Currently downvotes are enabled on a trial basis, this was done by me to see if they can be enabled to prevent spam from rising to the top of communities, along with the fact that is another form of interaction/feedback.
However I’ve gotten some pushback for this and so I’d like to see the general consensus of this decision. Please put any comments/concerns in this thread, and please vote here: (Link gone poll is done)
the results of this poll and the comments will determine if we keep or remove downvotes again
I feel downvotes are fairly useless.
They’re used as a disagree button. Ok but why do you disagree? Leave a reply and let’s discuss. Gain saying has little value and that’s all a downvote to disagree is.
They’re used to report spam. Spam should be reported so I don’t think that’s a valid argument for them. Downvoting spam leaves it up, reporting spam gets it taken down. We have a better solution to spam than downvotes.
They are used by bad actors, with the removal of downvotes bad actors have to spend more effort in making a comment and it becomes far more obvious in who they are, report and block them.
Finally downvotes are a way to yuck someone’s yum, I’m mindful of the instance we’re on. I don’t want our communities to become like Reddit where only one genital configuration and body type are allowed.
Then use your same logic for upvotes, which you clearly didn’t. Only having it one sided defeats the entire purpose of votes, if you can’t see that then you have insanely flawed logic.
I’m obviously not going to make your argument for you.
Having it one sided clearly doesn’t defeat the purpose of votes. When you went to the ballot box do you upvote your chosen candidate and also downvote your least favourite?
Not having downvotes is a simple statement: “If you do not like this thing, we don’t care”. Report the spam and block the creators you don’t like, simples.
So you use my logic for upvotes, which you clearly didn’t, and maybe you’ll see why it’s downvotes that are removed and not upvotes.
See, if downvotes were active you might have just gainsayed and moved on and we wouldn’t have had this interaction. Neat huh?