the problem with not having downvotes is when people don’t have the energy to voice their displeasure with something, they’re entirely robbed of their voice. The majority of users on any given platform would much rather just downvote something and move on, and it’s important that they have the ability to do so. Because if someone posts some dumb shit but no one’s got the energy to dispute them, the poster is never forced to realize that they said something stupid.
Removing downvotes could be argued as being ableist, in this regard. Some people just don’t have the mental energy to type out paragraphs to explain why something hurts them or is wrong. Some people simply can’t type, or use a voice to text. These users deserve a voice, no matter how small.
Go look at a place like hexbear and you’ll see why downvotes are important. People can post the most ridiculous liberal and imperialist or deviationist nonsense crap there and because there are no downvotes at most people use the inline image-memes at them and move on but that doesn’t hide their text or its position in the thread and in fact engagement of that kind often makes it look more important and stand out and if they’re engaging in liberalism or counterrevolutionary behavior that has wide support (among lurkers, trolls, etc) they could be upvoted to the top of a thread while actual effort replies are scattered among several comments none of which may get as many upvotes.
It allows a community to police itself, to silence problematic behavior without mods, to mark someone’s comment or post as bad without having to explain why. This is helpful to both seasoned comrades and newcomers who might be misled by something that on a site without downvotes (and full of people too tired to argue with every potential troll) has 9 upvotes but on a downvote enabled site would have 9 upvotes and 40 downvotes and thus be -31.
Downvotes are the answer to bad faith gish galloping debaters, trolls, and operatives seeking to disrupt.
That being said they can be used by those same groups which is why I think having a system that analyzes the signal to noise of downvote/upvotes, looks for those who consistently downvote things the rest of the community upvotes and and starts weighting their downvotes to only count every fifth time or something like that. But it’s a minor issue as long as you have good moderation and an active community.
Edit: You could remove downvotes and prevent the infiltration of liberalism and deviation by having very vicious moderation and bannings tossed out for so much as glancing at others wrong too many times BUT downvotes are better because they’re soft moderation.
They don’t remove someone with one bad take (or a few) permanently from a community but allow people to grow while showing that they’re clearly at odds with the community which may cause a reassessment of their incorrect ideas (peer pressure from the community writ large versus a faceless moderator who is easily dismissed as a fed, an uneducated person, a singular person with an agenda, etc). You still need bannings but it’s kind of a soft moderation system that nudges posters rather than going straight to banning and it gives legitimacy to the moderators. If someone has been downvoted repeatedly and is then banned, well the community clearly stands behind the mods in that they’ve repeatedly shown this person is posting bad.
If the mods just go around banning people for their interpretation of behavior that would normally be resolved via downvoting then you get drama, claims of persecution, of moderator misconduct, of witch hunts, threats that the punished represent some portion of the community and must be given voice to air their grievances (something which cannot be debunked as without downvotes you can’t know how much of the community agrees vs disagrees). Which can also spiral into actual moderator abuse and excess because of the latitude granted and the perceived mandate to keep spaces clean of any whiff of liberalism, reaction, or ultra-ism which would normally be kept in check with downvotes.
So, are downvotes perfect? No. But I think they’re better than the alternative of not having them.
You see other negative aspects of downvoting in the way lazy raiders from other instances will downvote bomb people they have individual issues with or whole threads.
I’ve noticed trans positive posts and anti-racist post getting downvoted. You’re the voting system is letting bigots hide
I agree. I think it could encourage people to comment when they disagree with something rather than just downvoting. IIRC they removed it on Hexbear, too
On hexbear people rarely offer substantive rebuttals to bad points. They use inline image memes/gifs and move on. Which doesn’t actually debunk the point and might leave some lurker thinking “huh they have a good point, people don’t like it but they won’t say why so they must have no rebuttals”. And that doesn’t create a good culture. That’s a discord culture of memeing and that becomes expected. It doesn’t show dissent, it distorts views. Because you have like 8 reactionaries, liberals, ultras, or whatever upvoting their point, then a bunch of people, maybe 6 posting reaction memes in the comments that disagree but that 8 number next to it looks a lot more approving and impactful than those reaction comments downthread.
Really bad illustration for your point but an excellent one for mine which is while people claim and hope this will happen. Guess what? The people who have the knowledge and time to do replies get burned out. There are more bad faith people out there with money, time, etc than there are communists who have the time to bat down every single new reincarnation of propaganda, a lie, ultra behavior, etc.
This is why a lot of new learner spaces are heavily moderated. Because bad faith actors come in, use certain tactics and aim to burden, overwhelm, and burn out the regular users so they don’t have a chance to interact with genuine good faith new learners.
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the problem with not having downvotes is when people don’t have the energy to voice their displeasure with something, they’re entirely robbed of their voice. The majority of users on any given platform would much rather just downvote something and move on, and it’s important that they have the ability to do so. Because if someone posts some dumb shit but no one’s got the energy to dispute them, the poster is never forced to realize that they said something stupid.
Removing downvotes could be argued as being ableist, in this regard. Some people just don’t have the mental energy to type out paragraphs to explain why something hurts them or is wrong. Some people simply can’t type, or use a voice to text. These users deserve a voice, no matter how small.
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This is very much why I’m in favor of downvotes.
Go look at a place like hexbear and you’ll see why downvotes are important. People can post the most ridiculous liberal and imperialist or deviationist nonsense crap there and because there are no downvotes at most people use the inline image-memes at them and move on but that doesn’t hide their text or its position in the thread and in fact engagement of that kind often makes it look more important and stand out and if they’re engaging in liberalism or counterrevolutionary behavior that has wide support (among lurkers, trolls, etc) they could be upvoted to the top of a thread while actual effort replies are scattered among several comments none of which may get as many upvotes.
It allows a community to police itself, to silence problematic behavior without mods, to mark someone’s comment or post as bad without having to explain why. This is helpful to both seasoned comrades and newcomers who might be misled by something that on a site without downvotes (and full of people too tired to argue with every potential troll) has 9 upvotes but on a downvote enabled site would have 9 upvotes and 40 downvotes and thus be -31.
Downvotes are the answer to bad faith gish galloping debaters, trolls, and operatives seeking to disrupt.
That being said they can be used by those same groups which is why I think having a system that analyzes the signal to noise of downvote/upvotes, looks for those who consistently downvote things the rest of the community upvotes and and starts weighting their downvotes to only count every fifth time or something like that. But it’s a minor issue as long as you have good moderation and an active community.
Edit: You could remove downvotes and prevent the infiltration of liberalism and deviation by having very vicious moderation and bannings tossed out for so much as glancing at others wrong too many times BUT downvotes are better because they’re soft moderation.
They don’t remove someone with one bad take (or a few) permanently from a community but allow people to grow while showing that they’re clearly at odds with the community which may cause a reassessment of their incorrect ideas (peer pressure from the community writ large versus a faceless moderator who is easily dismissed as a fed, an uneducated person, a singular person with an agenda, etc). You still need bannings but it’s kind of a soft moderation system that nudges posters rather than going straight to banning and it gives legitimacy to the moderators. If someone has been downvoted repeatedly and is then banned, well the community clearly stands behind the mods in that they’ve repeatedly shown this person is posting bad.
If the mods just go around banning people for their interpretation of behavior that would normally be resolved via downvoting then you get drama, claims of persecution, of moderator misconduct, of witch hunts, threats that the punished represent some portion of the community and must be given voice to air their grievances (something which cannot be debunked as without downvotes you can’t know how much of the community agrees vs disagrees). Which can also spiral into actual moderator abuse and excess because of the latitude granted and the perceived mandate to keep spaces clean of any whiff of liberalism, reaction, or ultra-ism which would normally be kept in check with downvotes.
So, are downvotes perfect? No. But I think they’re better than the alternative of not having them.
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I’ve noticed trans positive posts and anti-racist post getting downvoted.
You’rethe voting system is letting bigots hidedeleted by creator
Not you, the voting system
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Insert navy seal copypasta
I agree. I think it could encourage people to comment when they disagree with something rather than just downvoting. IIRC they removed it on Hexbear, too
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I do like upvotes, though
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it do be nice
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Just in case you didn’t know, you can hide the scores in your account settings. (I feel weird hiding them, but you might have a stronger mind than I)
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On hexbear people rarely offer substantive rebuttals to bad points. They use inline image memes/gifs and move on. Which doesn’t actually debunk the point and might leave some lurker thinking “huh they have a good point, people don’t like it but they won’t say why so they must have no rebuttals”. And that doesn’t create a good culture. That’s a discord culture of memeing and that becomes expected. It doesn’t show dissent, it distorts views. Because you have like 8 reactionaries, liberals, ultras, or whatever upvoting their point, then a bunch of people, maybe 6 posting reaction memes in the comments that disagree but that 8 number next to it looks a lot more approving and impactful than those reaction comments downthread.
Really bad illustration for your point but an excellent one for mine which is while people claim and hope this will happen. Guess what? The people who have the knowledge and time to do replies get burned out. There are more bad faith people out there with money, time, etc than there are communists who have the time to bat down every single new reincarnation of propaganda, a lie, ultra behavior, etc.
This is why a lot of new learner spaces are heavily moderated. Because bad faith actors come in, use certain tactics and aim to burden, overwhelm, and burn out the regular users so they don’t have a chance to interact with genuine good faith new learners.