Thalmor

"Why, yes, we're KT members... how could you tell?"

I'm not sure why you're bringing up the number of nations in regards to a forum poll. The number itself is faulty because most nations belong to inactives. But as you pointed out yourself, only a fraction of that uses the forums. If you observe the forums, you would see that the poll has about 130 votes right now. I would say that number reflects the number of active forum users. The overwhelming majority of active forum users support bringing back downvotes, and that's more relevant than what nobodies who don't use the forum thinks.

Alex clearly has his priorities straight, lmao.

I don't like this arguement. I won't dispute that the downvote system has been abused and that downvotes are spammed by some people against other people. However, if you review the poll, you'd see that the overwhelming majority of people want downvotes back. The disparity between 'yes' and 'no' is so large that you'd have to assume that players from both sides of the war want downvotes back. I don't believe a mechanism that so many players enjoyed should be removed because of a few bad actors. That's a bad precedent to set.

Your assumption that people will voice their disagreements and have a dialogue in the place of downvoting is wrong. It's simple human psychology that when given an easy outlet to something, taking away that outlet would result in the engagement simply not happening. You're not going to spur meaningful dialogue by taking away downvotes. In regards to your second paragraph, I just want to bring attention that I am doing my part to bring life to having constructive, honest, and open discourse. I did a poll to show where people said, I made the voter ID private so nobody would be hounded, and I admitted I could be wrong in my OP. I have also patiently responded to people asking me why I believe what I believe and I have backed them up with facts and logic I best I can. I'm not against trying to have better discussions on the OWF but removing downvotes is not a milestone on that path.

Downvotes were not anonymous. I'm not sure what you're talking about.

I think a quick and easy way of showing disapproval like downvoting is better communication than removing downvotes. By removing them, I think a way of communication itself is being removed, and I don't like that. I think downvotes are a happy medium in terms of disagreeing. I think with them gone, either people aren't going to communicate disapproval or they will use low-effort, possibly rule breaking responses instead. The former will probably be more likely, so I think there will be less overall activity in-game. Downvotes aren't toxic. They may be used as people are being toxic, but the downvotes are just a vessel.

Fair question. They're a quick and easy way to show disapproval. They are convenient.

Making a poll because I think removing downvotes is ridiculous and I'm pretty confident a lot of others feel the same. Going to not make this a poll-only topic though because I want people to discuss it. Maybe I am wrong.

I disagree with this action. Downvotes were a quick and convenient way of showing disapproval, and I don't see how removing them will affect toxicity. This is just removing a good feature to combat something that I don't think moderation can really control anyways.

OP is concern trolling and should've been ignored, but this somehow grew to 4 pages in a few hours so I'll bite. As a member of a Coalition A alliance, I'm fine with whatever my government decides. However, with the terms that have been leaked, I would prefer to remain at war indefinitely than to accept the terms. I think there are many on Coalition A who feel similar, especially considering that Coalition B members have repeatedly said they're fine with us quitting or wanting alliances on our side disbanded. Knowing that our opposition has that consensus about us did a great job pissing us off.

A child is much more susceptible to stupid ideas than a normal person is. Especially if there's an element of duress due to the in-game trouble. The kid was dumb for eating the cat/dog food but pressuring him into it was wrong.

What does that have to do with anything?

Hmm...