“While this thread has received a lot of bickering lately, really has not been many new votes.”
As someone one who has been a product team leader for a manufacturer, and who has helped monitor and moderate forum topics related to that product I have something to say about this part of the topic, and hopefully it will end the need for further discussion on voting. .
It’s almost entirely irrelevant except to the people who write the posts.
This is actually true of almost all “community” or social media systems whether it is Facebook or a forum such as this.
While I am not a FitBit representative, here is how I’ve seen these things work in the past from a service provider standpoint.
Voting is something almost entirely internal to a posting system. While it can be very helpful to the users of a forum, it is rarely important to the people who run it. Usually it’s only looked at in cases of large amounts of negative votes when making a decision about numerous complaints against an individual user.
I’m not saying voting isn’t important in some ways or not to use it at all, only that it isn’t always noticed that much to product development. By all means, if you find an answer to your question in a posting then vote “yes” to let others know what worked for you. That’s what it’s there for, to help everyone out who is reading for information they need, and a great way to let someone know you were helped by what you saw. It can also easily help separate user solutions from just user discussions.
Manufacturers look at “activity” about a subject to determine what’s important to the users of a product. This means that the more people talk about something the more important it will seem. Also the more often a similar thread is created after one is locked, the more it will seem that a problem still continues to be an issue.
They also look for possible solutions they may not have found for problems that are reported or considered important. Not always, but sometimes. So a forum becomes more than just a way to report bugs and see what’s on people’s minds.
Lastly they look for market research to show what interests people have and what features might go into newer products. If there is a lot of discussion about problems with swimming or golfing then they might tailor a product to those activities, perhaps being more water resistant, or showing GPS elevation info.
In the end though, voting is again mostly only important to the users of a forum. While it can show a better solution versus a less helpful one, it also makes people feel their voices were helpful to others. In some forums it can also help bump a users “member level” up, like getting experience points in a game. It just doesn’t usually change a product at all.
More likes rarely means means someone is better or more important.
If it was really that important, don’t you think someone would take the time to write and actually say how interesting it was?
Just somethng to consider.
Thanks for reading this rant rant and I hope you have a great day!
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