Downvotes suck. I get it, they are made up internet points coming from strangers (or bots) that you know nothing about, and you shouldn’t let that get you down. Still, putting in a few minutes of effort to share your opinion and engage with the community just to see a downvote is disheartening.
Based on the patterns of downvotes I see on a post, it seems like there is usually one or two people downvoting everything they wouldn’t personally say themselves. Extrapolating from this, I presume there is a population of users that contribute more downvotes than anything.
Personally, I don’t think the platform should allow any user to spend more time tearing things down than building other things up. Only allowing downvotes after so many upvotes would help stop trolls and could help generate more engagement via upvotes.
Edit:
The upvote/downvote count would be a global count including posts and comments, not a post specific count. This solution does not prevent downvoting, it merely adds friction to those who predominantly leave negative feedback by ensuring their positive feedback elsewhere. Sure, some would go on to upvote unsavory things, but others would attempt to further engage with their interests, and some would simply lurk.
If any good faith user approached the limitation, they would likely be better served by curating their feed.
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.
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 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.
Removed by mod
what do you mean with this comment
Pretty sure I was making a wording related home but I forgot what I wrote
Oh well
Edit oh I remember, it was relating how mods demand “positive” behavior, to the misogynistic phrase “smile more” normally directed at a woman, from a power wielding man trying to elicit a response
It’s funny that I got deleted while literally calling out bad behavior but hey, their house, their rules
Edit edit a user has the up and downvote buttons. If a board doesn’t like that, they should change visibility. I believe beehaw does
removal reason:
Rule 2: Specifically, the comment is somewhat sexist/misogynistic with no indication it’s tongue-in-cheek.
See my edit. I wasn’t proclaiming that statement myself I was calling out behavior that was like it
Edit using that statement was an illustrative point, not a personally held position.
Ensuring users can’t only leave negative feedback has nothing to do with sexual harassment. I can see the contrived connection you made after reading the explanation but it was not nearly strong enough to leave that comment without context. Even with context it’s merely an inappropriate connection.
It’s creepy as fuck for mods to chase people around demanding a mood. Vote how you see fit
That’s why I made a connection to otherwise creepy behavior
Edit also meh, I had it in quotes, which in casual usage makes clear I’m referencing someone else. We don’t quote any normal sentences
yeah that’s lowkey creepy and you didn’t express what you “meant” well at all. i see why they removed it.
edit: sorry mods for feeding this user. this was shitty of me.
My bad for them not using the critical thinking to get the context. Context takes time in text and they have lots of stuff to do.
Edit it should be clear that a mod saying “upvote more (downvote less)” is the connection to “smile more”
Should a person not be free to go to a conservative board, not break rules, and simply vote as you see fit? Lots of trash on those boards
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.
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.
I think I should down vote this.
Twice.
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 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!”.
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.
I think any voting system can be abused or gamed. Reddit’s system created karma-removed. 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.
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.
If each user has to upvote 2 comments for every down vote, they would be forced to actually up engagement elsewhere when attempting to brigade campaign users.
Down votes not counting unless paired with a reply could also significantly slow them down.
Just upvote a few comments that align with your position.
Aren’t they already leaving comments and mass upvoting those when they are brigading? This solution does not necessarily help brigades nor any really determined people, it merely adds more friction to those who predominantly downvote at the cost of them engaging elsewhere.
Very good point.
Clearly we need a multifaceted solution, though I’m not sure what the solution is. I do believe that the .ml instance is the cause Lemmy hasn’t taken off the way we had hoped, and defederation should be discussed, but I think those same users will just rebound to a different instance and destroy the community there.
In general, I think slowing them down might be a good starting point before the more nuclear options are broached though.
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.
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?
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.
This is true, but if you care about the platform enough to attempt to steer the direction of the content (away from hate), you should be upvoting the content that brings value to your life.
As for bots, thats a higher level issue the mods/devs already have to deal with.
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.
