Unrecommend option?

[no limit]

This might have been suggested before but is there any way to add an unrecommend option to topics? If there are some posts that make it to the greatest page that in my opinion should not be there there should be an option to remove recs? Anyone agree or is this a dumb idea on my part?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

1. I unrecommend the OP!!!

:rofl:

just kidding. not a bad idea.

[bahrbearian]

2. Porgy? Porgy Tirebiter is that you?

[SlipperySlope]

3. This idea gets floated from time to time.

I'm opposed to it for this reason.

I think DU should generally be a friendly place.

When you recommend a post, you are performing a positive and friendly action towards the original poster.

Being able to "unrecommend" would fundamentally be a negative and hostile action towards your fellow posters.

Spend some time on reddit.com or digg.com or any of the other sites that have upvotes/downvotes to see what this would be like.

[jobycom]

4. That would add some amusing aspects to DU.

"Rec this post if you believe X is Y!" "Un'Rec the X Y Post if you believe Y is X!"

Watching posts dance in and out of Greatest could be quite amusing. Then we should also have a Mud Pit Forum, so that when the thread breaks even in the tug of war, it goes into the Mud.

[Hydra]

5. The idea has been floated before

And it's not bad in theory, but consider this: There are lots of DLCers mucking things up on this site. Sometimes 9 recs is all you can hope for, even on a critical issue.

Now, consider those DLCers grouping and mailing each other. Even if there are just ten of them working together, they can make that post disappear simply because it didn't fit their world-view.

Now, I'll admit it would be nice to have the option of doing more than posting a debunk post on stuff that is major fail...but the risk of hundreds of threads dying because groups of DUers are running around in groups de-rec'ing things is simply not worth it.

Let a post stand on it's own.

[no limit]

8. That;s a good point. What if you could see how many unrecs were received but it would affect rank

of a post on the greatest page?

That way people could see right off the bat that there are lots of people that disagree but the post still ends up on the greatest page if it has more than 5 positive recs.

[Hydra]

9. What would be the point if your de-rec had no power?

If I think something is BS, I post a comment to that effect. You've pprobably seen those where there are lots of rec's but mostly negative comments.

IMO, adding a de-rec would put too much emphasis on rec'ing/de-rec'ing.

As one person pointed out during GD: P season- "Why do all of these shit posts have 50 recs because it's about Candidate _____?"

[havocmom]

6. that option on many online newspaper comments sections keeps RW views front and center

while basically shutting out opposing viewpoints. Not a good option because it silences too many opinions. Some groups have people who vote, clear their cache and vote again on online polls and comment voting. We don't need that here. Yes, I know this site only allows one vote per member, but I also know there are trolls, operatives, and sock puppets with agendas. Same result.

[Vickers]

7. There are two buttons at your disposal already:

The "Alert" button if it violates DU rules, and a "Hide Thread" button if it violates your....whatever.