Downvotes can be a useful tool to shape a community, but one of the main issues brought up in the post I made is when several people start downvoting communities they don’t even participate in. Which I want to emphasize is NOT the correct way for downvotes to be used.
First id like to start off with an apology to those who are upset about them being enabled. It may seem very clear to you that downvotes weren’t wanted, but as an admin I get complaints for basically every decision made on this site, so what the “right” choice is, is sometimes hard to determine.
I’ve been getting complaints about downvotes being disabled for awhile now, so it wasn’t clear to me. Even now, the opinion is still very split. Which is why I enabled them quietly to see if it would cause any issues. It did, so I made the initial post to see if people think the issues created by downvotes outweigh the benefits, and what peoples’ other opinions about them are.
This is my opinion based on what I’ve read and the results of the poll:
I think at a later time when lemmynsfw is larger, downvotes may be viable, especially if lemmy implements a custom home feed so that not everyone sees the same posts. This would help mitigate the issue of people not in communities downvoting posts. But as it stands I think the best option is disabling them again. Frequent posters, which are kind of needed for this site to survive, don’t seem to like them, and the poll is split almost 50/50. I have to try to balance enjoyability of posting and enjoyability of consuming content on the site, and it just seems like downvotes really hurts posters and only marginally helps consumers.
So with all that said, downvotes have been disabled again. Sorry for all the confusion and back and forth.
Thanks for being open and honest with the community. I’ll admit I’m disappointed by the decision. But you did the right thing by communicating and letting the community help shape the decision.
I voted to enable downvotes due to an increase in bad faith comments and posts in some communities, and removing downvotes allows trolls and sealions to artificially appear neutral when in fact they are rightfully buried. It also discourages commenters when those bad-faith debates eat up comment sections.
That said, I completely understand the rationale above and it convinced me that I voted the wrong way. Makes total sense that most people misuse downvotes, and I agree with disabling for now.
After I participated in the other thread, I thought of a couple more scenarios where downvoting is useful:
- “this post is low effort”
Downvoting is a useful feedback tool to say hey OP, I have given your post an amount of my time that your low effort post did not earn. Try harder next time.
- “we don’t need yet another community for this topic”
If a person creates a new community for a topic that already has one (or more), to get around the community blocks that users have already put up, that’s functionally very similar to ban evasion. I’m tired of blocking repeat communities. If I see a person make a new community for a topic that is practically identical to one that exists, a downvote is warranted.
I’m not telling you my opinion should overrule the other arguments here, but it’s better to have all sides present so it’s not just an echo chamber.
Isn’t voting a way to participate? Is there a way to semi-lock the community instead so random drifters don’t come in a vote bomb?
Thank you for dedicating your time and trouble to this platform lemmyposter212. I’m sure the shit and abuse you get every day makes it all worthwhile.
Perhaps in the future, consideration for a feature that allows the Mod of the community to opt in or out of allowing downvoting might be considered, specific to just that community. This would take the debate out of the Admins hands, give new posters a chance to get started without being bashed, and provide an outlet for those who just need to downvote something.
Cheers
Thanks for involving the community in the decision.
It’s nice to see active admins on our instance.
