User Poll: Should we keep the feature where comment scores are hidden for the first x hours?

[u/nikcub]

Upvote YES or NO in comments.

DON"T PARENT COMMENT - WE WILL REMOVE NEW PARENT COMMENTS

Add a comment to the yes or no if you want, but keep the thread clean please.

DON'T DOWNVOTE OPTIONS - THEY ARE IGNORED, WE ONLY COUNT UPVOTES

[u/nikcub]

NO - Bring it back to scores always being shown.

[u/william701 → u/nikcub]

Never thought such a tiny change would have such an effect, but I can genuinely say that my enjoyment of r/soccer has gone down since the introduction of the new policy.

[u/MAINEiac4434 → u/william701]

Yeah. I have no idea why, though. My feelings have been the same on other subs that have attempted this.

[u/[deleted] → u/william701]

me too. Weird how such a small thing has such a large effect

[u/Heisenberg454 → u/nikcub]

Hiding the scores hasn't raised the quality of the comments in the subreddit and it's pretty annoying.

Might as well bring them back.

Also to the mods: why are you doing this after midnight here in the UK? Most UK members of this FOOTBALL subreddit will miss this poll and won't get a say.

You should do another one at an appropriate GMT time in the name of fairness. Just saying.

[u/REGISTERED_PREDDITOR → u/nikcub]

Nothing has changed in terms of comments at the top.

It doesn't help with fact-checking. Someone could falsely say that John Smithson was suspended for punching a linesman and the comment would just show 0|0. Normally, it would be downvoted if it was bullshit. People don't always reply saying "that's bullshit".

I'm pretty confident that it will stay though. People love this romantic idea of a reddit where the enlightened comments rise to the top. Frankly, nothing has changed besides me not understanding more references.

[u/TomasRoncero → u/nikcub]

with the best comment being on the top anyways it defeats the purpose, so yeah

[u/alpha1028 → u/nikcub]

Bring it back, its what the overwhelming majority want

[u/nikcub]

YES - Keep scores hidden.

[u/[deleted] → u/nikcub]

This is a bit meta, but I can't see how you're going to interpret the results usefully. You have two options that are "yes" with a qualifier, so there are two obvious ways to tally the votes:

1. Treat each one separately. However, this could lead to a situation where a majority has voted "yes" but the plurality has voted "no" and you take the opinion of the minority as the view of the sub.

2. Combine the "yesses" initially, and if they form a majority, look at the extra information to decide the detail. However, there are problems with this too. Firstly, people can vote for both "yesses" if they want to, which will artificially inflate the total votes for the two. Secondly, some of the people voting "yes, but reduce the time" may actually have "no" as a second preference, ahead of maintaining the status quo; in other words, they might think that the feature is only worth keeping if the time is reduced.

Of course, you might get lucky with a clear "no", but if you don't, this poll won't tell you what you're trying to find out.

[u/Lladz → u/[deleted]]

Very good points, if its close enough (not 2:1 in favor of yes) maybe this poll should be redone with only two options. Hard to say

[u/LochyMacleod → u/nikcub]

Yes- But reduce the time to one hour or less. Bandwagon jumping happens mostly on match threads and by 60 mins another 50 things have happened in a match to cry about.

[u/mxoxo → u/nikcub]

I like that it mitigates bandwagon-ing.

It makes users think for themselves about upvoting or downvoting a comment.

All round though, I dont really mind/care that much

[u/SuperSaiyanNoob → u/nikcub]

Can we vote Yes - but shorten the time?

[u/thekrone]

YES - Keep scores hidden for a while, but reduce the amount of time before showing the score.

[u/[deleted] → u/thekrone]

I'd say 1 hour maximum. Also is there a way to have this feature completely removed in match threads?

[u/frisky123 → u/thekrone]

I have not found it make any difference at all

[u/Svorky → u/thekrone]

yeah. But you can just count the upvotes then. Of course you have to wait three hours to see them..

[u/Nodules → u/thekrone]

This one. An hour seems alright - it's just a shame the timer can't be lowered further for specific threads (hidden scores in the minutes range would be good for match threads.)

As an aside: I think the administrators/developers of reddit really should fix the comment sorting when a thread has hidden scores enabled.

Hiding scores is OK-ish at preventing bandwagoning, but when a comment hits the top of the thread (or, indeed, the bottom) with the normal sorting method, there's no prizes for figuring out that it has been massively up/down-voted.

[u/LochyMacleod → u/thekrone]

Yes- But reduce the time to one hour or less. Bandwagon jumping happens mostly on match threads and by 60 mins another 50 things have happened in a match to cry about.

[u/Orkys → u/thekrone]

Keep it - there's no real harm in this. Knowing what the scores are should not affect your opinion of the post - up/down is not about opinion it's about whether a post adds to the conversation.

[u/thekrone]

Note: We're going to remove any comments that aren't children of one of the three options (except this one) so that they stay very easy to find. Any discussion / debate about the topic is welcome as child comments to the options.

[u/Baukelien → u/thekrone]

WE ONLY COUNT UPVOTES

How are you going to that? If you are using RES to determine that what you are letting this eleciton decide is the reddit spam algorithm.

[u/william701 → u/thekrone]

How long will the poll be open for?

When will we know the results?

[u/MattWatchesChalk → u/thekrone]

It's been three hours and I still can't see the current results of the poll. This sucks.