Neutral votes in Good Guy Certification Forum

What is behind the posting of neutral votes for every member within The Good Guy Certification Forum by Webslave?

Rich?

I'm sure he'll come up with the REAL answer, but I'm just in the mood to speculate...

Nobody can claim he is biased and pushing for one person or another. Since you can only vote once, if he always casts a neutral one when he lists a person, nobody can accuse him of favoritism... and if one of the cert. holders becomes a bad guy (because sometimes this happens) he will have never "endorsed" that person as a "good guy".


Just a thought.

Or perhaps he says to himself: "I will never buy from this person, because they don't sell animals I'm even remotely interested in" and so he gives them a neutral.

I personally don't much care for the "neutral" option... to me it's important to vote for a person if I've had personal dealings with them. I believe so far only three of the individuals in the list have received votes from me... Webslave (i've bought items from him), Kathy Love (same thing) and Dennis Thomas (he's personally helped me out on a few items, being a local and all). Nobody else up there has done business with me.

Yeah I might be tempted if I saw someone go up there who was a known scammer (bearded pets), but I still probably wouldn't vote unless I had personal knowledge beyond just the BOI.

Okay, jeepers, who brought the soapbox and gave me free reign??

I'm sure Webslave has his own reasons. But I felt like adding my two cents.

Sasheena,
The odd thing about it is this: These neutral posts weren't added as the listings were set up. A neutral post was added to every listing at 2:00 AM this morning - strange!

I think I misunderstood the question... you can click on the number of people who voted and SEE Who voted in the poll... that way you can see who is responsible for the neutral votes.

Sasheena,
I understand that. I just thought it was unusual that at 2:00 in the morning, Webslave posted a neutral vote for EVERY single listing in the Good Guy Certification Forum (including the listings for his moderators).

I'm sure that something prompted this - just not sure what it could be.
I'm sure Rich will be along at some point to clarify it.

Well actually I hope my answer is pretty simple. As an experiment, take a look at a listing that you have not personally voted on and one that you have. Tell me the difference you see when you click on the link to look at the thread.

See? The one you have NOT voted on requires that you click on the link to display the results of the poll before you can see the overall rating results. However, on the ones you HAVE voted on, when you open up the thread, the results are shown immediately.

Now, suppose you were tasked with checking EVERY thread in that section periodically to make sure that all participants were maintaining a positive balance on the Certification Polls. What would be easiest for you to do? Especially down the road when there may be a hundred or more of these things to look through?

This was the main reason I even put the Neutral vote in the poll. It just took me till last night to finally get around to using it for what I intended. Guess I should have warned everyone......

I guess I still don't understand why you felt the need to give 'neutral' feedback points to everyone on the Good-Guy Certification program, Rich. Those of us who participated in this did so because our reputations in the Reptile Community mean something to us, and a 'neutral' vote tarnishes our percentages. I have worked very hard to build and maintain an excellent reputation with my business! It seems a mockery of the entire program.

Originally Posted by Golden Gate Geckos

I guess I still don't understand why you felt the need to give 'neutral' feedback points to everyone on the Good-Guy Certification program, Rich. Those of us who participated in this did so because our reputations in the Reptile Community mean something to us, and a 'neutral' vote tarnishes our percentages. I have worked very hard to build and maintain an excellent reputation with my business! It seems a mockery of the entire program.

Oh it does NOT trash your reputation. Please look up the definition of "neutral" and tell me what you come up with.

If you want to withdraw from the program, just say so and it is done.

Oh it does NOT trash your reputation. Please look up the definition of "neutral" and tell me what you come up with.

Rich, I did not say it 'trashed our reputation'... I said it tarnishes our percentages, and it does just that! My rating went from 100% positive, to 96.30% with your 'neutral' vote. As far as looking up the definition of "neutral," here is a direct quote from your explanation of how the system works:

This is basically a "BOI Lite", in that a person can ONLY vote on a poll indicating that person or business being a "good guy", "bad guy", or "undecided" (for those people who want to vote but like to ride the yellow line down the middle).

So what happens when someone votes 'neutral' for the heck of it just because they felt like voting, and then later finally make a decision if it's a 'positive' or a 'negative?' As far as I can tell, they won't be able to vote again. Why not wait until you have made a decision before casting a vote? It just doesn't make sense.

If you want to withdraw from the program, just say so and it is done.

Rich, there really isn't any need to react this way just because I have questioned your reasoning and voiced my opinion. If I wanted to withdraw from the program, I would have indicated that! For Christ's sake, I have gladly contributed to Fauna recently by sponsoring 2 paid forums, donating a $100 leopard gecko to the Fauna Fund, giving you the money I got returned to me from a BOI "Bad Guy" situation, and more. How much more can I appreciate you, Rich?

WebSlave, can you delete your vote on polls at will? I know the rest of us can't but the Admin must have a way. Perhaps you could cast your neutral votes just when you want to check the polls, then delete it again. (get your programmer to make you a macro or soemthing.) The neutral vote does affect everyone's overall rating and not every potential buyer reads the Feedback Forum to understand why.