Introducing "Down-Votes", allowing for community moderation

As with any forum and community, there are times when there is a groundswell of members who adversely affect the spirit of the community, while staying within the confines of our sometimes ill-defined forum policies. That one is on me. This often puts our moderators in a very unenviable position of continuously addressing these individuals that border on trolling. Now they could be a new member or a regular contributor. Irregardless, they drag down the community and their actions take an unfair toll on our moderators who are kind enough to donate their time to make sure this forum runs in a way where people want to keep coming back.

The system is broken and today I know that in way that really brings me down.

I intend to do everything I can to fix this. Starting today, I've implemented a down-vote system whereby the community will help in the moderation of the community. It's your community. You have control. If you don't like the tone or direction of a thread, you now have the power to do something about it. If enough members agree with you, threads will auto-lock.



At the top right of every thread, you can select 'Downvote'. If 10 people downvote a thread within a 24 hour period, it will be locked.

Note: Moderators also have access to down voting. They count as one vote, just like everyone else.

This is a very powerful tool. If used the correct way, it should improve our community.

Those who want to test are encouraged to create a few test threads where people can down vote. Just make them obvious --- testing down vote or something along those lines.

One side note, those who abuse this feature will be issued warnings and possible suspension of privileges.

Possibly. Not anything in the near future. We need to see if it works first.

I'll be working with moderators should there be a need for overriding a locked thread. Those who abuse the system might see permissions revoked.

Chris, can you please add a 10+ Likes Button. Thanks.

(If you did have one you would have earned 10 from me!)

Downvote criteria has been modified. 7 votes within a 72 hour timeframe will now result in a thread lock.

At the time, this appeared to be a useful addition. There was a good amount of uproar regarding threads which were out of control. For whatever reason, I'm not seeing that happen lately. I'm also not seeing anyone use this feature. For now, I'm turning it off. Should the need for this feature be necessary, just ping me. Either I'll handle it personally or we'll add the feature back. I'm hoping we can moderate ourselves a bit better, but you never know and this tool does help mods from having to always jump in the fray. Removing it helps clean up the tools and interface in the forums.

Is it not worth having the feature fully available to members, though? Just in case...?

It hasn't been used once since implemented. If there is an issue that arises that's so big it's causing a six-month old feature to be resurrected, then the admin should be made aware of it and handle it. My moving days are over, I hope, so I'm readily accessible should a thread go south.

Understandable, I know in the past I've down-voted threads and I've seen people down-vote them. But as you said, I don't think I've ever seen one fully down-voted. Saying that, whether the feature be there or not, there is always the report button

*Are you all settled in now, no more work needing to be done?

Getting closer everyday to getting fully settled. Still a few things in the house that need finishing, but we're definitely over the hump. Looking forward to the fall, things slowing down a bit.

You've had it tough, especially with a little one running/crawling about. I understand the need for stability, hat's off to you for getting everything sorted (English term for, 'Well done').