I ‘upvote’ more or less all posts I interact with (sometimes I forget to vote). I feel like we should bring back open dialogues and heavily dissuade people from simply disregarding someone’s entire belief system or ideals based on 200 characters of text (an example).
Think about one person in your life who you first thought was a complete asshole and once you got to know them they were pretty cool, maybe you became best friends with them. The point is, judging a person based on a minute snippet in time is a fool’s errand, and your own state of mind contributes a lot to your own judgement of people. Your next thought might be, well they have a history of x, y AND z, so they deserve every bit of judgement coming their way! I would ask you, why? Are you not simply fueling further hatred, vitriol and division? So instead of stopping for a moment and thinking about the world from someone else’s perspective, you’d rather just spit out some more hatred and move on like that person doesn’t exist?
I would love to see some solution to the shitty state of the Internet. I only say Internet because for the most part this doesn’t happen in real life in my experience. I think it has to do with consequences and social sigma and so on. I reckon it would be pretty awesome if there was something like the following:
- all upvotes are free range, people can give out upvotes like they were candy
- downvotes come at a “cost”, whereby if you want to downvote someone you have to reply directly to them with some justification, say minimum number of characters, words, etc.
In an ideal world, and setup, this would help raise positivity in the world and have people at the very least have a second thought before being negative.
Yes I understand there would be flaws, I’ve worked with and used computers for a long time, I know. I chose not to delve deep into those as I feel that would defeat the purpose of the message I’m trying to convey. And, you know, lead by example.
What do ya’ll think? Any suggestions to boost positivity in the world, I’m all ears, smash them and any other thoughts in the comments.
downvotes come at a “cost”, whereby if you want to downvote someone you have to reply directly to them with some justification, say minimum number of characters, words, etc.
I think it’s the complete opposite. Platforms with downvotes tend to be less toxic because you don’t have to reply to insane people to tell them they’re wrong, whereas platforms like Twitter get really toxic because you only see the likes, so people tend to get into fights and “ratio” them which actually increases the attention they get and spreads their message to other people.
In general, platforms without upvotes/downvotes tend to be the most toxic imo. Platforms like old-school forums and 4chan are a complete mess because low-effort troll content is as loud as high effort thoughtful ones. It takes one person to de-rail a conversation and get people to fight about something else, but with downvotes included you just lower their visibility. It’s basically crowdsourced moderation, and it works relatively well.
As for ways to reduce toxicity, shrug. Moderation is the only thing that really stops it but if you moderate too much then you’ll be called out for censoring people too much, and telling them not to get mad is just not going to happen.
My idea for less toxicity is having better filtering options for things people want to see. Upon joining a platform it would give easy options to filter out communities that are political or controversial. That’s what I’m doing on Lemmy, I’m here for entertainment, not arguing.
Yep exactly, you’ll get hiveminds and echo chambers without downvotes
Instagram is another example. Part of it is the algorithm promoting controversial and toxic comments, and part of it is the lack of downvotes and threaded comments.
Do you? Take for instance an far right subreddit. Any decent opinion will probably be downvoted to hell, thus forming a echo chamber
What I said was that echo chambers still form even without downvotes being an option. Plenty of spaces are echo chambers without downvotes.
I agree that downvotes can amplify an echo chamber. But they also cut down on a lot of toxicity that’s otherwise present when all the controversial / toxic / hurtful comments stay prominently displayed. When that happens, there’s just a cycle of polarization and more people saying controversial and hurtful things.
The benefits of having downvotes outweigh the small amplification of the echo chambers they can cause. However I’m curious to see how it goes on Lemmy. A lot of the places where I’ve seen the above problem were places that prioritized engagement (instagram, twitter, YouTube).
Haha I think 4chan is a completely different beast. I’m seeing quite differing opinions on the thread, which is cool. It’s enlightening to see how people think about issues like this. I can see how both sides hold merit. Though in a way I disagree on simply telling people they’re wrong. I feel you can’t reason a person out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. In my experience, it’s much more effective to ask people questions and maybe they begin to see, or not, it’s out of my control at that point.
People don’t generally want to argue other people out of positions, because they’re not usually online to get into debates. A downvote isn’t telling someone they’re a bad person, it’s feedback on a specific post, which the poster can ignore or use as information to try to improve whatever they’re communicating. (Me, I do like to debate)
Every single time someone makes a post with this opinion, they’re either a Nazi or a Nazi apologist. They don’t want discourse, they just don’t like it when people tell them to shut up. It makes it hard to take their arguments seriously because I know they’re just excuses.
Lo and behold, you have a downvoted comment in your recent history where you argue Nazis should be allowed a safe space to talk in. The pattern continues.
Criticism is a part of public discourse as much as approval is. People who allow positive responses freely but put walls in the way of criticism tend to be the ones trying to silence all forms of criticism. They want a positive feedback loop so they can pretend people agree with them. Some people need to be told to shut up quickly and decisively.
Sounds more like an enlightened centrist to me, but same difference really.
If a maniac wanted to shoot someone ten times, and the victim wated not to be shot, the enlightened centrist would smugly proclaim that the maniac shooting the victim five times would be a just middle ground that’d be fair to both parties, and that the victim would be unreasonable, intolerant, and antidemocratic for not agreeing to it.
Same result, orders of magnitude more hypocrisy and idiocy, and of course you can’t criticise them, since by enabling the maniacs they’re just debating and trying to find a compromise, and disagreeing with them is being hostile and going against the very principles of democracy itself.
Malignant asshats, the whole lot of them, wouldn’t recognize the paradox of tolerance if you violently hit them in the head with it.
To be fair, i too would argue that even horrible people with sick midset should have a safe accessible digital space to talk in and i align with antifa anarchist radical far left progressives.
The wrong and sick opinions in their thought remain opinions and therefor are a protected human right.
By providing at least a safe space were biggots can be biggots we keep them away from other communities.
It allows us to create a window so we can look ourselves and try to understand why they think the way they think. So we can eventually learn how to help them with their mental illnesses. Only when an individual rights are broken or planned to be broken (doxxing, sharing someones pics without consent) are we right to intervene. For generic hate speech? If no visitor consider it offensive is it still offensive? (yes if it leaks, otherwise its no different from a racist family over dinner)
In the end Fascism isnt a problem we can solve by just not allowing it, its not even the problem We need to solve but a symptom of a toxic psychology, these people will always find a way. Its the same for drug use and other criminal acts. There will always be back channels or alt communities to provide for them, the more oppressive we try to ban them the more secretive and the more fuel wel give to there extremes.
Fascism isn’t a problem we can solve by just not allowing it the more oppressively we try to ban them the more secretive and the more fuel we give to their extremes
This is a commonly held belief that is actually just not true. Certain garbage opinions and behaviours will fester and spread and absolutely make a space worse. Communities that allow toxic behaviour will both push away reasonable people, and attract people with toxic views. Setting proper boundaries, rules, and conduct are important for maintaining a place of healthy discussion.
I don’t mind if they have somewhere to talk with each other - I think you’re correct it’s pointless to try to stop that - I’m just not interested in spending any time there.
Highly agree because thats not what i am saying we should do. I am very aware of the paradox of intolerance, that we should be intolerant of intolerance.
I actually had to very conversation yesterday and i think i even mixed them up at some point, here is comment of mine from the other explanation where i think I articulated my opinion better.
“an individual forum shouldn’t carry the responsible to protect all human rights on that forum. But as an anarchist i object to the authority of a centralized state so i cant see it their job either.
In my ideals humanity is a collective of people and all of us carry the responsibility to safeguard the wellbeing of all people, as a collective. People who have been at the rejected end of continued intolerance know how damaging it can be for ones health.
Currently i dont know any true safe online spaces for the world most misguided or seriously ill people. So where can these people go? Social isolation is an echo chamber of their own mind.
Lemmy.ml doesnt need a nazi community but as - moral global human collective we should at least maintain lists of resources to help those struggling (with morality). A simple “we dont allow this here but here is a list of resources” ranging from social media to mental heath providers, or better social media monitored by non authoritative mental health providers. “
And comments like yours are exactly why I want open discourse. You’ve risen in the comment ranks with misleading information. And even if what you said were true verbatim, how does your argument solve anything? Do you think that suppressing someone’s right to think or express themselves will make them “see the light” like in some movie? Think about it from another person’s angle. If someone you disagree with tries to silence you, I’m sure you would not be okay with that, right? If they said you’re not allowed to have a safe space because your ideas are somehow dangerous from their point of view. They could use the same argument your using, demean your viewpoints by name-calling. In their mind, their opinion is the correct one, much the same as you’re feeling. Where does it end? These are all fairly common arguments to silence people and where has it gotten us? Think of the children, this group of people are dangerous they’re not allowed a voice. So you’re free to speak, just please don’t cross the line into defamation or anything illegal. I find it troubling that the first thing you did was go searching in my comment history, instead of simply addressing my post on its merit, which is something we all should try and do. I don’t care what you believe politically or whatever, I’m here for discussion and advocate free speech, and to do that there are times when you will defend peoples’ right to speak you don’t necessarily agree with, but there’s more to it than this petty arguing, and that’s what I’m trying to get at. To sum up, you’re essentially telling me to shut up through the side of your mouth, as is your right to do so in a free world, but I implore you to critically evaluate your comment. Honestly I’m not 100% sure what your point was, you’re stating criticism is part of public discourse, I agree, I don’t advocate otherwise. This implies that people should be free to speak, but also to be criticised, yes, again, I agree. Then you speak about walls to criticism, not sure where you got that from. A downvote is not criticism, it’s a mechanism by which to control visibility of someone’s post or comment. My argument is that people should be held to account for those downvotes, which would mean they would be criticised, so again we circle back to the criticism, which I’ve already agreed with you on. I hope you allow yourself to let go of whatever hatred you have in your heart, and I wish you a good day or night wherever you are.
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There was no misleading information. There was no name-calling. It’s weird you think there was.
If you’re allowed to say “Nazis are allowed a space to hang out”, I’m allowed to say “shut the fuck up”. If you’re allowed to say “yeah, I agree with this” by upvoting, I’m allowed to say “this is a terrible idea” by downvoting. If you don’t have to give an explanation for why you support something, you shouldn’t have to give an explanation for why you oppose something.
I’m telling you to shut up from the front of my mouth. You are not the first person to put forward this argument, and you’re not the first person to do it shortly after being downvoted for defending Nazis. You deliberately want a double standard that limits criticism and it was a pretty easy guess, proven right, that you had recently been justifiably criticised.
Nazis are allowed a space to hang out
I said people you disagree with. I also stated I don’t understand what is meant by “Nazis”, I feel you’re projecting an awful lot. The word Nazi doesn’t even mean anything anymore. Maybe it means something to you personally, but what is in your mind has nothing to do with me. It’s funny going into what I guess is quite an “echo chamber” and get accused and name-called and told to shut up. For what, exactly? So you consider yourself a tolerant person? If you are unable to tolerate anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the exact same thoughts as yourself then I suspect the answer is no. Why don’t you try basing arguments off actual merit, rather than leaping to your hail Mary Nazi shut down line. If you open your mind a little bit, I mean really, actually open it up to everything, I’m sure you’ll find your anger start to subside. I’m sorry you feel the way you do, and again, I wish you all the best.
God, no. Voting as a filter is soft moderation, and moderation is crucial.
Voting on a comment isn’t sending someone to the cornfield. You can downvote a dumb post and upvote a good post from the same rando within the same minute. You might not even notice unless you pay attention to usernames.
Every system is perfectly designed to produce its observed outcomes. Reddit, for all its many, many flaws, is probably the closest humanity has come to “the free marketplace of ideas” actually working as-advertised. Frauds and fascists had to retreat to their own miserable boltholes… until they started crying to the moderators that every detailed disproof of their entire worldview came with G-rated insults. Was their insular and irrational behavior besides that? Yeah, of course, it’s a mass of humans. We suck in predictable ways. But on average we can make things work. All that’s usually necessary is that decent people are allowed to help.
Also, reddit’s revised blocking is the worst antifeature on social media. It stops you from seeing the person who blocked you. That is the polar opposite of what blocking is for. Reddit also stops you from replying anywhere in that subthread… even if you’re the root comment, and other people keep piling on and asking why you won’t respond to them. So as anyone who’s bickered online would guess, people use it to get in the last word and then forcibly mute the other party. And now reddit straight-up lies to you, saying “something went wrong, try again later.” Knowing full well it’s working as designed and waiting will never work.
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I like the feature where a post’s score is hidden for the first 30 minutes or so. People are very critical of posts with a score of 0 or -1, but if a post is new it really isn’t hard to dip into the negatives. Hiding the score for the first few minutes prevents a post from being reflexively downvoted just because the first two people who seen it disagreed.
Sometimes it feels like a bandwagon. I’m sure a lot of the time people mindlessly downvote instinctually or are more likely to based simply on the existing score.
You’re right people may quickly downvote a post. If it’s happening, it’s because they didn’t like it. There might be more people who like it in the world elsewhere, but they didn’t see it or they didn’t press the button. It’s more helpful to take it as information, instead of trying to argue with it.
I’d rather get a meaningless downvote so that someone gets their frustration out than having to read a rant ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I see your point, but just don’t read the rant. You don’t need that crap. Nobody does.
The other day, somebody responded to a comment of mine with an emotional wall of text. In just the first few sentences, they were already putting words in my mouth and getting mad at me about assumptions they had come up with. I didn’t bother reading the rest of their manifesto, because it probably went even further off the rails from there.
Yeah, sometimes complex topics or thoughtful responses require a long comment, but you can usually read the tone early on. Snark, condescension, and anger aren’t worth your time.
I just realized that, ironically, this might be considered a rant. Oh well.
To each their own!
Wouldn’t nerving downvotes/dislikes make it harder to voice your option freely? It’s the easiest way to signal if you dislike something (And ofc the other way around with upvotes). But if you make it harder to do that, you’ll suddenly have a lot of people that just don’t bother. That will create a false sense of acceptance of whatever has been said and will make it easier to create echo chambers.
But isn’t it ambiguous what a downvote means? Did they not think it was relevant, did they not like the opinion, the tone, the style of phrasing, etc. etc.? Or are they saying you’re factually wrong (which is also another way it gets used)? Also a downvote may not be interpreted in the same way that the downvoter intended. I think it’s better that people just say what they think.
Also, if they can’t be bothered to properly express their opinion, is it really that important? I think the default sense is indifference not acceptance. Anecdotally speaking I’ve observed that echo chambers have only got worse since voting has become a thing.
Couldn’t that be said about upvotes as well?
Also: Nobody owes anyone anything and that also goes for explainations on up- or downvotes.
I think the same could be said for upvotes as well - I remember the days before upvotes or “likes” were a thing and I don’t think their invention ever really improved anything. I’m mostly talking about downvotes because that’s what the topic is about, and maybe they are more likely to contribute to a negative atmosphere.
Yes, nobody owes any kind of response, but if you’re using it as a form of communication why wouldn’t you want to make sure you’re understood in the way you intended?
But there’s there’s already a way to clarify what your downvote means by just writing an additional comment.
But maybe someone doesn’t want to clarify because they feel like it’s not worth their time. Or maybe they disagree with everything and don’t know where to start. Or maybe the just want to say “I don’t like that” and that’s it.
Conversations are a two-way process requiring effort from both sides to work well. If they feel like it’s not worth their time I would rather they just didn’t engage in the first place. Like you said they’re not owed a response, that also means you don’t have to give one.
But what If I don’t want to have a conversation? Sometimes I just want to signal to someone that I don’t like what they posted.
That’s quite a negative interaction though isn’t it? Can you think of a real life equivalent expression of a drive-by downvote that wouldn’t be considered rude?
Also, why do you think they would care what you think if you’re not going to engage more? If I have a comment that gets lots of downvotes and no other engagement, it’s hardly going to change my view, all I’ll think is “people around here aren’t very friendly”. I think it just contributes to a hostile atmosphere online (and don’t get me wrong, I’ve been guilty of doing it too).
Hacker news has a great system - downvoting is locked behind a karma threshold and flag (default on). It means that new accounts can’t downvote swarm to shut down opinions and mature accounts have more care when downvoting. The ability to flag restrict does require a centralized trusted authority though… and HN is basically as good as it is because dang is fucking awesome at their job.
The simplest solution is dealing with visibility by changing default sorting settings.
Maybe the top three comments are always most upvoted, most upvoted new (i.e. ‘hot’), and most controversial.
But really the upvote/downvote is just data, and it’s up to each client to handle that data as seen fit.
Though yes, there’s very often ‘hivemind’ where people will pile on top of whatever the trend of a comment is, upvoting ones that had a few initial upvotes or downvoting ones that had a few initial downvotes. It’s less common to see a comment switch from the initial momentum, even when a very similar comment in a different place in the thread has a very different response from users.
So the solution there is to show relevant ranking/sorting data like “3rd most controversial” or “22nd most upvoted” but to hide the specific counts.
This was part of the whole Reddit thing of hiding votes on new comments to prevent bandwagoning like lemmings (pun intended).
I’d be technically impractical, but I’ve always thought there should be a system for weighing of individual users feedback. I follow a lot of trade related communities and 100% see a lot of issues where bad, wrong, and sometimes just plain dangerous advice gets a flood of upvotes from the amateur community while the handful of downvotes from qualified individuals gets drowned out. I think OP’s idea of making upvotes easy and downvotes difficult exacerbates this kind of issue.
I can also see the issue where a mod team simply blesses the users that they agree with and it just reinforces the echo chamber effect that is already an issue in some communities.
Upvotes/downvotes mean nothing. At least here. On reddit, if someone says something people don’t like, their post will be downvoted below the threshold and automatically hidden. Lemmy doesn’t do the automatic hiding, so the downvotes just mean nothing.
The only thing it really does is let people express their frustration or agreement without having to start a conversation. Like yelling boo or cheering at a performance. I’m not against that.
Don’t the comments sort in order of popularity?
You can pick
But that means I have to read them all. One of the things that drew me to the other platforms was the fact that the smartest or whittiest answers came to the top.
Oh, that’s not what you get on any of these platforms. The most upvoted thing is just gonna be the thing that made people press the upvote. Which is usually either because it’s funny or “I agree.”
The top thing is often flat out incorrect in whatever it’s saying, but people don’t know and it sounds about right so up it goes. Make a habit of reading everything, it’ll do you good. And at least for now lemmy is good at scaring away the racists and the nazis so you don’t have to read any of that.
Yes, but it’s still always better than stuff I see at the bottom. And it’s rarely worse than when order was determined by speed of reply
The voting mechanism enabled “the wisdom of crowds.”
Most posts I come across on lemmy/reddit, I do not vote on at all. I upvote when it is the same thing I was going to say, or when it is extraordinarily insightful or otherwise something more people need to see. I downvote when it is plainly objectively wrong or doesn’t add to the discussion at all. The vast majority of posts and comments are neither of those. For example, I haven’t voted on anything in this thread.
I liked the old structure of phpBB-style message boards where posts were just sorted chronologically and if there was a voting system, it didn’t affect sorting. I found those a lot more engaging and they facilitate actual back-and-forth debate rather than naturally turning into one-sided circlejerks. I am not sure they can scale to current numbers of Internet users though; we would have to test in practice how to make that structure work nowadays.
Stack Exchange already has a system where if you downvote, you lose one reputation point, a small deterrent against downvoting.
Limiting downvotes forces other people to think about bad ideas more, at the cost of letting people with bad ideas think about their bad ideas less. Ideally the bad idea has some tangible rebuttal that the original poster can consider, but ultimately the onus is on you to understand why your ideas aren’t landing. This is all presupposing an idea that is worthy of consideration. People aren’t obligated to convince themselves you’re right, you have the job of convincing others they are wrong, or realizing that you yourself are wrong.
I think a bigger issue is the acceptance of logical falicies leading to arguments that are nothing more than insult wars.
I can think of several instances but one that comes to the top was a long well reasoned argument for FM on phones. The writer put a great deal of effort into it then ended it with “do you know how stupid you sound [for taking the other position].” I made the mistake of pointing this out and was met with downvotes and told it was a very reddit thing to say.
I would love to see a platform where fallacious arguments were excluded until resubmitted or at least flagged. They do not encourage reasoned discourse.
Seconded. Every community demanding “civility” needs to enforce good faith ten times harder than they enforce mere politeness. I am completely okay with someone being rude… if they’re right, and they can prove it. A conversational “that’s dumb, here’s why–” is infinitely better than leaving nonsense unchallenged because an interested party said a no-no word.
And if someone’s wrong in a way that’s not excusable as a mere mistake, telling them to quit their shit is a necessary part of dealing with trolling and disinformation. Treating bad faith as good faith is what trolls want. It is a key component what trolling is. Any moderator scolding people for being blunt with an obvious bullshitter is building a community primarily for bullshitters.
Nobody likes to be made to feel stupid. A person without knowledge isn’t stupid on the face of it, they’re just a person without knowledge. I think the moment you start insulting someone the argument or whatever is already over at that point. At that point it’s not a discussion it’s the beginning of a mud slinging match.
Because the websites don’t police content, there are no rules. This requires a far higher exercise of self discipline when engaging with Internet posts, which many forgo with the anonymity of the Internet and lazy thinking. In other words, there is no constraint to “debate” and ultimately, no agreement what people are even talking about.
Extract what you feel is useful, but only under a critical eye.
Yes.
My main gripe with Reddit was the voting system. I used it for several years but once my accounts got into the thousands of karma, I just started over again. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you, but worked for me. One of these accounts was only allowed to upvote, it was nice. First time I noticed the anxiety that the voting system caused on me, I went to askreddit and ask if there was a way to deactivate it, server side or client side. LOL, of course not.
Came to Lemmy: same problem. I used to browse Lemmy with Liftoff, but it doesn’t hide the voting system. Recently tried Voyager, turns out it can hide the voting system. Now I feel immune to karens, white knights, bots, trolls and gatekeepers. It doesn’t matter how unpopular my opinion is, I don’t care if people doesn’t agree, it shouldn’t matter as long as my views are thoughtful and honest. I put my thoughts out there expecting other’s may change mines, but I don’t like being downvoted to hell with no discourse inbetween.
EDIT: TIL, in this thread that you can deactivate the vote system in your instance profile. Thanks.
I think your comment is the best take I’ve read so far. I agree wholeheartedly. As soon as I read it I thought of when I used to play WoW. Many alts I created similar to this. Having a fresh character, but something new without all the complications that came with being a higher level, more useless “responsibilities” with no real pay off. Because in the end it was still just a game. You may not fully see the connection, just know I understand where you’re coming from in my own way. Thanks for sharing.
If the problem is people upvoting and downvoting in vain, I’m surprised nobody has suggested a system only allowing people to make ten a day or something.
Either way, I can see right through the annoyance.
I vaguely remember some old forum doing something like that years ago. I can’t remember exactly what happened but I remember there was some kind of downside, like people spamming upvotes towards the end of the day to use up their quota or something.
If it was a rolling system, like you only got 100 overall, and after that a new upvote cannibalized a previous one, that might work better.
