I mean there is a small part of me that feels rejected when I see downvotes. Another small part that is paranoid that someone is following me and downvoting me just out of spite. And the remainder uses it as an opportunity to reflect on what I said to see if either I could have worded it better or to rethink my position on whatever it was I wrote.
My only complaint is that people (myself included, I’ll admit) don’t always leave a comment to why they downvoted. I get it. The culture isn’t always conducive to a good faith discussion/disagreement. But it should be.
People should be safe to disagree with me. In fact, let me put it out there right now:
I will never put you down for coming at me with a good faith disagreement of opinions about anything I say.
I only downvote spam, hate, factually incorrect, and other nonconstructive content. It’s my personal opinion that the down vote is to be reserved for content that ought to be removed from the platform. A post showing effort and Goodwill is always worth the vote to me.
I would hope that moderators would police spam voting. The problem is sure to get worse in the future.
Why should you change your opinion just because people disagree? Do you trust randos on lemmy who are likely tankie trolls more than yourself to form an opinion?
Because I like to consider myself open-minded and amenable to the idea that I do not know everything, and I can be wrong on occasion. I also like to hear people out and if possible, learn something I didn’t know. Do I always change my mind? No. But if someone gives me good enough reason, I will likely look up their side of things and if necessary, reform my opinion based on new facts.
I have seen some mods ban swathes of users with excessively negative voting records, encouraging them to curate their feed instead. I think the ratios were closer to 95% downvotes than the 2:1 you suggest, but the example stands. :)
In my initial consideration of this problem I was thinking just ban the users, but that doesn't feel like the best solution to me. I think that not allowing users to pass that 2:1 ratio in the first place is a better solution for everyone. Also, as I'm sure you understand, the exact ratio is less important than the idea of limiting downvote predominant users.
It's sadly frustrating because it discourages opposing opinions. I always try to upvote the things that make me want to respond. Whether it's something I can add to or something I disagree with, I'll only downvote when something is obviously spam or deliberately inflammatory without adding to the conversation.
Putting your finger on the upvote/downvote scale in any way amounts to censoring the community's collective voice. If the intention is to create an open, impartial forum for discussion and community interaction, then no such action should be taken.
Enforcing a "positive" trend in voting might create the façade of a seemingly friendlier community, but not a genuinely friendlier one. It might also create toxic positivity.
I don't agree with OPs idea, but this assertion really bugs me.
Putting your finger on the upvote/downvote scale in any way amounts to censoring the community’s collective voice.
This is true, but lemmy is awash with people, bots, and other bad actors doing exactly this.
It would only be a reason not to take action if the existing system were free from such interactions.
I'm not advocating manipulating votes. I just wish everyone were more aware that vote manipulation is happening and it heavily influences the general opinion of lemmy.
If the intention is to create an open, impartial forum for discussion and community interaction, then no such action should be taken.
If ensuring that users can't predominantly give negative feedback violates your understanding of the intention, surely the existence of moderators does as well.
I'll just quote from my other comment:
Censorship is sometimes necessary (the classic example of yelling “fire!” in a theater) but always problematic. It should never be implemented in blanket policies but only in specific cases to drive specific outcomes (not to create a generally more positive atmosphere) - hence moderation and reporting.
And from just a moment ago:
YIj54yALOJxEsY20eU@lemm.ee >The existence of moderators suggests we can’t be trusted to say anything we want.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub > The existence of moderators suggests that moderating conversation between humans requires contextual, circumstantial, individual and specific decision-making. That is, it requires human attention on each instance rather than broad conversation-affecting policies.
Do you think users that contribute downvotes more than anything add to the community interaction and help create open discussions? I personally think they inhibit that and discourage others from sharing. This is a limit that practically should not be reached by any good faith users, so I do not anticipate a net negative effect.
Do you think users that contribute downvotes more than anything add to the community interaction and help create open discussions? I personally think they inhibit that and discourage others from sharing.
It really doesn't matter what I think, or what you think, about such users, because any such opinion could only be a generalization, and therefore not a good basis for making policy decisions.
I do not anticipate a net negative effect.
I don't think you're putting enough thought into unintended consequences. Censorship is sometimes necessary (the classic example of yelling "fire!" in a theater) but always problematic. It should never be implemented in blanket policies but only in specific cases to drive specific outcomes (not to create a generally more positive atmosphere) - hence moderation and reporting.
If you were to implement a policy like this, what you are doing is saying to the entire community, "I don't trust you to express your opinions without guardrails, and so I am putting this filter on you to adjust them." It's a very parental idea, it seems motivated by a desire to control the conversation on a broad scale.
I think I should down vote this.
Twice.
I suggested once, that in order to downvote, we add a little effort into the process (same could be done for upvoting in my opinion so it doesn't come across as unbalancing things) like making people type in a description of why, or even do like a captcha for the downvote to register. You would have thought I suggested personally beating their grandmother with a lead pipe.
I know people got superheated with my idea, but in my opinion this can be a mental health issue for some and it's worth discussing, not just crapping on. It just seems way too easy to do a driveby downvote brigade. If something is truly that bad, then people shouldn't be too troubled by putting in just a little bit of extra effort to downvote it, and the truly bad posts will still get what they deserve if that's what people think they are doing with this.
Blajah doesn't have downvotes, so I cannot downvote anything and also can't see when I'm down voted. I've found that this is essential to getting out of the Reddit-type mind hive because I'm a weak person who is easily swayed by the opinion of others. I finally feel free to actually speak my mind and absolutely recommend it to others.
I would have no problem if it was a setting toggle on Lemmy. But personally I like truths even if they are uncomfortable.
I disagree. It doesn't matter to me if it is bots or grumpy users dow voting. I think the overall benefit of having them treated the same out weighs negatives of abuse. It adds value to the masses vs enabling the individual, yep it comes with feeling bad but that is life. Pushes quality of posts and discussion, some post truly don't deserve a retort only a downvote. Got to be fair and fair includes the ugly.
I'm not actually sure what point you are making, I am not suggesting we eliminate downvotes.
I am glad you understand that this is unpopular.
I get the idea behind this, people who are negative for the sake of being negative are a blight, but there shouldn't really be a hard-line rule. Sometimes you just find yourself in a thread of the fediverse full of awful comments, not just things you disagree with, but things that are racist/sexist/transphobic/homophobic.
I know that I've gone into comment sections where I've handed out dozens of downvotes, though I also reported most of those same comments. I wouldn't want to have a little pop-up that says "sorry, you can't downvote in this thread until you upvote twice as many".
A global count, not post specific.
I still think there might be issues with people who just don't generally upvote, but run into the same type of awful comment section.
If the goal is to discourage trolling, all they would need to do is create a community where a bot posts 100s of comments, and you just go and upvote them all. It would be easier to vote sow.
I continue to advocate for emoji responses to posts. This would free votes to represent "interest value" for ranking, yet still allow for expressing agreement, disagreement, appreciation of a joke, etc, while minimizing low-value, low-effort responses meant to express the same thing. Like "This!".
Nostr does that
I think any voting system can be abused or gamed. Reddit's system created karma-whores. YouTube sucks without downvotes. I have seen game forums with emote voting systems that were abused a bit.
That being said, it would be nice to see something new on Lemmy, to distinguish it from other platforms and maybe promote engagement, something that benefits both positive and negative voting.
I assume y'all are downvoting this post because you think its a popular opinion :P
If not, do you think users should be able to contribute nothing but downvotes to the platform, or do you disagree with my methodology of limiting these users?
Since finding out that that the .ml instance has a discord that they coordinate attacks from, I definitely think something like this should be Implemented.
How would this help? They probably already upvote some comments.
Votes aren't even federated? Vote totals are for the instance you're viewing the post on only.
Edit : or maybe that's just reduces, or a mbin thing. Hard to keep up with the technical side of all of this.
Downvotes absolutely suck. And that's why some users are so attached to them. Part of the culture that evolved on reddit was that if anyone even mentioned downvotes some people downvoted them "on principle". I have seen people argue that without downvotes upvotes are meaningless. I think that really people like downvotes because it's the nearest most non-technical users can get to reaching through the screen and punching another user.
Absolutely, I agree that upvotes dont mean much without downvotes. My solution actually makes downvotes more meaningful. It ensures the downvotes are from someone who engages in the community, rather than a troll.
I kinda like this idea
Forums that don't allow downvoting at all can be interesting. It removes both the wisdom of the crowd (for quickly muting the idiots) but also removes the petty spiteful downvoters. In my experience this approach can work OK if there are mods banning people for repeat/egregious offenses. Of course moderation is a whole other thing.
Anyway, I don't know if your idea would work long term but it could be fun to try it out in individual communities that want to try the rule, or do it one day a week.
While I tend to agree, I think there is a bigger issue in trying to condense a range of reactions into fivw options (no action, up vote, down vote, public comment, direct comment).
Upvote for taking effort to add content.
Only allowing downvotes after so many upvotes would help stop trolls and could help generate more engagement via upvotes.
I strongly doubt this. I suspect it would make downvotes seem like something you 'earned' the right to spend, leading to more downvoting.
I considered this and definitely think it would apply. Though, I guess I think it would still point us in a net positive direction.
still point us in a net positive direction.
🥁🥁🔔
I just don't really think there's a need to regulate something that has no effect or impact.
If I get a couple down votes 🤷 someone disagrees, or is an idiot. If I get more than a couple it's a good opportunity to think about how I could be clearer or how I might be out of step with popular opinion.
Have you tried using an app that lets you hide the votes, such as Jerboa?
I still value seeing downvotes, just not from users who predominantly downvote stuff.
A study that sticks in my mind is that negative comments outweigh positive comments in how they are felt by the receivers. What is perceived as balanced is a ratio of one negative comment to five positive comments. Do downvotes have the same weight as comments? IDK, but I without the feedback of comments, there isn't much to base anything on. I get attacked in droves if I comment about anything Russian. We clearly do not see events through the same lens.
Should be tied to comments. If you don’t comment, you don’t get a vote either way.
