My wonderful co-admin @supakaity@lemmy.blahaj.zone has made a modification to the downvote system. It’s not currently enabled, but if we were to turn it on, downvotes would be available for use, but they would weigh 5 times less than an upvote.
Which is to say, it would take 5 downvotes to counter an upvote. This would let downvotes have an impact on what appears in the hot topics sort, but hopefully mitigate some of the more negative impacts of downvoting.
Are there any strong objections from Blahaj Lemmy users to enabling downvotes with this modification?
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I think that is a fair system! I still want the option to throw a downvote if something really needs it - but it keeps brigading or shit from happening.
i think thats a v good idea c: i am like very new here but i think that’d effectively help limit/prevent people mass downvoting something, i think it’d provide a space for healthy disagreements
Is it possible to have no downvotes on Blahaj, but do have downvotes on federated communities?
This would give Blahaj users the same perception of federated communities as other instances have and give us a safe space in Blahaj. It also means we can sort federated communities like normal and see what everyone else sees, while still having downvotes nonexistent in Blahaj communities.
I’ve never really wanted downvotes in Blahaj, but I’ve worried about not having them for other instances. It feels like I’m not on a “level playing field” when I can be downvoted by others on a federated communities, but can’t downvote anything myself. I’m also worried that with downvotes = 1/5, it would result in a skewed perspective of federated communities if Blahaj sorts federated communities that way too.
I don’t know what the code looks like (yet?) but I feel like denying downvotes only on local communities wouldn’t be a hard change to make.
Edit: I also wouldn’t mind if downvotes were 1/5 on Blahaj but 1=1 on federated communities, but I can see that being a harder change to make.
Edit 2: if this is a straightforward change I wouldn’t mind implementing it when I have time. I have some familiarity with Rust, TS, and JS so it wouldn’t be difficult to jump into.
i like this idea!! it seems like a good way to counteract downvote spams while still having a way to express dislike
Totally fine with this, but I’m curious how weights/disabling downvotes works? Like does the 5:1 downvotes weight apply to downvotes everywhere, even on other instances that have normal weights? Or is it just for communities that are hosted on blahaj.zone?
This would be a global change to the way our instance displays downvotes. Anywhere downvotes would apply, they would still apply, but with 5 times less weight.
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone it’s global and it would display on our instance like:
Score: 4.2. Upvotes: 5. Downvotes: 4
Other instances’ “hot ranking” is unaffected by our change and they are free to rank and score up and down votes however they please.
Would this mean we see the actual number of upvotes & downvotes just with downvotes counting for less in the rankings? Or would that “downvote” displayed also be 1/5th of the real number?
Would it be possible to enable this at the topic level but not the comment level? My thinking is that it makes sense for helping users decide what posts to read in the first place, but would still discourage low-effort negativity that doesn’t actually contribute to a discussion.
But even if the answer to that is “no”… I don’t strongly object to trying this out and seeing how it works for this community. 🙂 If de-weighted downvotes still lead to problems, the change could always be reverted. Thank you for exploring the options!
Would it be possible to enable this at the topic level but not the comment level?
That’s actually a really good idea, and it addresses most of my concerns with the downvote system. However, I have no idea what is involved in making that happen in the backend, and don’t want to throw even more work at @supakaity :)
So, looking at the Lemmy code it seems pretty straightforward (like, really straightforward. There’s two checks, one for comments and one for posts, so just make them use different functions). I can try doing it, maybe even propose it as a PR upstream. Might take me a day or two for a PR though.
If it’s straightforward, I’d Very much support this!
If you don’t end up making the PR I’m down to go check it out. If you do make the PR, link it so I can go give my support for it lol.
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/pull/3063 it got denied, and it’s incomplete, but if you want to base yourself off of this I’m all for it.
Ah that’s a shame, although I understand where they’re coming from being wary of complicating settings for the front-end. Either way I’ll look into it a bit when I can get to my PC and see if there’s still any hope for it lol.
Regardless of what happens with it, I appreciate you making the PR!
This sounds way better than disabling downvotes completely. This would probably be a fair compromise between downvotes killing posts too easily and allowing bad/low-quality posts to rise.
Weighted downvotes are a good idea. No objections from me
Sounds like a really good compromise. “Rediquette” says it’s only to discourage spam and posts that add nothing to the conversation, but in practice, basically everyone uses it as an “I disagree” button. Gets used as a tool to discourage dissent and silence the actual unpopular opinions.
This is the big thing I hate about downvotes on Reddit. Instead of downvotes, people who disagree should make a comment about it, and then THAT comment can get upvoted to show that people disagree with the original comment. It encourages conversation and discourages echo-chambers where people are punished for having a different opinion.
go for it
i like it! downvotes are too strong for how they’re often used, and this seems like a great compromise.
I think this is a really good idea. That said I think it’s important to revisit this at some point and determine how it alters the vibe relative to other instances. A post with equal upvotes/downvotes would be hid in one system and platformed in another. Unfortunately there are lots of awful takes (read transphobia) that could easily reach a 50/50 split. In particular, I think this may become an issue when we inevitably see a conservative corner of lemmy rise up.
Transphobia won’t reach anyone. I have zero tolerance for it, even the “just asking questions” sort. I will remove anything even hinting at transphobia, and ban/suspend anyone whose intentions I doubt.
based as fuck moderator
