Question: are the demoted ars members being replaced?

No, we already have a bunch of ars still and managers, so we don't need to appoint more. We only had so many cause of ndoom anyways.

Secondly the administration team ( Deep, Netham and me ( Eeems ) ) have decided that while the voting system is nice, downvoting has caused too much controversy in the past due to people not understanding how it is suppose to be used. Because of this we have decided to remove the downvote option. Now you can only upvote posts.

I personally think this is the wrong way to go. Members cannot be "slapped on the wrist" anymore for saying something they probably shouldn't have, and in the mind of the poster, there is less reprisal for saying potentially insulting or disrespectful posts. It's not going to ease hard feeling, but more increase them as now, a major part of the control factor on those kinds of posts is now gone. Also, all a regular member can do now is report a post or respond to it. With the downvote, a member could just rate down, feel better and then walk away. Now, they'd have to report the post or respond to (and feed) the troll which would potentially leave dissatisfaction, and thus, more drama. Ultimately, the downvote system was an important control on disrespectful and trolling posts and now that it's removed, the only true formal punishment that can be given is either a ban or suspension. And only a moderator or admin can do that, and the regular member can only point out the posts, but can't do anything directly to them. It's only going to increase drama and unresolved issues. That, I already foresee.
 
I also want to bring up the fact that, while you guys are the managers of the website, this came entirely out of the blue and was made without any sort of discussion on it by the community as a whole. (Or at least none that I have seen) I think that for major site changes like this one, the community should be notified and allowed to offer their own opinions and suggestions, because what if it's something the managers think is a good idea, but the community by and large is against? Also, you are also cutting out a lot of other valid outside opinions on the matter. Basically, I think there should have been a news poll thread suggesting the idea before it was agreed upon and implemented.

Yeah, I think removing the downvotes were discussed in a thread a while ago.

I personally think this is the wrong way to go. Members cannot be "slapped on the wrist" anymore for saying something they probably shouldn't have, and in the mind of the poster, there is less reprisal for saying potentially insulting or disrespectful posts. It's not going to ease hard feeling, but more increase them as now, a major part of the control factor on those kinds of posts is now gone. Also, all a regular member can do now is report a post or respond to it. With the downvote, a member could just rate down, feel better and then walk away. Now, they'd have to report the post or respond to (and feed) the troll which would potentially leave dissatisfaction, and thus, more drama. Ultimately, the downvote system was an important control on disrespectful and trolling posts and now that it's removed, the only true formal punishment that can be given is either a ban or suspension. And only a moderator or admin can do that, and the regular member can only point out the posts, but can't do anything directly to them. It's only going to increase drama and unresolved issues. That, I already foresee.
 
I also want to bring up the fact that, while you guys are the managers of the website, this came entirely out of the blue and was made without any sort of discussion on it by the community as a whole. (Or at least none that I have seen) I think that for major site changes like this one, the community should be notified and allowed to offer their own opinions and suggestions, because what if it's something the managers think is a good idea, but the community by and large is against? Also, you are also cutting out a lot of other valid outside opinions on the matter. Basically, I think there should have been a news poll thread suggesting the idea before it was agreed upon and implemented.

There's been extensive discussion on the matter, a large part of which has been public on the forums in various threads (mainly the ones where members 'rage', so to speak, about being downvoted). While there hasn't been much drama due to it recently, historically it's been rather problematic.

As far as the community at large being against it, as far as I can recall, you're the only person to really speak out against it, with most others being neutral or for it.

Well done to qwerty and shmibs! You guys will do a great job.
So we can unvote upvotes but is it still possible to unvote existing downvotes?

Ah ok then. Then it seems that i mostly agree with the up/down move though the option of scaring people/trolls to pay attention to their posts is greatly reduced. Other than that, it's fine and simplifies things

Well, in some way, although I am not on Facebook, I noticed it didn't have an dislike.
Although this can be pretty annoying, you are basically sure it would get abused, especially on a big social network.
(Imagine Justin Bieber says something 'normal'. You can be almost sure it will have many dislikes, just because many people hate or dislike him.)

And if abuse starts happening on this forum, I can understand why this has been done. I think rating system's purpose is to show to new people, for example, who is a good/intellegent/serious/etc.. person. If someone has low ratings(and has been here already a while) they can guess that that person doesn't come a lot on the forum or doesn't have so many important/good/special posts.(or even is a troll). Then the newbie can know who to ask a question to, and almost know he can get rightaway a good answer to.

And I guess if I think a post needs a downrating, I'll just not uprate it, and probably give a post describing what I think is wrong with it. In that way, the person who got downrated, will understand what he did wrong a LOT better I think, if he instead would just have got a downrating(with possibly not even a post describing what he did wrong).

So yeah, I guess I don't mind it.

Congrats to both Shmibs and Qwerty on their new positions. =)

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Secondly the administration team ( Deep, Netham and me ( Eeems ) ) have decided that while the voting system is nice, downvoting has caused too much controversy in the past due to people not understanding how it is suppose to be used. Because of this we have decided to remove the downvote option. Now you can only upvote posts.

I personally think this is the wrong way to go. Members cannot be "slapped on the wrist" anymore for saying something they probably shouldn't have, and in the mind of the poster, there is less reprisal for saying potentially insulting or disrespectful posts. It's not going to ease hard feeling, but more increase them as now, a major part of the control factor on those kinds of posts is now gone. Also, all a regular member can do now is report a post or respond to it. With the downvote, a member could just rate down, feel better and then walk away. Now, they'd have to report the post or respond to (and feed) the troll which would potentially leave dissatisfaction, and thus, more drama. Ultimately, the downvote system was an important control on disrespectful and trolling posts and now that it's removed, the only true formal punishment that can be given is either a ban or suspension. And only a moderator or admin can do that, and the regular member can only point out the posts, but can't do anything directly to them. It's only going to increase drama and unresolved issues. That, I already foresee.
 
I also want to bring up the fact that, while you guys are the managers of the website, this came entirely out of the blue and was made without any sort of discussion on it by the community as a whole. (Or at least none that I have seen) I think that for major site changes like this one, the community should be notified and allowed to offer their own opinions and suggestions, because what if it's something the managers think is a good idea, but the community by and large is against? Also, you are also cutting out a lot of other valid outside opinions on the matter. Basically, I think there should have been a news poll thread suggesting the idea before it was agreed upon and implemented.

Well, our mod team and staff are pretty active, so we tend to stay on top of things. If I personally notice a member out of line I will usually politely mention to them what is wrong with their post. Sometimes myself(or other staff) will PM them. Even if you don't see these things, you can rest assured that they are being taken care of. As you pointed out their is also and "Report" button if a post or person is really out of line. When this is the case, I usually see at least 5 people report it (and thanks, we appreciate it ). It gets forwarded to staff and we are able to handle it in a timely manner. The downvote isn't really necessary, as there are quite a few checks in place already.