Dennis_Reynoldsnot that you asked me or care about my opinion but I have a few valid reasons why voting should be brought back
Personally, voting made newschoolers seem more like a close knit community of people, having the ability to rate posts made ns feel more like people were actually reading your posts and giving feedback on what you had to say. Without the ability to vote, it takes away from that feeling of validation, like posts arnt as meaningful without votes because you can literally say anything. Posts become less thought out and less effort is put in because no one cares , therefore, the amount of shitposting will increase without votes.
Dennis has posted a lot of stupid stuff on this site (not news to anyone) but this is a quality post, and a post that exemplifies why having post voting is useful. If I could I would upvote this post, and so would many others, easily showing the mods the popularity of the opinion
Overall I'll give 3 quick reasons why I think voting is useful:
1. I love this site but don't have that much time to spend on it - between a full time job and actually playing sports, as much as I like browsing NS I don't actually have that much time to do so. Up/down voting helps me to see (along with other metrics) which threads might actually be worth reading, and beyond that which posts are worth reading once I'm in a thread if I'm just scanning. That matters to me and it improves the quality of my experience in the short amount of time I have because I end up reading better/more controversial content
2. Popular/unpopular opinions - I like to see what direction a thread is going in, and you can say people can just respond, but let's face it only a minority of people who view the thread will actually write a post, but allowing them to quickly chime in via a vote allows them to contribute an opinion and the overall popular vote to show through. I like to see what the popular opinion is, whether it's a new clothing company or why someone thinks tanner is a bad role model, I like to see what the majority thinks and be able to chime in myself. Many times I won't post because something similar has already been said, but at least I can quickly upvote that post as well
3. I'm a forum member, not a media member - I don't post videos or pictures, but I still feel like over the past 10 years I've made a relatively decent contribution to this site because I post on the forums. I post relevant and thought out posts, and my karma count reflects that. Without voting it wouldn't