Good morning to you all and thank-you for your feedback regarding "Red Hand" which was actually meant to be "thumbs down" :-)

There are many good reasons on both sides of the debate for allowing people to vote thumbs down. I was actually the proponent that implemented it in the first place.

However, on the balance of things, we found the thumbs down was a problem during this growth stage because many people were registering in "stealth mode" (no posts) for the purposes of giving posts a negative rating. We were able to fix these problems by extracting stealth/basher members but not after a great deal of concern from our members across the entire site.

As such, for now, we've disabled thumbs down. It may make a comeback as soon as we have reached a critical mass of members across the entire site.

The compromise of never allowing a post to fall below zero is creative but defeats the purpose of being able to give the thumbs down. For example, members will get frustrated when they give a thumbs down but a post has no worse standing than other neutral posts.

Remember, tools that we implement have to work and be understood across the entire site, so compromises (though creative) won't be understood by other forums that - if implemented - want an opportunity to vote down posts.

As far as the thumbs up goes, we're proud to say that members have been voting with their minds rather than their hearts. As such, popularity contests have not emerged and we believe this will continue to be the case.

Thanks again folks. Keep the suggestions coming. We built AGORACOM on the recommendations of both members and clients - and will continue to do so because a zillion heads are better than 1.

We may not always implement them due to priority, utility or budgetary reasons but more often than not you will see suggestions implemented on the site.

Thanks and have a great day.

Regards,
George