There were issues with moderators voting NO and not giving any reasons. Thus 'NO' votes require a private comment now. We realize this doesn't change much, but hope that it encourages some positive feedback for the Asset Issuers.
Probably worth explaining how this works for those not used to LTC-GLOBAL.
Anyone who owns 10 or more shares in LTC-GLOBAL is entitled to approve or disapprove of any current or proposed assets on the exchange. This shows up as a number next to the security - with NO votes counting as -2 and YES votes counting as +1. For a security to be tradable it has to get 5 YES votes (it used to be a NET of +4 - i.e. YES votes - 2*NO votes). In theory this means you have to satisfy those with an interest in the welbeing of the exchange before your security can be traded, In practice it hasn't quite worked like that - with securities getting NO votes with no explanation given (and assets with incomplete/unprofitable plans getting plenty of YES votes).
From my perspective it seems like votes are still largely based on "How much do they promise in dividends" rather than on any real assessment of whether the information provided indicates a business that's likely to do well. Luckily (also, from my perspective) the same lack of math skills carries across to investors - making day-trading rather easy.
The platform's great to use after GLBSE - it doesn't have the 3 main problems I experienced with GLBSE namely:
1. 5-20 seconds to load a page (if it loaded at all) - GLOBAL loads pretty quickly. There's some minor caching issues (e.g. main page showing all securities is cached - so can't be used to tell you promptly if you're outbid on any securities you've bid on)
2. An unresponsive developer - I PMed nefario about a potential issue with voting (votes counting after you'd transferred shares - allowing double-voting) and didn't even receive a reply. The issue, of course, then proved to actually be genuine and wasn't fixed right up until the site went offline. burnside responds promptly to all reports of issues (I've reported a fair few minor things) and fixes them promptly when warranted.
3. Funds being tied up for bids. This was a huge issue for me on GLBSE - I could only make total bids equal to my balance. GLOBAL lets you bid equal to your balance on EACH security - if one order is filled then orders you no longer have balance to cover get cancelled. I'd prefer if they were only partially cancelled (i.e. reduced to a quantity you could cover) but as it stands it's still a massive improvement on GLBSE. This adds liquidity to the market as well as convenience to people trying to trade and/or market-make.
Overall my experience of LTC-GLOBAL (which this new site uses same code-base from and has same operator) is very positive - both as a trader and as the manager of a very small asset (my fund has a market cap of about 6.5K LTC/30 BTC and isn't selling more units). I don't believe this particular change will actually have much impact - instead of no comments on NO votes we'll now just see "I don't like it" which has no more value. And, frankly, I expect 90% of people entitled to vote aren't competent to give a meaningful opinion anyway - which is true for just about any voting system (and saying so will likely get me another NO vote or 2).