Before down-voting, put yourself in the shoes of the captioneer, who has put time and thought into the caption you’re about to flag.
The down-vote is intended to demote content that is:
[list]
-
Humourless, and unsalvageable (on the other hand, where improvements could be made, it’s much better to leave a comment than down-vote)
-
Offensive and not funny (note that offensive captions are acceptable provided they’re funny)
- A clear duplicate of an earlier caption - but be lenient where both captions came in at the same time, or when the later caption is funnier
-
Obvious spam
[/list]
Don’t down-vote captions that you don’t understand. Much better to comment instead, and ask for an explanation. Of course, there may be the odd new captioneer that submits rubbish - in this case, when their captions are down-voted and their score falls below zero, all their captions will appear [color=#A9A9A9]greyed-out[/color] and should be down-voted with more impunity.
To keep the site friendly and constructive, add a comment to explain the down-vote. The site will remind you if you forget to do this.
For karma purposes you’ll need to place five up-votes on other captions for every down-vote.
Be kind to your fellow captioneers :)-D
What if a duplicate is a genuine mistake Chris? does it really deserve a downvote or would a comment serve better?
The site will require a comment before a down-vote is given, and I expect some people will comment and not down-vote in cases where the dupe might have been accidental (i.e. both captions came in at the same time) or if the second caption is similar but not identical to the first.
People will be less prone to accidentally creating dupes if they risk a down-vote, so hopefully it will encourage people to check before they submit.
One further thing I might do is allow people to vote up/down each other, based on behaviour on the site. Call it a “karma” score.
That way a person giving unfair down-votes could have their karma down-voted. If a person had karma below a certain threshold, down-voting rights could be revoked.
I still don’t quite understand. If I have up votes from five people that like my caption and a down vote from one that doesn’t, is the net result that I now only have four points? If so, that seems a little unfair. :S
In that case, yes, the net effect is that your score is four.
Note that this isn’t how the 5:1 up-vote:down-vote ratio works. That ratio is for individual voters - they have to place five up-votes on other captions before they’re allowed to down-vote your caption
Yes I get the 5:1 bit and that seems reasonable. If I had taken a dislike to Lee’s Derry Air caption - for intance - I could have reduce his overall score when I’m clearly in the minority and plainly wrong - BUT the damage will have been done (I loved that caption by the way). If we must have a down voting system then perhaps it could only be applied to captions with no votes. If the caption subsequently receives up-votes then I think the down-vote should be cancelled.
I agree there is potential for the system to be abused, but now we have transparency like never before. If someone abused the system we’d be on their case in a flash. And I rather like the idea of “karma points” (see post above) which would encourage down-voters to behave well or face a deluge of karma down-votes from angry captioneers.
Cool, I like this system. It’s fair.
A few timewaster captions from a new sign-up tonight, which I have down-voted. Don’t be afraid to down-vote yourselves if you see the same thing happen. The quicker we get them off the Captions page, the better.
Chris Beach Wrote:
Before down-voting, put yourself in the shoes of
the captioneer, who has put time and thought into
the caption you’re about to flag.
The down-vote is intended to demote content that
is:
- Humourless, and unsalvageable (on the other
hand, where improvements could be made, it’s much
better to leave a comment than down-vote)
- Offensive and not funny (note that offensive
captions are acceptable provided they’re funny)
- A clear duplicate of an earlier caption - but be
lenient where both captions came in at the same
time, or when the later caption is funnier
- Obvious spam
Don’t down-vote captions that you don’t
understand. Much better to comment instead, and
ask for an explanation. Of course, there may be
the odd new captioneer that submits rubbish - in
this case, when their captions are down-voted and
their score falls below zero, all their captions
will appear greyed-out and should be down-voted
with more impunity.
To keep the site friendly and constructive, add a
comment to explain the down-vote. The site will
remind you if you forget to do this.
For karma purposes you’ll need to place five
up-votes on other captions for every down-vote.
Be kind to your fellow captioneers :)-D
Chris, can you please advise what happens when we get a down vote and it clearly doesn’t fit into any of the above?
I’m forever having to look at my 1 down vote that was given by someone who had clearly got their facts wrong 
Can I get rid??? Cheers
Shandon,
Let me know which caption this was and I’ll look into it
Chris
I have removed the offending vote, and also altered the restrictions on retracting voting. The one-minute time limit on retraction on up-votes still applies, but down-votes can be retracted any time whilst the caption is still in play.
Excellent, many thanks Chris 
Good idea to allow the down votes to be retracted, I guess people can do it in a moment of pique :S so gives a cooling off period.
I think it’s time we got more liberal with the down-votes. Whilst ace captions continue to pour in, rubbish captions float around, and for the sake of the reader (and the contributor, I think), we need to demote these.
There are safe-guards in place, described above, and if the down-vote starts to hurt the better contributors on the site I’ll review the process.
New joiners who submit crap captions and receive a down-vote will have all their captions displayed with a faded grey colour until their overall score becomes positive. This makes it easier to identify captions from people who need some tough love, and avoid trigger-happy down-voting of positive contributors to the site.
Let’s get hunting!
Chris