Dragonfly wrote:Scrape the voting system at all and you'll save a lot of trouble and headache. The more you try to modify and tune it, the more it'll backfire. If you lock certain parts and threads, ultras minded fans will come to the unlocked ones and eventually drive them off-topic.
On one side I agree, on the other I dont.
An rating system is something that can really outlight an post made. However, as with everything mankind does, it is possible to abuse it.
Therefore a lot of places implement a rating system that allows every user to up and downvote, and with downvotes based on opinion. The plus on this is that the only abuse is one asking for +1's, there isnt really a true downside in that. It is based more on what people like to read rather than what is good or not. The latter is one reason why it wont fit here, because the goal is to show what is good or not, not what people want to read(i.e. a commonly shared opinion).
Then, such rating systems are more used on comments, rather than actual topics(see disqus for example).
Also, such rating systems tend to order the posts by rating. Posts(or better said reply) with the highest rating are shown first.
Therefore such a rating system would not work in this environment.
But with that said, I got an idea, an idea that is completely irrelevant to this topic, but what might just work.
As a change in the rating system, one could maybe only given the positive option, for example someone could earn stars.
EDIT:
A possible replacement for the -1 could be that the users can hide a post for themselves.