Topic: How comments work on Nintendo Life

We're considering making some changes to the comments system on Nintendo Life soon so we would welcome your input.

One of the features we are considering is the ability to let readers vote down posts from other readers which they find annoying or trolling. This is the sort of thing you might have seen on Joystiq. Unfavourable comments show in a pale grey font and are therefore easier to ignore, but can still be read of course.

Or should we go beyond this and implement a system like Kotaku? Is this system too convoluted do you think?

Let us know your thoughts!

I don't like the idea of having a thumbs up/down type of thing. I think we at Nintendo Life are usually pretty good about not trolling anyway. I do think it's far too convoluted as it makes me feel like we're not so much a group of "friends" talking about video games anymore, and instead we're just posters on a forum agreeing with what Mr. X said, or arguing about Mr. Y's ludicrous comment.

is Kotaku like a somewhat ranking system for hom many comments you post? because if so it would be great
espically if you only got rank for good comments

:EDIT: Kotaku sounds like a winner to me

I don't like this idea at all. There is nothing wrong with the comments system. I think it should stay the way it is. If it isn't broken then don't fix it.

Voting... system? Oh God, it's Youtube all over again.

Keep Everything Normal ^^

I would be happy if there would be an easy way to quickly go back to a comment I made and read the newsitem or review. Account is fine, but it's silly that you can delete or edit a comment but not go to the thread.

I would also prefer that for the forum. The (Beta ?) search function we have now is pretty useless.

Don't like such needless gimmicks, those features tend to be abused especially by trolls, so although the intention may be to deter them, I fear the result would be the opposite in giving them this feature to abuse, it would become a popularity contest, people voting down others for nothing more than having a different point of view, that's not right, not mention revenge thumbing down especially where disagreements take place, and what else is likely to happen is those that take exception to being thumbed down demanding to know who did so, leading to more revenge thumbing down, as well as more thumbs down from others for attempting to call out in the first place.

Instead why not overhaul the report feature, and give us a list of general rules to follow, like the legal guidelines but a forum user version.

I would like things to stay as they are.

I like the new things!

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo....... If it aint broke, dont fix it. I cant remember many times people came here trolling or being abusive. The Nintendo Life posters seem to be a good bunch in general, and such a feature would be pointless. I think its great that NL are continuely trying to improve, but I dont think this area needs any maintenance.

Although I do appreciate being asked!

Progression is good but thumbs wouldn't be progress, I honestly believe they are more trouble than they are worth.

I never noticed a big problem with this in the comments section, so I think it might be a waste of time for you guys. But I also don't check the comments as often since the forum was made, so I could be wrong, in which case, by all means, add the feature.

I'd prefer a personal ignore list where individual users can hide the posts of others by putting them on a blacklist that only affects themselves rather than this greyed-out voting thing that does have the potential to be abused in a clubby kind of way to pick on other posters comments.

i understand the suggestion completely which is why I'm against it, if a post is really that bad it should be reported, if it just doesn't agree with you then its best left alone, why would someone feel the need to display their disagreement or annoyance against another user, there is nothing wrong with speaking your mind and people shouldn't be discouraged from doing so, if it gets out of hand then inform the mods, this rating thing sounds like it would only fan any flames.

Yes, perfect. Impliment now please, I know who would be first on my blacklist lol!

@TwilightV, Blave, others
pro
Have you actually seen Joystiq's and Kotaku's systems? they really aren't just like Youtube's. Also, unless I'm mistaken, this is about the News thread, not the forums, correct?

I like both systems, but I would prefer a switch to Joystiq's over Kotaku's because Kotaku's new one prioritizes based on rating and while they have a system of reading replies in a thread in place, we don't, and that would complicate things. Joystiq on the other hand still has the lower ranked posts in plain sight, but its slightly harder to see.

I want to put Chicken Brutus on ignore. He always calls me weird.

I think it refers to possibly both news and forums, but do we really need others telling us what is and isn't worth reading, and having an impact on what is displayed by default, an ignore option would be much better all round.

of all the things to copy from another forum or website (PMs, post counts, forms to fill out explaining why you reported a comment to the mods, etc.), what brought you guys to this idea? I don't like the Kotaku 'star commenters' deal or the proposed voting system... I want to read what everyone has to say about news items or forum posts without having to click expand link after expand link, not just what the popular people or what the mods' buddies had to say (no offense, I know that's not how it would be, but what would a user first-time-visiting the site think?). I think it would be a turn-off to newbies if their posts consistently were downvoted into unreadability at first glance, and the 'star commenters' posts were allowed to shine on while full of errors or misconceptions they were attempting to rebut, which may indeed happen if a voting system is abused.

On the other hand, I like Sean Aaron's 'ignore list' idea. I'm on a couple of e-mail lists where I've got some people who consistently annoy the hell out of me, and their e-mails go straight into my spam folder. In the 'ignore list' case, the reader themselves has the option to set their filter(s), which is fine -- if they don't want to see something, it's just them not seeing it, and not everyone else. I don't like the idea of other people setting my filters, because their idea of a bad comment worthy of downvoting or greying into barely-readability may not be mine.