I propose an third option - UNDECIDED/NOT SURE.
Sometimes a post leaves me unsure as to whether it is any good or bad, and I wish to make my opinion clear on this, so I propose this as a voting option.
ARTISTS IMPRESSION
(you'll never guess...)
I propose an third option - UNDECIDED/NOT SURE.
Sometimes a post leaves me unsure as to whether it is any good or bad, and I wish to make my opinion clear on this, so I propose this as a voting option.
ARTISTS IMPRESSION
(you'll never guess...)
There is no need for such an option.
If you are unsure/undecided don't vote.
Suppose we have this - the signal is meaningless. It isn't helpful to anything. It doesn't help others in determining the value of the post and it can't be used internally for anything. It doesn't even tell us whether a post is controversial or not.
People have already pointed out this is effectively already present, by simply not voting you are showing you are neither for or against.
However, it is arguably different to actually having a visible stat or counter showing how many people have (for whatever reason) actively declared themselves as undecided.
As opposed to those who have just not voted at all - up, down, or "undecided".
You stated:
Sometimes a post leaves me unsure as to whether it is any good or bad, and I wish to make my opinion clear on this
Why do you want to make your opinion clear on it?
How does it add any benefit to anyone at all that you have actively declared yourself as "undecided"?
How does being able to see who has actively declared themselves as undecided add any value, change, or improvement over (currently) people simply not voting up or down?
I ask because you have not made any argument towards the usefulness of your proposal, just that you want it.
If you can give a good argument why this would be useful, then perhaps people would be behind it.
People will never be behind "I just want it" unless they want it too, and on face value this just seems 100% entirely pointless, so you'll have to point out why this would be useful.
Consider your question here.
It (currently) has 51 views, so 19 downvotes 0 up, would it mean anything to you at all if those 32 other people had been able to vote "undecided"?
What difference does it make?
Also, are those 32 other people all "undecided"? I very much doubt they are all "only" undecided, so there must be other reasons too.
Currently up/down is fine by itself and provides a very strong and clear set of stats as to what people think. X are in favour, Y are against, all other views are simply neither in favour or against.
However, if you add another potential reason other than up and down, then for it to be of any use you would have to also cater for every other eventuality to know what "everyone" thinks.
So for "undecided" to be of any use you'd need to also have (for example):
We cannot think of all potentials, and this means it would be useless adding more than up or down, because we still wouldn't know what everyone thinks.
People being people, some will be undecided about even voting "undecided". So even if you catered for every eventuality, or even just added "undecided" you will still get people simply not voting either way.
I think if you replaced your word "undecided" with the word "neutral" you might find you are actually deciding on an outcome more than you think.
In that, you are not actually "undecided" you are "neutral" - i.e. you don't want to vote up or down, so your decision is to do neither and not vote at all.
That is a valid decision with the system we have, as the voting is really all about (and useful as) voting up or down.
Jon Mark Perry, this ain't the UK for a lot of us, and this is not the official voting site for any political election. For me, it's useless. Okay, you didn't vote up or down. So what? We have to vote on a post now?
Users can vote up if the post in their opinion is a good quality post. Correct? Users can vote down if the post in question is very bad quality. Correct? Being neutral is okay. But we don't need so many neutral votes on a post. That means that the post is neither bad or good. Or it is just not good or bad enough to earn either vote from you. Do you realize how many neutral votes there will be on a popular question with lots of views? Tens to hundreds to thousands!
If you can't decide, leave it. That's final. No need to vote on every single post and say: "I really don't think this deserves an upvote or downvote". You don't vote, we get it. Anyways, most people aren't going to see whether you voted on that post or not. Most votes are anonymous, unless said so in the comments.
The votes on a question is determined by the community. That means that you plus everyone else has decided to give the user's post x net votes. If you don't vote, that's fine. Just continue your life and move with it. Anyways, some people can't do that because they don't have the privilege to vote up and/or down.
You seem to have a lot of politics involved when making this request. This is not an election! We are not going to force you to vote. That's final, already applied, non-negotiable. You can argue with me and @James and anyone else. But that's final. No politics here and status-declined!