You know, I've thought quite a lot that while the comments/reviews of the softwares are crucial to everyone, the yes/no votes really aren't, IMO. So many times people 'no' comments 'to death' and it's really not necessary. I mean if a comment helps you to decide whether or not to download, etc., isn't that really enough?

Sue

If people hadn't written reviews, and Stephen didn't do what he does (thumbs up), this would be a much less user-friendly website.

On behalf of all the free-loaders of the world (that know of this site), thank you to the GOTD team, to ashraf, and to the magical wrabbit. lol.

I really hardly ever pay attention to the pos/neg marks for the postings. I'm usually in a hurry looking around for decent reviews of the software to decide on whether I would like it or not. You really shouldn't take it to heart, there's a lot of reasons people do these things(none of them very good reasons in my opinion, but that's their opinion). In the games section you have Whiterabbit doing his reviews and in the regular giveaway section there are several regular users that post their reviews of the software almost every day. Look for those, or if there's a specific question you're looking for you can also probably find answers somewhere on the page as well. I have found that there are many here that try to help other users, which is a big reason for me to keep coming back.

What Whiterabbit doesn't say in his modesty, Heather, is his efforts to turn us on to dozens and dozens and dozens (and on and on and on) of great free games usually get multiple positives. And he's also too modest to mention how the community rallied to his defense on that day because most of us are smart enough to appreciate someone so generous and helpful. (Hope I didn't embarass you, Stephen, but, well... we kinda like you.) But that one day is an excellent example of a few trolls trying to empose their childish will on the comments section.

Welcome Heather.... (what a beautiful name. reminds me of my first childhood sweetheart (at the tender age of 5) :)

I agree with you Midori, the is it useful vote should be abolished. There are too many trolls out there hiding from reality, who think because they are ensconced, cozy in their domain they can be rude and hurtful to others. They are the ones who are sad and lonely. As everyone else above says, just ignore it. (I was quite hurt a few months back when a post I made reminding the community that I'd posted such and such games in the forums got lots of negative votes. I couldn't understand how that could have happened and replied saying I may as well not bother posting any more games seeing as there was an overall negativity towards it.

As it transpires, only around 3% of the traffic to the giveaway project is to the Game giveaway project, so it seems that the majority of giveaway visitors don't actually bother with the game giveaway project, which really surprised me, and probably explained why I'd got a negative vote, because it wasn't strictly in the right place.

However, that result is a little skewed due to the fact that the game project only runs at weekends, so the percentage is more like 8%. The results I saw were divided between the various different language sections of the giveaway project plus the game giveaway project.

I hope we see more of you in these forums. It's an amazingly friendly forum. One of the best I've ever visited (if not 'the' best). There's always someone at hand to help with a query, or give you a supporting hand; as well as being a great place to find some excellent free applications and games that many of the community post here when they come across bargains elsewhere on the net.

Regards

Stephen

Hi, Heather. Don't take it personally is probably the best advice we can give you. The comment section itself has become slightly, but significantly, polarized. People don't agree exactly what should go there and sometimes people who post a valid, legitimate post are lumped with people who don't. Just because of a slight similarity to the type of foolish comments which have some people a little fed up. And a lot of people just use the voting to try and encourage their own narrow intepretations of what the comment section shold be.
I would never vote down on an access violation comment, because that's useful information that other people can look out for. But, so many people simply want their hands held. If they'd simply read the instructions or look at the developer's website, or read previous comments, they'd have their questions answered. Some people ask a question when it's been answered at least 3 times in previous comments, but, again, they don't want to put any effort into it. They want their hands held. Yesterday, poor Bubby was nice enough to repeatedly answer questions where the information was readily available to anyone who could read. Unfortunately, legitimate posts like yours sometimes unfairly get lumped into that. And some people feel that certain newby questions belong here and not there. But, as I say, there's no consensus on what exactly constitutes legitimate "comments on the software".
Also, there are some who vote negative on criticism of the software because they're afraid GOTD will fold up if anybody criticizes anything. Those people also frequently berate people who criticize the price of a software, practically screaming "IT'S FREE TODAY". They don't understand that criticizing the price of a software, done fairly, may be the most valuable feedback a developer could get. There's other disagreements, too, like whether it's ever legitimate to mention other, especially freeware, alternatives.
So, even though the comment voting may not be broken, it's probably not 100% healthy, either. But nobody's been able to agree on whether it should be changed or come up with a solution to change it that everybody can agree on. We've just learned to live with it. Maybe it should just be abolished. The game section doesn't have it, and doesn't seem to suffer for it.

Hi, Heather... hm, I just noticed that function was on the software giveaway as I'm usually checking the game giveaway! And the advice here is succinct... don't take it seriously. Some don't even understand what those votes mean, and a lot use them to "goof" on the answer, especially when morals are involved. And alas there's people out there ARE rude and childish, especially behind the guise of a computer screen. I learned this the hard way on a General Discussion forum I used to participate on that used ratings, 1 through 5. Some actually used these to hurt others, while those of us that "feel" things can actually be hurt to tears. You get tougher, but you can't turn off your sensitivity if you're lucky enough to have it. Reality check: Some Don't! A hard thing to learn. But I still think most mean no harm... just stating a quick opinion. I've learned to truly trust the regulars that post here... so welcome! :)

Hello Heather,

The voting on the comment page has been an issue for some time now. There have been several suggestions on how to improve the voting system but none have been implemented.

I have posted many times in the comment section and have never looked at the votes for my comment. I see the votes as irrelevent since too many people vote for the wrong reason (as Bubby stated). I believe the biggest reason is that they just want to be trolls.

So my advice is just ignore the votes (and the trolls) and post away!! :)

Hello Heather and welcome to the forum also.

Most of us here have noticed that some of the most useful sometimes get alot of negative votes and and the same with the most useless getting alot of positives. So to sum it up, do you remember the popular kids back in school? They couldn't do any wrong. What about the ones getting picked on? ROTFL thats my conclusion because alot of the regular commenter's on the download page know one another from a couple other sites.

Do like most of us here in the forum do, don't take anything to heart.

Hi Heather,

Welcome to the forums (glad to see you found us, and escaped the peanut gallery that is the comment pages).

the comment voting isn't a "report an abusive" comment - the question is "Do you find this comment helpful/useful". I guess a positive comment could be something that is helpful, funny, interesting or useful. There is no prize awarded for the comment with the most positive votes.

Posters who add nothing of value to the comments, ask questions that have been answered before, make comments that are incorrect, or that people disagree with or find irrelevant, uninteresting or "just because" - are likely to be voted as "No, I did not find this comment useful". Perhaps the voter had a question in mind that the comment did not answer, like "How many legs does an African elephant have?". No. This comment was not useful for me.

In terms of why your comment was not posted - Comments are intended to be about the giveaway program or related to it.

As is stated just above where you type a comment -
Please comment only on the software here. If you have technical problems or suggestions on our project, please leave us a note in our forums.

Comments about the GOTD project - like how voting works, or suggesting a different program for a future giveaway, or announcing that you have a monkey who plays the piano - do not belong with the program comments - and will likely get binned. Also because such comments can derail future comments about the current giveaway.

In terms of criticizing other users, their spelling, their opinion of the giveaway, or their country of origin - the comments are supposed to be about the software. Personal Comments directed towards another poster will also be binned - if they cannot remain professional and directed towards the giveaway program.

I suggest, don't take the voting too seriously. It's not a popularity contest, and posts are not removed from display based on the number of negative votes cast.

There is also a spam-bot that eats posts that look like they could be spam related. The rules that define what is spam - is something known only to a team of geeks who designed the bot. Usually (almost always) it is spot on, but sometimes on a quiet night, it decides to eat the occasional legitimate comment - just to keep the moderators on their toes. In this case we draw lots, to decide who is the lucky one to enter the spam vault and try to rescue lost posts. Losing posts to the spam bot isn't personal unless your posts are about who can supply cheap viagra and discounted dental plans.

Hi, I'm new to this site and forum. I've enjoyed a few of the downloads, but I have noticed that often the comments, even simple comments that are not abusive, are are heavily negged. Some are heavily positived. Why do people abuse the system like this? I wrote the below on one of the download comment pages, yet it didn't get past moderation. There was no profanity and I don't know why it wasn't posted. See what you think.

"Can someone please explain why there are so many rude and hateful people on this forum that 'neg' posts that do nothing but innocuously ask for help? What is with that? Its all throughout all the comments. I had my post negged for no reason other than stating that I got an access violation code. I didn't write the code! Nor did I create it. Its not my fault, I did nothing wrong apart from say that that is what I got. There have been another 2 people come forward with the same point, and all negged. What, do you people think we created the error message or something? Why neg us? What did we do? Some other poster who said they were hard of hearing mentioned subtitles, and their post was negged as well. How low! Can someone tell me why there are such childishly spiteful and rude people who do this, for no reason at all whatsoever, other than they can and obviously get a kick out of it? Let the negging (to prove my point) of my post begin."

It wasn't even posted. Why can't the mods see that the function is being abused, and do something about it?