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.
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.
Putting your finger on the upvote/downvote scale in any way amounts to censoring the community’s collective voice. If the intention is to create an open, impartial forum for discussion and community interaction, then no such action should be taken.
Enforcing a “positive” trend in voting might create the façade of a seemingly friendlier community, but not a genuinely friendlier one. It might also create toxic positivity.
I don’t agree with OPs idea, but this assertion really bugs me.
Putting your finger on the upvote/downvote scale in any way amounts to censoring the community’s collective voice.
This is true, but lemmy is awash with people, bots, and other bad actors doing exactly this.
It would only be a reason not to take action if the existing system were free from such interactions.
I’m not advocating manipulating votes. I just wish everyone were more aware that vote manipulation is happening and it heavily influences the general opinion of lemmy.
If the intention is to create an open, impartial forum for discussion and community interaction, then no such action should be taken.
If ensuring that users can’t predominantly give negative feedback violates your understanding of the intention, surely the existence of moderators does as well.
I’ll just quote from my other comment:
Censorship is sometimes necessary (the classic example of yelling “fire!” in a theater) but always problematic. It should never be implemented in blanket policies but only in specific cases to drive specific outcomes (not to create a generally more positive atmosphere) - hence moderation and reporting.
And from just a moment ago:
YIj54yALOJxEsY20eU@lemm.ee >The existence of moderators suggests we can’t be trusted to say anything we want.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub > The existence of moderators suggests that moderating conversation between humans requires contextual, circumstantial, individual and specific decision-making. That is, it requires human attention on each instance rather than broad conversation-affecting policies.
Fair enough lol sorry for splitting comments, I just wanted to sepererate this from the bog of my other comments. I will address that tomorrow when I’m a little more put together. I appreciate the discussion.
Do you think users that contribute downvotes more than anything add to the community interaction and help create open discussions? I personally think they inhibit that and discourage others from sharing. This is a limit that practically should not be reached by any good faith users, so I do not anticipate a net negative effect.
Do you think users that contribute downvotes more than anything add to the community interaction and help create open discussions? I personally think they inhibit that and discourage others from sharing.
It really doesn’t matter what I think, or what you think, about such users, because any such opinion could only be a generalization, and therefore not a good basis for making policy decisions.
I do not anticipate a net negative effect.
I don’t think you’re putting enough thought into unintended consequences. Censorship is sometimes necessary (the classic example of yelling “fire!” in a theater) but always problematic. It should never be implemented in blanket policies but only in specific cases to drive specific outcomes (not to create a generally more positive atmosphere) - hence moderation and reporting.
If you were to implement a policy like this, what you are doing is saying to the entire community, “I don’t trust you to express your opinions without guardrails, and so I am putting this filter on you to adjust them.” It’s a very parental idea, it seems motivated by a desire to control the conversation on a broad scale.
It’s a very parental idea, it seems motivated by a desire to control the conversation on a broad scale.
There’s a lot of children, of all ages, on the internet.
It really doesn’t matter what I think
Nice dodge. I don’t think its a generalization, I think its inherently perpendicular to the goals of the platform. There is no way to objectively measure that, and only the mods have the stats to attempt to approximate it with a large margin of error and shakey axioms.
I think this is a very specific case that only effects a small but vocal subset of users. And yes, I think trolls who spam downvotes need parenting. The existence of moderators suggests we can’t be trusted to say anything we want. Again, good faith users will never hit this limitation.
Have you considered the consequence of someone seeing that message and realizing they are being overly negative? It still allows unlimited downvotes, but introduces more effort only for the “downvote trolls”. Even seeing a popup and acknowledging they are downvoting more than upvoting would increase the friction.
It could increase polarization due to those now required to upvote, but orients people to encourage more which engages users.
Nice dodge.
If this had been a dodge I would’ve just moved on without explaining why what I think doesn’t matter, which I of course immediately did in the same sentence.
I don’t think its a generalization
And yet, your conclusion has no specific examples or support of any kind beyond your own impressions and feelings… so it is generalization.
I think its inherently perpendicular to the goals of the platform
Interesting. What are “the goals of the platform”?
The existence of moderators suggests we can’t be trusted to say anything we want.
The existence of moderators suggests that moderating conversation between humans requires contextual, circumstantial, individual and specific decision-making. That is, it requires human attention on each instance rather than broad conversation-affecting policies.
but orients people to encourage more which engages users.
Does it? Do you have any data to support this conclusion?
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from social media companies, it’s that nothing drives user engagement like negativity. Now understand, I’m not saying this is good or that the outrage-surfacing algorithms are something to emulate, I am only saying that your statement here isn’t supported by available evidence.
And yes, I think trolls who spam downvotes need parenting.
I’m pulling this statement out of order and out of context because I want to emphasize it specifically. In my opinion lemmy is not an appropriate place for this nor are you (or anyone here) the appropriate person to try to parent other people who you have only interacted with via lemmy (unless someone directly asks you for mentoring in some way). Again, I think this reveals a desire to control the way that other people express themselves.
I was referring to the goals that you listed in the previous comment. It seems like you entire argument is that I do not have any objective data on subjective goals. And yes, the presence of moderators and community/platform rules also reveals a desire to control the way people express themselves.
This post isn’t a submission for a code change, its to get the conversation started on the problem (that you refuse to acknowledge) of users who predominantly leave downvotes. Your persistence about my lack of data is goofy, just nip it in the bud and say you will only consider policy changes proposed by moderators with stats to back their proposal. This is post is supposed to be the thing that might spur someone with the data to then look into it.
It seems like you entire argument is that I do not have any objective data on subjective goals.
Actually, my argument is that the motivation to control user interaction in a broad way like you propose is inherently flawed because it comes from a desire to control people.
And yes, the presence of moderators and community/platform rules also reveals a desire to control the way people express themselves.
The difference, again, is that moderator actions are individual, specific, contextual, and limited to a specific point in time, and also logged. Removing a particular comment or banning a particular user is very different from adjusting the balance of voting wholesale. Moderation is better because it is limited and flexible to each individual situation.
its to get the conversation started on the problem (that you refuse to acknowledge) of users who predominantly leave downvotes.
No, I am not refusing to acknowledge the problem, I am saying that your proposed solution (1) won’t address that problem effectively and (2) will create additional problems that (long-term) will be worse for the community. The cost/benefit doesn’t work out.
I comment on your lack of data because I think your conclusions about what will or won’t improve community interaction are emotional and anecdotal. And frankly, I think the track record of social media demonstrates the opposite - people engage with controversy. Enforced positivity turns people off, it kills meaningful conversation. It’s like Disneyland - nice for a visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.
I think I should down vote this.
Twice.
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 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.
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!”.
Nostr does that
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.
I think any voting system can be abused or gamed. Reddit’s system created karma-whores. 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.
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
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.
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.
Just upvote a few comments that align with your position.
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?
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.
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.
