If we had a YouTube-like button system where the comment gets deleted if it has too many negative votes, it would save time for moderators so they don't have to spend valuable time on comments page, as they can't be on every game at once. But say a comment receives like 250+ good votes, the commentor gets a merit.
If all you have is a 'like' button (no 'dislike' button) it kinda goes without saying that if you don't like something, you just won't click the 'like' button, and it will keep people from ganging up on another user they don't like.
Allowing a 'dislike' button can create the 'cyber-bully' effect that someone else mentioned earlier. Comments on Slashdot/Digg/Engadget/etc get buried simply because people gang up on a particular user, which is something we'd want to avoid.
Took both from cormyn. And there was a thumbs up system before but it was removed and who got a lot of votes got a merit.
Yes, and the like-to-merit system got heavily abused, so it was removed. Plus it didn't perform very well because of the way the original developer made the web site.
