Apparently someone has an axe to grind against me. I’ve been dinged with 38 disagrees in the last 2 days after being stuck on 12 for an eternity.
Could be worse I guess. VDCdriver has been whacked (very erroneously I might add) 6 times for being a troll.
We really should make the effort to agree when it’s due. People tend to react only when they’re unhappy, which may lead to unduly unfavorable ratings. The only way to counteract this, as well as axe-grinders, is to click the links so that new readers can look at the ratings and have an idea of who’s more credible.
OK:
I just did a quick scan on the replies marked “Disagree” under your name. Somebody sure is being obnoxious and arbitrary.
In my case, those “troll” badges were most likely put there by a now-departed forum member whose name I don’t recall at the moment. However, others may recall someone who was with us for a few months, never gave any actual auto diagnostic opinions, and only seemed interested in picking petty arguments with other forum members. The only actual advice that he ever gave regarding someone’s auto woes was to ask, “Why don’t you take it to a mechanic?”.
Right after I called him on his behavior, those “troll” badges began to appear.
Coincidental? I think not.
In OK4450’s case, I can’t even begin to guess who might have disagreed so many times with his advice, as he is one of the (perhaps the most) technically-knowledgeable mechanics among us. Perhaps we can just chalk it up to someone who is PO’d about something else, and is taking out his frustrations (anonymously) on someone else of whom he is jealous?
One of the great aspects of the mobile version is that none of this nonsense is visible.
I know we’ve disagreed in the past, but I think that if you’re going to put stock in the negative ratings, you’ve got to use the positive ones to supply sufficient data. Or you could ignore the ratings entirely, positive or negative. Has any non-regular poster cited the number of “disagrees” or “troll” tags in rejecting advice?
I find it almost comical. Recurrant disagreeing with OK4450 about auto mechanics could only be done by someone who knows absolutelyl nothing about how cars work! It’s sort of analogous to disgreeing with Bill Gates about how software works.
Whoever’s oding all this disagreeing…perhaps if you’ll “fess up” we could suggest some good books to read on how cars work.
I suspect VDC is right about what’s going on. Personally, whoever is up to this mischief, I volunteer to be your target. You may “tag” me however you like. Have a ball. You cannot possibly do to me anything near as bad as my ex did.
Apparently I’m now getting tagged with a lot of OTs and have now equaled VDCdriver on the troll count. The odd thing is that now 2 of the disagrees have disappeared and the count has dropped to 48… 
The disagrees do not bother me if it’s legit. It’s just irritating a bit because of the sudden deviation from the norm and the possibility that they’re not really justified.
A legitimate “disagree” comes with an explanation, a justification. A “disagree” without a justification as to why is really totally meaningess. One WITH a justification is an opportunity to learn…or occasionally to teach. Or, sometimes, just to realize that different perspectives exist.
I’m not so sure that the “agree” and “disagree” buttons are an asset.
I note that now I’m no longer a troll at all and those 2 missing disagrees have now returned.
Electronic snafu of some sort?
Right. Erratic pulses in some visitor’s neural synapses…
I agree with Mountainbike. Those agree/disagree things are meaningless.
Especially if you disagree, say why you disagree.
No point getting all butthurt over disagreeing, though. It happens.
As far as the troll’ button, maybe we should have an ‘untroll’ button as well so others can decide whether someone was trolling.
If someone considers you a troll, it deducts one count linked to your post. If someone else comes along that doesn’t think the post was by a troll, that count is incremented.
When zero or greater, it is not considered trolling.
It is a form of self moderation and that way it doesn’t require a moderator to have to look at all these supposed ‘troll’ posts.
The crazy thing is that I’ve looked through ok4450’s recent comments, and I can’t find anything that would set someone off to do something like this.
I’ll admit I’ve been tempted to do the same thing, but if I were to do it, I wouldn’t just go tagging with reckless abandon. When you tag a post with simple technical information, it’s obvious it was because of a grudge.
I’ve never done the button thing. If I disagree with someone, I say why. That’s how we learn. I learn from them, and hopefully one of them occasionally learns something from me… I’d far rather have the discourse than simply “rate” someone else’s answer.
We really should make the effort to agree when it’s due.
No, we shouldn’t. We should make the effort to ignore the buttons in the hopes that they will go away if disused. Ok’s issue is exactly why these buttons are a terrible idea.
Has any non-regular poster cited the number of “disagrees” or “troll” tags in rejecting advice?
With respect, the point of the buttons is to allow users to disagree without having to explain themselves or admit that they’re the ones disagreeing. As such, it is highly unlikely that a statistically significant number of disagrees will be accompanied by an explanation.
I think these tags maybe doing more harm that good. Most, if not all of us regulars have a lot of respect for OK4450 and other regular posters here. The problem is when someone like him gives good advice to a new member and one of these trolls hits the disagree tag or worse, then the new member may ignore this advice. The new members just are not aware of his track record.
I’ve clicked the agree button a few times. Never the disagree button. I have clicked on the troll button for legitimate trolls.
I’ve noticed several people including me who have had what seemed like unwarranted troll or off-topic or dislikes. Someone is just being childish and probably got told that annoyed someone here when disagreed with what they said.
I personally can’t use any of these tags because they don’t work in my version of firefox. I would suggest that either all the tags be removed, or all but the agree tags be removed. There is no need to explain an agree tag, but a disagree tag should require an explanation. Flag is OK to assist the moderators who can then determine its validity, but they should be hidden to the public.
The only reason I brought this up is because for some odd reason I clicked on VDCdrivers ID and was a bit shocked to see that he had been tagged 6 times as a troll. That’s utterly ridiculous of course.
At that point I looked at mine and saw it was on 12 where hit had been for quite a while. The next morning it was 17 and by that evening was at 30. By the next evening it was at 50 so the huge jump so quickly got me wondering.
For what it’s worth, the only way I would tag anyone with a disagree would be if I thought they were blatantly telling someone to do something that was horribly unsafe.
I checked my record and I find that I have 1 disagree, 2 abuse and 1 troll. I am certainly not a mechanic and I respect ok4450, tester, VDCdrivers, transman 618 and others who are certainly more knowledgeable than I am. My guess is that the better the mechanic the poster is, the more likely he/she is to get dinged.
I had a career of 44 years as a professor in a state university. I served on promotion committees more times than I care to count. There were a group of faculty members that were always very critical of the candidates whom I thought had made great achievements and rarely said anything about the candidates for promotion who were really mediocre. Worse yet, I have been on tenure appeals panels where an outstanding faculty member was trying to be railroaded out of the university by some of his or her department colleagues. I am certain that what I observed was professional jealousy.
I really respect and appreciate the professionals on this board that take their time to truly help the posters who have problems. I suspect the negative tags on these people are put on by people who don’t have a clue about the systems of an automobile.