About the "Voting" System · 5:05pm Nov 24th, 2013
After seeing a lot of topics I was following vanish mysteriously, I thought I would back this up as a blog post.
See, I created a topic in which I said this site should do away with the ability to anonymously upvote/downvote stories, topic posts, and comments--particularly the latter two. My reasons, in brief, were that they're often abused. People leave anonymous drive-by downvotes just because the story features a ship they don't like, or because its an HiE, or even just because they had a bad day at work and they want to take it out on somebody.
It's worse in forum topics, because a significantly-downvoted post actually gets put behind a filter--effectively, it's been censored (yes, its a censor you can get around easily, but that's no excuse). So it becomes a tool used to censor unpopular opinions, and in being so its a tool that tells people what they are and aren't allowed to think. That kind of power shouldn't exist, and it certainly shouldn't be passed out like candy.
Most people actually agreed with me--at the time of this blog entry, the opening post of the topic had 15 upvotes and 12 downvotes--and, what was more telling, a lot of the people who were in favor of the voting system... tried to intimidate me into agreeing with them, by threatening to downvote me, and thus proving my point: that it's a system for griefing and abuse.
I'm blogging this (despite usually having an "only one blog post per day" rule-of-thumb) because... well, considering the way things usually go here, I honestly think the topic is gonna vanish. Even if Knighty actually takes my advice and fixes (or does away with) the broken griefing engine known as voting, that topic ain't gonna be there when it happens.
I won't mind, if he also fixes the core issue at the time.
EDIT: Well, the topic got locked, but not deleted. Which is fine by me. All you need to do is look at how it turned out to see that Fimfiction seriously has a problem, and they can't just sit on it, or else it'll get worse.
I was going to delete and let it stay hidden, but okay. You called me out. You've got a problem, man. You're taking this too seriously and you need to just go somewhere else if you don't like this place. Equestria Daily welcomes trolls and whiners just like you all the time. So deal with it.
I normally don't do this. In fact, I've never once done this in the history of my time on this site. I'm usually pretty quick to let things go, and I typically don't care about getting in the last word.
But goddamnit, I just can't let this one go. You are simply the most ridiculous person I have ever had the displeasure of speaking to. Your entitled attitude, habit of backpedaling on your words, and penchant for making any excuse you can to back up your ill-founded claims have literally floored me. But because Luminary locked your thread in The Writer's Group before I could counter your last response to me, I have felt the need to stalk you to this blog and respond here. I realize that no one other than you will probably ever read this, especially if we take the average view counts on anything else you've ever written into account, but I don't care. I'm doing this for my own satisfaction, and to finish what I started back in T.W.G.
So, without further ado, let's take a look at the last comment you made to me. It was kind of hard to pick out from the rest of the pool of babbling nonsense that all of your comments tend to be, but somehow I managed.
Hmm... yes, a very well-constructed and rational argument indeed.
That was me being sarcastic in case you couldn't tell.
Your comment is stupid and you should feel stupid. I will now perform a point-by-point response describing, in heavy detail, why you are largest braying jackass to ever walk the face of the planet. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?
Is that what I said? I don't think it was, but I'm not quite sure. Let me go back and double check...
Oh, good. For a second there, I almost thought that you weren't being a total asshat for once. If you had actually made a legitimate point instead of putting words into others' mouths as usual, I think that a massive singularity would've formed and ripped all matter in the universe asunder. It would've been like dividing by zero or something.
Hey genius, do you see that heavily bolded and italicized word at the end there? I never said that you were only censoring the supposed "censors" that you're so vehemently opposed to (of which there are none, by the way), but rather that by removing the voting system you are censoring EVERYBODY. This includes, in no particular order: you, me, the upvoters, the downvoters, the sidevoters, the moderators, and anyone who has ever used or does use the voting system currently or, in other words, virtually the entire population of this website.
And yet you think that getting rid of the system will only censor the "offenders" to your ass-backwards notion of censorship? Don't make me laugh. The comments that get downvoted to shit aren't even truly censored; they're just hidden behind an extra mouse click. No one is taking anything away from you, and no one is stopping you from viewing the comment.
You are bitching and moaning over having another half-second of your already pointless existence spent on a fucking extra mouse click. Really? Just how goddamned lazy are you, dude?
First of all, this isn't some kind of government meeting we're having here. We're not signing any important documents or writing up confidential ledgers. This is fucking FimFiction. What we do here has roughly zero bearing on how the rest of the world operates. Comparing anything we say or do here to the goddamn creation of the Constitution is more than likely grossly over-exaggerating the issue.
Second of all, the First Amendment actually has far more to do with the civil rights and liberties that we all have as a people than censorship. The founding fathers weren't censoring the British, they were trying to gain more freedoms for themselves and the country they established. Sure, there were some rules in place to limit just how much freedom we could have, but that's hardly censorship, either. That's called balance.
Third of all, my reasoning is almost always brilliant. Much unlike your own.
Just who the fuck are you to say who needs to be harmed, you whiny, arrogant, pretentious, unreasonable, paranoid, delusional, narcissistic, childish, steaming pile of horseshit?
You aren't the President, you're not a founding father, you aren't the Queen of England, and you sure as hell aren't Knighty or any of the mods of this site. You're a nobody, and probably will always be a nobody. You aren't a leader of anything; you have no say in what goes on anywhere. Just some anonymous jerkoff ranting about things that he doesn't have the slightest inkling about and that no one really cares about. Climb down from your pedestal and back to Earth with the rest of us, because there is no place for you up there.
And with that, I think I've said my piece. Feel free to respond to this comment in whatever manner you wish, or delete it altogether, it really doesn't matter to me. After I post this, I will be immediately blocking you so that I hopefully won't ever have to read anymore of your insipid diatribes and lose a few extra brain cells in the process. Congrats on being the first to ever receive this esteemed honor from me.
Goodbye, and have a pleasant life.
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Don't you just hate that jerk?
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Absolutely. I mean, can you believe this guy goes around trying to diffuse pointless bickering and keep the peace when things get too out of hand? Who does he think he is, an admin or something?
Total jerk.
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Guys, do you know how totally pathetic it is that you're so upset, you're continuing the fight in a personal blog (where I have every right to delete your posts and block you, and am strongly tempted to do just that)? I mean, you call me butthurt, but actions like this are showing off your own sore ass.
And Jinjo, you can quit with the semantic word games, because your arguments are bullshit. They are circular reasoning, meant to justify the most ludicrously obvious self-serving ideology ever advanced on the internet. My words got under your craw (to the point that you had to follow me to my blog) only because I called it like it was, and you knew I was right, no matter how much you want to convince me (or perhaps yourself) that I'm not.
This statement was made in the thread by a person I have never met before, who knew nothing about any of us except what he saw in that thread, and--when he first commented--wasn't even sure what side he was on. Just a page later, the actions of the people who were arguing against me convinced him I was right.
If you were truly a logical, reasonable being, you would think about what that means, take a step back, and reassess yourself. But you're not going to, are you? You're just going to stick your head in the sand and pretend you're right. You're going to pretend you're the one on planet earth, despite 21 upvotes versus 18 downvotes on the OP itself saying you're not.
Fine, stick your head in the sand if you want.
But not here. If you insist on throwing a tantrum in my house, I'll block you and delete your posts. And I can already see the oh-so-predictable cries of "hypocrite!" and "butthurt" and "whiner!" and "coward!" forming on your lips. Yet you are powerless to stop me on my home turf, and that's what makes it fun!