Why did Moz remove thumbs down from blog posts?

[Trevor-Klein]

You may have already noticed one of the decisions we made when we redesigned the Moz Blog:
We removed thumbs down from the posts. And it was largely in the name of transparency.

Wait, HUH? You took away a method of critique, and you're calling that transparent?

Yes. Here's the scoop: Thumbs down are one of the most cryptic, uninformative, and often passive-aggressive forms of feedback on the Internet today. By removing the mud from the water, we make the entire picture clearer. It's so easy to see a handful of thumbs down on a post (we would almost always get 1-2), and begin hypothesizing what went wrong. We shouldn't have published that one. The topic was too tangentially relevant; it was too long or too hard to follow. There wasn't enough evidence to support the claims. We could dive into analytics, attempting to glean clues about what happened, but in reality, any one of the following are reasons someone might thumb a post down:

• The title is confusing
• The topic is one that I'd like to deny exists (algo update, e.g.)
• The milk I poured on my cereal this morning had gone bad, and I need to take out this frustration somehow
• I once had a falling-out with the author of this post
• I still have a bad taste in my mouth about yesterday's post, which is skewing my thoughts about this one
• I found one of the comments offensive
• My finger slipped on my phone while I was trying to thumb this post up (we've confirmed this happens)
• I didn't like the author's self-promotion in this post
• I saw the new Star Wars trailer, and am terrified that Disney might think including Jar Jar's long-lost brother in the new film is a good idea. I hate everything right now.

Okay, the last one might be a stretch. But you get the idea.

Sometimes a post would receive a disproportionate amount of thumbs down simply because the author was proposing an idea that wasn't popular, no matter its importance. One great example: Carson Ward wrote a fabulous post in 2012 titled "Guest Blogging – Enough is Enough," divining what Matt Cutts would write about nearly 17 months later. The response? 45 thumbs down – one of the most maligned posts in the history of the Moz Blog.

Authors have emailed us in a tizzy, asking if their thumbs down meant they weren't quite right for the Moz audience, and in replying to them we came to this overarching realization: We didn't know why they got thumbs down, and we couldn't find out with any certainty, but more often than not it just didn't really matter. We were confident in their points and their presentation, and real criticism would nearly always show up in the comments.

All that said, we love it when people offer up constructive criticism. We always take it to heart, and hearing directly from you all is the best way we can improve. For that reason among many others, we'll always have the comments below the post. If you feel like a post wasn't up to snuff, please take a moment and tell us why in those threads (please keep it TAGFEE).

One last note: Thumbs down remain available on comments, though that's a temporary stop-gap while we work on a more informative system for flagging comments that are offensive, or facepalm-worthy attempts at links (they're nofollowed anyway!), or otherwise inappropriate for our community.

We'd love your questions or comments on this change, and hope you're enjoying the new look of the Moz and YouMoz blogs!

[KevinBudzynski]

I think it's a good move. I have seen thumbs down for some of the best replies and could not figure out why other than the points your brought up. Sure, thumbs down is good for spammy-self promoting-irrelevant threads. However, if the reply is informative/useful and keeps the discussion progressing in an useful matter, why do we need them? The tricky part is implementing a mechanism to filter these two items out. Good luck.

[Trevor-Klein]

Thanks, Kevin! Appreciate the support.

[PatrickDelehanty]

I agree with Kevin here.

If there was some way to track rogue accounts that continually thumbs down content, that would be great, although that's highly unlikely. I like that it's a manual process for Moz - assessing what went wrong and what you can do to improve it.

Like with TAGFEE, I think it will force users to write constructive comments on they didn't like the post, or if the post didn't speak to them. It will make Moz better. Thumbs down are extremely easy to be passive aggressive with.

My thoughts!

[KevinBudzynski]

Good point Patrick. Adding another layer, typically these rogue accounts may have just a few MozPoints and are newly created. If a user has been w/moz for let's say one year and have a couple hundred points, they may typically be more prone for spammy comments.

[Trevor-Klein]

Little-known fact: We actually do have a way of monitoring the thumb activity of accounts, and regularly send emails to folks who are abusing the system. I'd say we ban 5-10 accounts every day that are blatantly violating our community guidelines. It's a bit laborious to manually review things like that, and we're super-careful not to go any farther than addressing spam/abuse, but it's one of the ways we're able to keep the comment threads productive.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Thats awesome to know Trevor! That's exactly what I was referencing above - good to know you guys are on top of it!

Without giving too much away, what are other elements to a Moz profile do you monitor? I'd imagine comment spam is a major one. Does activity or dormancy come into play at all?

[DonnaDuncan]

This is good to know Trevor; thanks for sharing. I think it would be great of you guys published some guidelines for how to use the thumbs-up / thumbs-down feature, and just to encourage more folks using it. I'm sometimes amazed at the great stuff I learn from comments and wonder why I'm the only one that seems to appreciate it.

PS - I checked to see what guidelines are published before stating this. Your "answering questions" help link is broken.

[Trevor-Klein]

Yes.

If something seems like it'd be a clue to a spammy account, we look at it. Irrelevant comments (especially those with links to irrelevant sites) are an easy sign. An irrelevant comment with a link from an account that was created that same day (and has the bare minimum profile fields filled) is a pretty good sign that account isn't going to be a productive member of the community. And yep -- if we're on the fence about intent, we'll definitely look at whether the account has been used in recent history (as well as other things), too. We usually opt for the benefit of the doubt... lots of people either misunderstand the point, or make an honest mistake.

[Trevor-Klein]

Thanks for the kind words, Donna!

The guidelines would be quite simple, I think. If something resonates with you, give it a thumbs-up. If a comment evokes a negative reaction, go ahead and thumb it down. If we get more prescriptive than that, I think we risk losing the usefulness of the system.

One thing we've done on the blog with the design change is added the thumb/comment buttons to the sticky module on the right side, so you can thumb a post up without scrolling back to the top or down to the bottom. If you've got any other suggestions for the future, we'd love to hear 'em -- I'm right with you, often blown away by the quality of comment threads. It's one of my favorite things about the blog!

[DonnaDuncan]

I'd just say publish " If something resonates with you, give it a thumbs-up. If a comment evokes a negative reaction, go ahead and thumb it down." where it's visible and influential. You want as many visitors as possible to see those guidelines and they won't if they're just published here.

[Trevor-Klein]

Interesting idea. Maybe we can have a little tooltip for the thumbs somewhere. Will have to noodle on it.

Thanks again!

[grobro]

I like the idea! Very often I was asking myself why a particular blog post got 6 thumbs down when I thought it was brilliant. Criticism should always be constructive.

[Trevor-Klein]

Entirely agreed. Thanks!

[DonnaDuncan]

I gave you a thumbs up

[Trevor-Klein]

Haha! So meta...

[MatShepSEO]

Totally agree with this move. Thumbs down is too easy, not specific, and too anonymous. If a reader really has constructive feedback then they should be prepared to post a comment.

[Trevor-Klein]

Bingo. So glad you agree.

[renehansen]

I don't think that removing the thumbdown is a bad idea. A negative thumb should have some sort of comment associated, in order to be critique.
I was worried that the thumbs down was removed all together, but thankfully only on blog posts!

[paulissai]

I have no problem whatsoever with the removal of the thumbs down and think it's a good move for all the aforementioned reasons.

Another thing that I think could be improved is the star rating system attributed to users. I have always assumed star ratings denote a scoring system that follows something similar to 1 star=poor, 2 stars=below average, 3 stars=average, and so forth. I think, when applied to a users contribution and experience, the star rating system is confusing and misleading. If I see someone who is, say, 2 stars out of 5, I automatically assume their ability to respond to a question as "below average", when in reality it may simply mean they are new to the forum or only post sporadically.

If I could suggest an alternative system, I would instead like to see one similar to the Whirlpool forums where you are given a user title that correlates to your participation and experience levels.

Just a thought