In our previous announcement, we announced that we closed downvotes.
Some people found it right, some people hated it, some people hesitated. At the end of the day, since we are on a disorganised platform like fediverse, I find the decision we took right. However, I was also annoyed by the lack of downvotes. So I searched for a solution.
I think the planned post flair support will be a good improvement in this regard. But it seems to take a long time to develop.
What do you think about limiting downvotes to only members of that community? I see it as the optimal way in the current situation.
Please vote with empathy, not just as a user, but assuming you are a poster user. Is it right decision?
Poll: https://strawpoll.com/DwyoDBooDnA
Result: done.
My problem with downvotes is that people are using downvotes to downvote that things they don’t like.
I have observed people heavily downvoting the following things:
This leads to
This is why I am in favor of disallowing downvotes.
Having upvotes is enough to determine which is “good” or “great” or even “bad” content in a community. Because the upvote count relative to other posts in the community tells how it was perceived by the community.
Having a more “targeted” home page may help people find things that they like instead of an endless stream of a big jumble of random content.
Reddit doesn’t have this problem because no one browses the entirety of NSFW content by new instead there is an “all” but even that had NSFW content removed from it. So really people are browsing only by the things they have subscribed to meaning if someone were to downvote a post they don’t like they would have to go out of their way to see it.
I mean…what did you think downvotes were for?
Downvotes should be reserved for things like spam, links that lead to malware, posts that are off-topic, etc. Things that mods would normally remove.
That’s why the report button exists.
Up- and downvoting are ment to be opinion based. You are supposed to upvote what you like and downvote what you don’t like. Things like spam, or other things that are against the rules are ment to be reported. The reason for this is that the report will reach a moderator, but a moderator has no way to automatically be notified whenever you downvote something.
Downvotes are for down-voting. The entire idea is to give feedback. You are positing that it’s only meant for cruft, when the entire is for unliked content, hence, a downvote.
If I show up in the thread and start posting puke pics, I expect downvotes being the compass to telling me where I’m not welcome.
You’re saying that all content should be welcome, unless it’s for the silo reference you mentioned. Disagree. If you’re being downvoted, this might not be your crowd. Your assertion certainly says so.
The problem is that people downvote from c/all, just because Joe Blow doesn’t like it, so content is buried that that specific community would like.
Hence, in the original comment, what seems to be your average straight guy seeing cocks and gay stuff will downvote, whereas people that subscribe to that community would enjoy it. I have niches that your average dude finds weird too, and I don’t want stuff I would like to be buried just because MOST people don’t want to see it.
Sure you can bring up that they should mute those communities, but everyone knows people just j/o and scroll and don’t bother doing anything other than one-tap or click feedback.
So limiting the downvote to people subscribed to that community makes a lot more sense. It makes sense overall now that I think about it. There is stuff I would downvote on my regular account if it’s posted in the wrong place that I would upvote if it was in the right place.
No.
It is like and dislike.
Stop trying to justify it as anything else.
Lots of people browsing all local communities probably downvoted posts in communities they weren’t members of. In especially more niche communities this can mean that the downvotes from people who aren’t in it can drown out the upvotes from people who are. Allowing only upvoting means that the number reflects who many people actually actively liked it
Edit: ah sorry, just read the comment from @[email protected] below and they said pretty much the same thing I did but better.