Rule #2 is possibly our most important one:
Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here.
Learn to disagree without being rude or disrespectful.
It can be difficult sometimes, since western social media thrives on collective outrage, and they knowingly ingrain this into us for years. But please do adhere to this rule, and it will make this place much more enjoyable.
We will not hesitate to issue temp bans (usually a day or two) for those who make everyone’s experience unpleasant.Hit the report button if you see this behavior.
Thanks!
While I personally never downvote anyone for disagreeing, I don’t think it’s possible, or desirable, to try to create rules around how people use their preference buttons.
But I def suggest going into your settings and hiding vote scores, as that’s psychologically better for most people.
I was a big fan of seeing both the upvote and downvote numbers, just to know that there was someone out there who agreed with you even if your comment was unpopular to the particular community you were posting to. When Reddit removed that feature, I think it drove a lot more people crazy.
I also don’t think it’s possible to actually end mean-spirited disagreement in internet comment sections, but it’s a valuable thing to strive for as a value and emphasize, like you did in this post.
I think the same can be said for group-downvoting and stalking threads to downvote people based on what side they take without engaging with the substance of what is said. Minority viewpoints that add information are probably the most needed thing, and if anything I would say group downvoting is worse here than reddit on certain topics, unfortunately.
I think the attention spans are better here, and many/most things are better here but this is a sore spot.
We’ve kind of grown used to having terrible interactions on the internet, mainly because US big tech companies tacitly encourage it. They love rage-inducing content, because it keeps their users engaged, and spending more time on the site. We can def do better :)
Maybe not rules, but I think it is desirable to change how people think about it through UX.
Currently the downvote button is equivalent to upvote, just a casual thing you can do. If it’s meant to have a different meaning, it should look different.
I hope that’s a default. Is it default off?
Ya its off by default.
no but you censor and go even back in history to remove traces of an approved and upvoted comment to give a certain portrait of a user.
why are you actually providing this instance, really?