You know, funny thing, when I read the title I thought, "it'd be funny to just vote no" and guess what? Someone already did!

But then I read the rfe,(curse my wandering eyes!). And I have to say you really make a good point, because reactionary votes don't do anything to stimulate a discussion.

It's funny and original like a pick-up line a girl has heard from five different guys in the same night.

Sorry about that.

Voting no: I don't want to express my point if someone already did that. In case I have something fresh to say, I usually do that without external rules forcing me.
Voting yes: what kind of a message do you expect to see: "yes, I'm on board with this!"? Hardly worthwhile.

Voting no.

See, this is why my proposition works! You've exposed your bad reasoning and now we can move on.

Oh, wait, I'm supposed to explain why it's bad reasoning? But you just voted no to me doing that. :) Let's keep why I disagree with your disagreement cryptic!

I'm certainly not above commenting on issues, but I don't want to be *forced* to comment on issues.

Ha! seriously, reading that response made my morning!

You aren't, because noone's forcing you to vote.

People are really mounting a defense for their right to be lazy, when they should be taking a stand on politeness? They want to get to continue doing exactly the kind of practice--i.e. leaving a vote that is hastily made or has a question-mark hanging over it--that has the flaws I've already outlined. Of course, if you think those flaws don't exist or are trivial, feel free to say so.

This fooling around in the comment section is precisely why Thomas rarely bothers with RFE discussion and why I see this RFE as needless. But whatever you do to amuse yourself.

Fooling around? I was ironically making my point by withholding it. I doubt Thomas is that much of a princess, but maybe you know him better than I do.

I find your point questionable, that is all.

We have a system, where there is RFE text, number of "for" votes and a number of "against" votes.
What Thomas can do is to first look at RFE text, think of his own opinion, then maybe look at for/against votes.

What you are proposing is to add a secondary mechanic where not only Thomas can look at for/against numbers, but also look through messages to weed out votes for/against which he does not want to hold into account.

I can't find direct sources, but Thomas rarely looks through the whole discussion because he doesn't have time. I have seen this mentioned a couple of times and can absolutely believe in. If this is a big misconception, I would be glad to be wrong.

Speaking from the assumption that Thomas doesn't look closely at the discussion, why do you want to make players spend their time writing these messages? Especially in cases where their contribution will not hold much information. The point of voting system in my opinion is to bring out critical/interesting RFEs simply through the number of votes. If half of these votes will be missing because people are lazy, this system will not function effectively.

And people are lazy, including myself. I'm writing this whole thing in a rare fit of passion.

If that is how Thomas always operates, then you raise good points, and if Thomas's mind being influenced is the only measure of the content of the RFE's worth then discussion below should be what is in question rather than the worth of the votes (Heck, maybe I should have made an RFE suggesting we remove discussion and just have the votes--that's an exaggeration btw).

But no: this RFE, then, works better in coordination with the RFE I made that you can have a chance to change your vote, since discussion and debate can change the minds of people.

Maybe I'm the weird one, but I write messages FAR more than I leave votes, yet some people act on the opposite preference. I treat the RFE as something the person has invested time into and deserves the respectful treatment of being considered and thought over multiple times before a vote is cast--particularly a vote that cannot be undone and so carries all the more weight. I want to discuss the pros and cons--if I disagree, I give them a second chance to win me over. I feel if you don't do this, you prefer to squash RFE's you dislike like bugs (both sorts) rather than consider the personal or fairness element. I don't consider it nice. Not just to ADOM but to the RFE-maker as well.

I agree with you that the reason people give a NO vote should be stated.
But if someone has already stated it, then I don't *need* to say "ditto".

And if I wholeheartedly agree with the original RFE - adding a comment just clutters the discussion - I can just vote YES. (I think your RFE about getting to change your vote was great - so I voted YES, but your RFE already covered it, I had nothing meaningful to add)

And *making* people comment just won't work anyway. The ones who don't want to comment either won't vote, or write something inane and meaningless that doesn't contribute to the RFE, but just clutters the discussion.

The paramount reason for forcing a message is to reveal whether the reasoning was good or not.

This can achieved even with a default message so all you do is hit enter. The default for 'yes' would be "I agree with everything in the original post and have nothing further to say." and the default for no would be "I disagree with this message because..." or "I disagree with the RFE and have nothing further to say."

That takes out the effort that people would much rather spend on saving kittens, and reveals the quality of their vote by however the reader measures it (if I read "I have nothing further to say" I would view it with contempt, but that's just me *EDIT except for really simple RFE's with no room for (mis)interpretation).

*EDIT also consider: RFE's evolve -- through discussion. I never mentioned default messages in the OP (I sort of had it in the back of my mind, but figured that other people could hear it implied as well). Suppose what I wrote here changed your mind, or someone elses. Oops! Not much you can do now. Maybe I presume too much, but if I make a single person who reads the discussion below feel silly for how they cast their vote initially, then I've proven my point. And yes, the answer is to let people undo their votes--but there's also the lesson to be learned that so long as votes CANNOT be undone, that you cast them with more weight and consideration than a lot of people apparently lend to them (despite, if _Ln_ is correct, being the main thing Thomas looks at...).

*EDIT I can see how this could get too cluttered if lots of people have nothing to say--that's fair enough for very simple RFE's, like changing the arena tiles to sand--so this RFE sucks. It wouldn't suck if simple RFE's didn't exist, though. Maybe there's still a way to make it work.

This. I think the discussions with long chains of meaningless "This." (ahem), "+1", "What X said", etc. are just clutter. Probably sometimes I've done it myself, but I don't think it's something that should be encouraged.

No way.

1. There people who don't want to tell their opinion due to any reasons.
2. Votes are anonymous, you can't know for sure who downvoted and who upvoted. So you can't keep you reasons with yourself if you want.
3. What to should people write if they just agree with comments?

Despite I usually drop comments clarifying why no I don't wanna our little freedom and anarchy to become totalitarian.

Well, I wouldn't mind if this were a setting for RFE creator. So if you want to know who voted which way and want to force people to comment on your RFE to vote - it's up to you. But I would never use this setting and most liekly I would ignore such RFEs.

Would anyone's feelings on the matter change if the voting reasons were placed into a digest that is separate from the normal forum posts? That way if the author of the RFE wants to pick anyone up on a particular point, they can, without it cluttering the discussion page.

Furthermore, regarding the flaw of just echoing sentiments--have a button below someone's post with 'echo vote'--that makes you vote the same way the poster did, and auto-fills with the reason that it is an agreement with that post (and it embeds a link to said post as well).

I think this fixes two of the shortcomings people have mentioned. Unfortunately, some people vote on an idea based on imagined time-cost of implementation and not how they'd vote if the time-cost were the time to type something after 'What do you wish for?'

I agree that it makes the forum more totalitarian (with the freedom to leave... phew), but we're discussing house rules, not a national constitution. I just consider it a matter of politeness and fairness to present arguments to RFE's that go beyond the very basic, or even have a bit of back-and-forth, and an awful lot of people... well, don't consider it to be polite, or else aren't polite people. I consider it wrong, but whether you have the 'permission to be wrong' without anyone having the ability to argue back since you're hiding behind an anonymous number, is what this pivots on. I don't consider it all that sacred of a permission.

Nice to know where the importance of voting ambiguously stands with you in relation to the actual merit of the RFE.

For me - yes. I found a bit rude to force people to comment.

For example 3 years ago I would refrain from commenting just because my English wasn't well and I didn't want to communicate but I was aggressively voting both yes and no on on every features and marking bugs I was encountering before. If your suggestion was implemented 3 years ago I'd left the forum and never come back. Not a big concern, right?

The Creator considers both votes and comments. If one isn't expressing his vote he probably just loses an opportunity to persuade him and other members in the community to support his point of view. Why this can't be left up to them? Just because you want to reply and say "I think you opinion is wrong because..."?

If they were shown to Development Team only I would accept. But that's another story... And such request should come from them.

I think what could be written after "I think your opinion is wrong because..." could be something of value, and may sway your mind, or the minds of others, and it is conceited to think it couldn't and act accordingly, and I don't think the freedom to be conceited is the first freedom. I suppose if your english were inadequate and my suggestion were implemented, you could have ran with the default message.

The fact that you propose that suggests to me that the crux of your disagreement is that you don't want anyone arguing back at your vote?