thing down yet, and have no plans to start. I prefer to vote up the things I like.

Down voting should be used as a tool and not a toy, same with up voting I suppose. Perhaps when the newness wears off it will come into it's own.
I haven't down voted anything yet either, I'm still working on it for now. It's either up vote or no vote.

I pretty much have only downvoted spam, and now I can't any more because there is more spam to downvote than good things to upvote.

@wootbretz: You can upvote comments and answers as well as questions and deals, and we love it when you do. Then downvote carpy deals (unless it's actually a deal on fish) in the Fresh tab.

I haven't done a lot of downvoting yet and I have a tag filter extension to hide most lingerie and zombie deals already, but I probably will downvote zombie deals if the person gets through my filter.

It's like OP said... people upvote stuff that way, like zombies and bacon simply for the subject, so I don't see why we can't downvote the same way.

@journeyloaded: Well, I actually like zombie stuff. Zombies are a source of fun for me. I own a lot of zombie, movies, books, shirts, games, etc. I'm likely to post zombie items at any time, because believe it or not, I'm not alone. Maybe I should start posting zombies in lingerie?

@journeyloaded: I never implied, that you implied, that people don't "legitimately" (seems like an odd choice of words to me) love zombie stuff. I do however have a problem with people downvoting, and for that matter upvoting, all zombie (or pick your flavor) deals because they don't like them. Just don't vote either way.

Can it be controlled, no. It's a personal choice and one I believe more and more people will gravitate to once their done kicking the downvote tires. The end result will hopefully be more meaningful results on what is a deal and what is not.

@magic cave: Thank you for your support. We have a lot of support from WOOTers and appreciate it very much. I know when people downvote my deals it's not because of the deal itself and I try not to take it personally but I am human. Really! I am a human being...I am not an animal! :-)

I know that I am somewhat of a n00b here, so I may be preaching heresey, but what if votes were more limited? (Meaning only X votes total (up or down) or only X up and X down votes?) I realize this would make downvoting less useful for things like marking spam or dead deals and the like, but then isn't the tattle link for those purposes?

Even in my relatively short time in the woot community, I've learned that some people automatically downvote ohcheri for what amount to self-righteous (ie. non-deal related) reasons, rather than because of the quality of her deals. (And this is their privilege, at least under the current set of rules.) However, because I feel that their voting is inappropriate, I will generally vote for any of ohcheri's deals that has even a single negative vote, even though I (unfortuantely) have no need of her services. (And this is my privilege.)

But if our votes were limited, wouldn't it also make them more valuable and perhaps less likely to be used like this?