I recommend the asterism to instead be adopted as the symbol for astigmatism.

I’m really skeptical about that. Either that they would do it or that such “justified” downvoting would be a clear cut or fair decision. Most people don’t vote the right way. How many people downvote content they agree with or find funny but doesn’t add to the discussion? How many people upvote content they disagree with that does add to the discussion?

And am I really going to take up a mod’s time because someone got mad at me and downvoted—the most accessible and innocuous way to express displeasure with someone? How many more complaints about downvote bullying are mods going to have to field?

I don’t know. You could be right, but I’d want to see it successful in a small scale, if possible, before deploying it everywhere. Maybe the folks suggesting it should be up to the server admin are right. That would be another differentiator and people could go to communities on servers that have their preferred visibility policy. That would serve as an A/B test and let people vote with their feet.

Thank you. Sorry. Never played that game and didn’t know that was specific to FPS. I know some arcade shooter games had that mechanic, but not in the context of free-roaming FPS. I think you’re right about Tomb Raider.

I think you need to be more specific than just “third person”. Third person view was in Pong, Pac-Man, Asteroids, Centipede, etc. It’s the default for most games.

First person was probably introduced with Battle Zone.

Which, I don’t mean to sound pedantic, I just literally don’t really know what you mean here.

I’ve been thinking about this for several hours since I first became aware of the debate.

I don’t care that much in theory if anyone sees my votes. They aren’t anything I’m particularly private about. I care about conversation way more than up/down votes.

However, some people get a little upset about being downvoted. I think it will result in retaliatory downvotes. You already see that when two folks are arguing. I don’t normally waste my time downvoting a post I’m writing a rebuttal to, but when they are downvoting me I tend to do it back. I think if everyone had easy access, they would hunt down their down voters posts and retaliate regardless of the quality of the comments.

Lastly, I wonder if this will give rise to a client that lets you use one account to post/comment and a different one to vote. And if it does, will that be better all around? Then no one will be able to associate votes with a user. But it seems unnecessarily wasteful to create a whole account that does nothing but vote. It seems like it would deny mods (and everyone) a useful tool for identifying bad actors.

Technically, anyone could get access to the voters identity if they try hard enough but 99% of the users won’t put in that much effort. And technically someone could already use different accounts for different activities, but without reason to create a client to support that it’s too much of a pain to be worth the effort.

So I really think I’m on team status quo here.

Ultimately the reviewer should be paid for their efforts because honest reviews are their livelihood. Saying, “I liked this and if my review helped, buy through this link to support me for free,” is a fairly innocuous way.

Is it completely unproblematic? No, but earning money for your opinion is always going to be fraught.

Fuck all that noise. Give me more Baldur’s Gate. I’m the biggest Star Wars fan and I haven’t bought a game since KotOR other than Survivor and the sequel. Because every time one catches my interest they start talking about all the cool DLC or things that are locked behind months or years of progression. I just won’t.

Where are they even evacuating to? Just the next target for bombing.

I’m all for it. I’m positive about AI in general. Just relating my experience trying to explain it to my wife.

Is kind of hard to explain to anyone, “this thing cannot be trusted, but it’s useful anyway.”

My wife: So it’s like a gaslighting machine?

Me: … well… no, but it… fuck.

Losing an expensive - in terms of lives and money - and pointless war is devastating domestically. Will anything really change? I don’t know, but there’s going to be a reaction.

Yes. On a local and state level. Just like you. Or did you forget politics isn’t just the presidency? You want to change things, you’re never going to do it starting at the top. You have to work for it.

Maybe. But they can’t just cede all the initiative to Russia, either.

Stifle? No. Just pointing out how odd it is to say the democratic process isn’t democracy. If you don’t like the options, go win some local and state primaries. Put non-fascist crypto folks on the menu and see how they do in the general. Push the party left. No one did that and here we are.

Decrying that this isn’t democracy when you’re not trying to participate is a fascinating take. But also reducing it all to crypto here - no matter what direction it takes you - that’s fucking weird.

But no, me saying you’re wrong isn’t stifling. This is a discussion board. If you can’t handle discussion maybe post these thoughts on a blog.

Edit: I love how you reposted to say what you had to say in an even more offensive way. Like you read what you wrote and decided you were coming across to kindly and needed to throw some ad hominem attacks and such in. Sure sign of a winning argument.

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An analysis I watched suggests that by occupying Russian territory, they force Russia to either let them dig in long term or stay on the offensive to try to push them out just when Russia would be slowing their summer offensive. Ukraine is fighting a defensive war of attrition and their strategy is to force Russia to keep attacking while Ukraine has a defensive advantage.

Now, this shit is way above my pay grade, but that analysis explains why this could be a smart move. So it sounds like there is reason to be cautiously optimistic.

I can’t imagine looking at their differences on so many issues, and then reducing it all to this and thinking this is the issue you’re going to decide on. Absolutely mind-blowingly weird to me.

I have a very feminist outlook on things, but I enjoy some problematic things. I know it’s not very progressive of me, but it is what it is. I acknowledge they are problematic.

Which is just to say, I don’t like this. I understand, but I’m not a fan.

I’m sure as hell not down for revolution and violence, no.

The system is what it is. Third party is moot. That’s it. Motherfuckers pretending shit can change just because you really really want it to.