Blue stars. Red stars?

I have an idea after seeing all these sarcastic belittling posts from people who don't know what the T&C is... You can star a post if you like it, a nice little blue star... Now I know it wont matter to these "ignorant" trolls, but having a red star system would be cool I think, would make me feel better if by chance said "troll" saw how many people thought their post was just dumb.

I dunno, what do you all think. I'm tired of seeing these trolls using one line sarcastic insultive remarks without contributing to the thread at hand.

Edit to add: I'm trying to look at all aspects of this idea. You could have a serious debate going on where most of the people agree and blue star it, and the remainder of the people red star it, then the people on the blue star side would use that in their argument, "Well my post has more blue stars then red stars, so your point doesn't matter". Or some thing to that degree.

I'm kinda torn on the issue, but I'm sick of these trolls and want another weapon against them besides the report button. Who knows, it could work, but as I stated above, it could cause chaos.

Thoughts anyone?

[edit on 18-10-2008 by Slash]

reply to post by Slash


It would work in theory but too many people would abuse it. This suggestion has been brought up many times before but it has been made pretty clear the red star feature will not be added. Every now and then I'll see a post that makes me wish we had the feature but for the most part it's a bad idea.

It was before my time here on ATS but the way posts used to be rated was on a 1-5 star system. Well, apparently someone went around to one member they didn't like and one starred all their posts just to be a brat. Sadly, there are people like that here who would do that sort of thing and red star the posts of people they don't like and opinions they don't like just to be a meanie.

So this has been suggested numerous times but the powers that be have said no due to the fact they want to focus on positive reinforcement and due to potential [read: inevitable) abuse.

reply to post by AshleyD


Thank you for your input. I don't recall hearing about this idea, and the search was unavailable at the time I wrote this. I agree that people will stalk others to give them a bad rating, have seen it happen on the Topix forums. So I'm now on one side of the fence, positive reinforcement should be encouraged, theres enough negative things in this world. Enough trolls as well, guess we just gotta deal with it.
Or help the mods so they can deal with it, muahahaha.
:shk:
Thank you again for your input.

As far as the trolls go, they already have a button to deal with that, ALERT! I have found that the mods are very good about removing the troll posts in a swift and timely manner. And there is usually a points deduction for the really bad ones!

reply to post by JaxonRoberts


Yep, I know all about the alert button as I said in my first post, though I called it the report button. I've used it a few times my self. The mods do a great job.