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I downvoted this by mistake
Meant to upvote it (can someone please upvote two times for me?).
We really need a vote cancel option.

If anything voting needs to be even more restrictive than it is right now; it's currently one of the slowest performing parts of the site and a cause of overall site slowness.

There are certain users who vote 500 to 1,500 times a day in the span of a few hours and they do that almost every single day. (100k+ votes total)

I can also see that they average less than 2 seconds between votes so they're just mass voting on comments.

What about adding a time limit? Like with comments. "Sorry, you may only vote a post every 20 seconds".

A limit between 15-20 seconds should be enough to stop the mass voting.

Yeah, I guess optimizing the system is a bit more important right now than mindlessly handing a feature to the users that can be used to crash our servers.

And wasn't it discussed amongst the mods earlier that we where going to scrap the voting system in the comments section in favor of a report system and a way for mods to feature posts?

I meant the votes on the pictures!

Changing the voting system to only one specific part of the site is kinda pointless. Since the problem is not only just "downvoting by mistake" but the whole voting system.

As for the whole "I downvoted by mistake" thing, maybe changing the design of the voting buttons and make them a little bit more bigger (along with putting a bit of space between each other so user can avoid pressing the red button instead of the green button) could work.

I've been on other sites where upvotes were limited to ~20/day and downvotes were limited to ~5/day. Of course if it could actually be changed, I think the general consensus was to remove downvotes completely and replace it with a spam reporting system. Still, in ~3 years, I don't think I've voted on more than 100-200 post/videos/images in a day. I probably average 30 votes in an active day at that. 500-1500 is a little…um…yeah.

Thanks!

If you're going to do that, then my additional suggestion would be to switch the Fav-Star to the thumbs-up side instead of the thumbs-down.
I know I've accidentally down voted by going for the Star and missing or by clicking the star and mis-clicking thumbs-down in the crossover.

That's why before I would upvote an image before favoriting it.

I do that as well, but that doesn't help much when your arm decides to go wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tubeman the moment you click.
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Suggestion: How feasible would it be to add a confirmation prompt for (ideally) only downvotes, as well? Just a "Are you sure you want to downvote this content? [YES] [No]", ya know? It could almost completely eliminate accidental downvotes (hitting enter or space or something, I imagine, would confirm the prompt which could still happen accidentally)… as well as a bit of a buffer for rage downvotes… I guess… kinda.

Additionally, I only just started getting these prompts today (even when it feels like it's been over 5 seconds) – was this just implemented?:

However, I still see the +# change and the thumb icon highlight when it appears. Refreshing the page will reset the content that was blocked by the timer. Waiting over 5 seconds after a vote was blocked and trying again without refreshing will cast the vote but the vote value and icon will not change until the page is refreshed. I tested this by upvoting two comments back-to-back so the second one went from +1 to +2, waited well over 10 seconds, and then downvoted; the comment remained +2 with a thumbs up until I refreshed to see it down to +0 with the red thumbs down icon highlighted where it became unchangeable (sorry, guy).

PS) My hand(s) have been way shakier than normal as of late so, combined with natural twitchiness and mouse friction, I've been accidentally downvoting way more often. This is why I uploaded this – for people like OP and myself:

The 5 second timer gets reset every time you try to vote within those 5 seconds.

I can add a confirmation prompt to downvotes.

Although I think people overreact towards downvotes here, kudos to James for his quick fixes.

i dont know much about coding but, shouldnt it be easier to be able to change downvotes?

Tried upvoting a comment. Was told I can't upvote "old comments".

This is not working. The popup is annoying, the timer resetting is annoying, the cutoff date for voting on comments is annoying, AND WE STILL CAN'T CHANGE OUR VOTES IF WE MAKE A MISTAKE! THAT'S THE BIGGEST ISSUE WITH VOTING HERE, AND IT STILL ISN'T FIXED!

I don't mind having a cutoff date on comments, but I would like to know exactly when said cutoff is. 6 months?

It's 8 months right now.

Is there any specific reason for having a cutoff date on comments?

Tbh I browse a lot, so I come across a lot of older things that I would like to thumbs up. There are a lot of old classics on the site

I was just about to say that. Jesus fuck, this new voting… quirk, I guess, is a fucking trainwreck

Let me just go ahead and expound upon something I said elsewhere:

The confirmation prompt is only for downvotes – which shouldn’t be done all willy-nilly in the first place – so that is a good thing, and it's primarily in place for future accidents, not to retroactively correct old ones. Plus, as James mentioned in this topic, voting is a strain on the site. I’m not sure to what extent, but, still, if everyone could start upvoting and downvoting back and forth without limit I would not be surprised if the site straight-up crashed. If the current (well, previous) system was enough to cause concern then a completely uninhibited system spells doom, I would think. Restricting the rate at which users can vote helps lighten the load. However, I, myself, don't completely understand the new 'expiry' date on comments other than it reduces the amount of comments on which to vote which, needless to say, reduces the total amount of voting occurring (plus, voting on comments that old wouldn't make much of difference and likely no one would ever see/notice it; it does still feel a little sucky not getting to express your joy for something, or the lack thereof, when it's well-deserved).

Some users such as Loli albeit with the world's supply of salt have brought up the point of removing voting in its entirety due to circlejerking/causing echo chambers/ego inflation/etc. Now that would certainly solve everyone's issues involving circlejerking, accidental voting, site slowness, and whatnot, now wouldn't it? Because… yeah, I mean, it would solve everything. But I doubt people would be happy with that. People will complain about faults in the system as long it remains, and people will complain about the lack of a system if it were removed.

As I see it, upvoting encourages positive comments and uploaded content. Even if a comment is made to be a 'karma whore' top comment attempt at least it's still something relatively positive. Plus, a top voted comment can bring something enjoyable up front if it's been hidden in a long comment chain or behind multiple pages. Sorting uploaded content by "High Score" can be very helpful in finding certain/popular content when it may not be necessarily trending (such as in the case of older things) or 'relevant' to a search. However, this system can potentially stifle creativity in comments or glorify a specific opinion/side of an argument which adds to the censorship problem with downvotes.

The presence of downvotes should (but typically doesn't) deter outright hateful, aggressive, and/or unwarranted obscene comments and troll content. Downvoting to bury a comment can be used to hide such unpleasant content from those who don't wish to see it, but at the same time it can be used to censor unpopular opinions even those expressed calmly and rationally.

I can reckon a couple more drastic solutions (save for the complete removal of the system):
The complete abolishment of downvotes, completely solving accidental downvotes, censorship of opinion, and excessive expression of salt, but this would also allow offensive content (even by our standards) relative to the content commented on and aggressive comments to run rampant; the lack of upvotes would at least be a more positive way to dislike something, but that would also mean new comments would stand on the same level as even the worst of comments. The 'circlejerking' of upvoted comments could be rivaled by the same being used on comments that would have been downvoted no matter how offensive/aggressive/unpopular to wrestle for a top comment position. Additionally, this change could run into conflict with previously downvoted material and really screw things up, I imagine.

There's also the possibility of keeping upvoting and downvoting in place but hiding the numbers from sight. There would be absolutely no way of telling what comment or content is popular, or by how much, leaving top comments to be a complete enigma.

I really need to stop getting so into things while I'm at work, but memeing… er, meme-ery… KYM is srs bsns.

Personally, I think you guys give karma (and the voting system) a lot of importance when, in reality, it doesn't really matters. It's just a number.

AND WE STILL CAN’T CHANGE OUR VOTES IF WE MAKE A MISTAKE! THAT’S THE BIGGEST ISSUE WITH VOTING HERE, AND IT STILL ISN’T FIXED!

The voting system was conceived that way, IIRC the option to change the votes was implemented years ago (and I don't remember if it was implemented only on the forums or the whole site) but users abused of it and it was removed. This idea has been brought up countless times and it was never approved, this time we came up with something to avoid said situation. If you still downvote by mistake, even with that message that pop-ups before downvoting, then that's your own problem.

Also, think about what James said. If the current voting system is causing such a stroke on the site that is causing slowness, imagine what would happen if we give the option to change the votes. The current problem would be much much worse.

It's a matter of priorities, do you want search through the site without having to wait 15 minutes for a page to load or do you want to upvote desperately all the comments you like?

Some users such as Loli have brought up the point of removing voting in its entirety due to circlejerking/causing echo chambers/ego inflation/etc.

Not really, I made a poor choice of words. When I said "removing the karma system" I meant that it should be replaced by something else. Users came up with several ideas and we never got a response. Perhaps we should bring it up again.

I was playing devil's advocate, I don't really care about the voting system. I do admit that trying to have a discussion on the comment section is a pain in the ass but outside of that, users can downvote whatever they want, it won't change anything.

The (negative) karma system serves a purpose that is needed – to hide and triage inappropriate, off-topic, and rulebreaking posts. Unfortunately, it's also really easy to abuse just because people don't like a post or user – which is not what it should be used for (this on top of the cliqueish and popularity-based upvotes). I agree with Loli that we really need another solution, and some have been discussed. There are issues with replacing karma but the benefits outweigh the problems, IMO.

I like the addition of the confirmation box to prevent accidental downvotes but there is one problem: is it just me or did all the images, videos, and comments lose a few upvotes ever since the update?

Edit: found out it wasn't a bug.

I do like the downvote confirmation box as there won't be anymore accidental downvotes from me :)

I deleted all thumbs for each user that happened less than 2 seconds after the previous thumb.

That ended up getting rid of ~6M or ~1/4 of all thumbs.

Oh. Nice to know that it wasn't a bug then.

How do you "abuse" the ability to change how you vote? FFS, Derpibooru has it and it gets by just fine.

I don't know the whole story but that's what happened. We had many threads like this in the past and yet, here we are. As I see it, changing votes won't happen.

Although I don't know the full reason behind "why we can't change votes", it's not because we don't care or we don't listen to users' suggestion. We simply can't.

Well, if the normal "one click, that's it" voting was enough to strain the site, the ability to change them would more than double that load if unrestricted.

However, a simple idea just came to mind in relation to the changing of votes. If it were to be implemented again perhaps it could be under a similar restriction as voting is now, albeit a far greater one. Users could only be allowed to change one vote once in an hour. The time could be adjusted to 0.5/1/2/6/12/24 hours depending on how restrictive it would need to be in order to allow it. Additionally, if need be, it could be further restricted to only allow votes made within the past 24 hours to be recast.

Just brainstorming here as an "idea guy" that lacks full knowledge of practical implementation.

Also, you say Derpibooru gets by just fine but it looks like it got rid of/lost tons of its uploads at some point… or something. Not sure what the deal is with that. All I know is that almost all of the uploads and edits and junk I made there in years past are gone, as well as tons of favorites, I reckon. I didn't look too much into it since I don't frequent the place anymore, but still. Even a relatively recent post (like, probably easily within the past year?) I made there with over 100 upvotes and whatnot is gone. Was it an intentional culling for some reason? It doesn't look like they were deleted, they just stopped existing.(It double sucks that my uploads there were mostly back when I painstakingly did them in MS Paint using a wireless mouse using an old envelope of sorts as a mouse pad hanging halfway off a TV tray table. I'm pretty sodium chloride about it.) In any case, has KYM done something like that or has something like it happened in the past?

Just to cast my opinion here.

I want to say the new voting system is a minor annoyance but what gives I have no life anyways so I might as well wait for 5 secs between each upvote I give (seriously is a bother but is not that bad).

The restriction to upvote old content seems like rubish tho'

I like the confirmation request to downvote, that saved me twice already.

Ok, so the reason for this new shittruck of a voting thing was because, apparently, votes lagged the site.
Yup
That's it
The votes have the fault
Not the complex page design or anything, it's the votes.
Also, fuck anything older than 6 months, it doesn't deserve our attention. In any way. Nope

May as well remove the voting system all together then if that's what supposedly causes this site to be slow.

Original

Not the complex page design or anything, it’s the votes.

I dunno, man. The sytem has always been the same since it was implemented, the only thing that changed through the years was the userbase.

Here, let me give you an example. Two years ago mass voting wasn't a problem, the context was different but we never heard of people doing "mass voting". The system barely changed in these two or three years. Now, what about the people that used the voting system? ¿Why we never heard anything about people doing mass voting back then and why this is happening right now? ¿Did the system change or did the users change? ¿Who is really at fault here?

And to be blunt with you, I honestly find it annoying when someone does nothing else than complain rather to actually help. I bet you have some kind of formation on web design to prove your rants, otherwise I can take that you prefer to disvalidate other people's work without knowing anything about it nor the reasons behind it.

¿Are you going to help or just keeping complaining until something changes? But sure, keep whining. Until we find a better solution for this, things are going to be like this. You like it or not. If you want to make a change, then do something.

Am I the only one who recently discovered that things I have uploaded has suddenly lost votes? Both down and upvotes on images I swear was there a few days ago have vanished. Anyone knows why?

I personally don't see the problem with letting people vote on old posts. On the other hand… how in the hell is it even possible for you guys to do it twice in less than five seconds? Don't you have to read them first?

James removed the votes that were made in less than 2 seconds after the previous vote which resulted about 6 million votes getting purged. He didn't explain why though.

At least it's better than having your images downvoted.

I honestly think it's fine this way, upvotes in the end are just number, and the image loading issue (Specially spoilered ones) that I had isn't around anymore (Or is it just me?) And I only had the pop-up come once, I can't wrap my head around people voting everything they see in less than 5 seconds
Be grateful they didn't remove your precious upvotes completely, this community sure is awesome, complaining to get everything on a silver plate

The "You can only vote once every 5 seconds" message is poorly implemented. It negates the vote but doesn't stop the browser script, meaning that you have to refresh the page and vote again if you want that vote to actually count. A vote cancel option would fix this, as would having the message stop the browser script.

Also, the downvote prompt is super annoying. I want to be a dissenter without feeling like the site software itself is disapproving!

"Old comments are closed from votes."
Don't you think this is just a bit too far?

"Also, fuck anything older than 6 months, it doesn’t deserve our attention. In any way. Nope"

If old posts are not worthy of attention, then why show it at all? (i think this is an intersting point and i am not being le sarcasmic)

Also I do not like the new vote system. I would rather have the option to undo my vote instead of confirm it every time.

Many comments are one-liner and/or puns. I don't know about you, but it takes me about 2 seconds to read those. So yup, pretty annoying

I still think it's much better to be able to quickly upvote puns while having big images taking some time to load than having half the votes from all the users (not just because of the 5 seconds rule, but also because of the other rule, the 2-seconds one) removed and not being able to vote old posts. Which is still unexplained, btw

It doesn't take 5 seconds to read a short post.
I can read fast.

I've been on Derpibooru since the move from Ponibooru (requiescat in pace), and I have no idea what you're talking about.

Also, still have no explanation of how changing your vote was "abused".

have you ever thought that maybe its because derpibooru and KYM work completely different.

not all sites sutain the same load, KYM is a site that gets heavily linked from all kinds of pages and news sources while derpibooru just gets visited by a small group of fans of MLP, plus KYM DB sustains FAR more images that probably double or triple the ones of derpibooru, plus articles, so of course unlike derpibooru it has a harder time performing tasks like votes.

to give you an idea:

KYM:

Derpibooru:

so get informed before making such dumb comparisons

I think it would be nice if the was a way to qualitatively rate posts -- rather than just having a binary "thumbs up/down" system, have a little button for marking off-topic posts, another for NSFW posts, another for inappropriate le ironic shitpostings, etc. This would work like a hybrid system of upvotes and reports. Maye we could have other, positive buttons, too, one for funny, one for witty, one for perceptive/accurate, etc…

IIRC Shoryuken has a system like this.

I appreciate that there's a new time limit on voting to help reduce server strain, but could it be reduced by a couple seconds?

I frequently find myself hitting the 5-second limit when reading/voting comment chains with short lines of text (I tend to be a very fast reader). I think 3 seconds would be better, still enough to stop outright spam but not too long.

I don't know, that's just my opinion.

Also, still have no explanation of how changing your vote was “abused”.

Ask and you shall receive. I knew Chris explained it at some point so I looked through his forum posts. He should stop shitposting.

Edit: Looks like it was implemented only on the forums but, as usual, this is another case of users "having" fun with the system. And by the way, the idea of setting a "time limit" to change your vote went nowhere.