It is functionally a “I don’t like this” or “I’m right” button.
Sometimes comments are just wrong, and detract from the community. Downvotes (plus an interface that hides negative voted comments) clean things up without need for formal moderation.
Whatever can be said about downvotes (an automated system for marking one’s disapproval) is probably true of reporting (a human reviewed system for marking one’s extreme disapproval), too.
All this does is bury comments regardless of quality
But if downvotes (and upvotes) are well correlated with quality, then what’s the problem? Your complaints are about community culture around downvotes, not about the mechanism itself.
I’d love to see a system where votes can be correlated between users so that the ranking algorithm weights like-minded voters and deemphasizes those voters you disagree with, but that would probably create a pretty significant overhead for the service.
And I’m saying that some communities have a “dominant mentality” that’s pretty obviously correct. The only thing worse than a person who says “just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s right” is the person who swings the pendulum too far in the other direction of saying “it’s unpopular so it must be right.”
Oh come on you don’t actually believe we should structure the entire system around such a minority use case
Minority use case? I’m talking about how downvotes are useful for communities to enforce their own norms, or ensure that erroneous information is excluded. Someone who insists on a proof that the angles of a triangle add up to more than 180º is probably going to get downvoted, especially if he’s being an asshole about it. Same with someone who insists that the common cold is caused by exposure to cold air, or that the earth is flat.
Or there are broad consensus beliefs about what is or isn’t off topic for a discussion, what types of insults break the forum rules on civility, etc. When a community largely agrees that someone is being an asshole for using racial slurs, downvotes quickly sort that out. In other words, toxicity can get filtered out through the downvote/hide mechanism, as well.
Even for beliefs that are simply matters of opinion/taste/preference, the community can decide what’s actually up for debate and what’s not, within that space. A forum dedicated to fans of Real Madrid doesn’t have to tolerate trolls coming in and saying “Real Madrid sucks” or “lol soccer is a stupid sport you Europeans are so stupid” or “sports are dumb.” Same with a vegan forum downvoting someone’s brisket recipe (or a BBQ forum downvoting a “meat is murder” manifesto). These “echo chambers” are just how people organize with people who share their interests, and it’s weird not to be able to see that there’s value in those communities.
So yeah, I think that you have a problem with people’s desire to organize into groups of similar interests, not with the actual mechanism by which those groups enforce those norms. It wouldn’t be any better with a mod-enforced echo chamber, either.
Sometimes comments are just wrong, and detract from the community. Downvotes (plus an interface that hides negative voted comments) clean things up without need for formal moderation.
Whatever can be said about downvotes (an automated system for marking one’s disapproval) is probably true of reporting (a human reviewed system for marking one’s extreme disapproval), too.
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But if downvotes (and upvotes) are well correlated with quality, then what’s the problem? Your complaints are about community culture around downvotes, not about the mechanism itself.
I’d love to see a system where votes can be correlated between users so that the ranking algorithm weights like-minded voters and deemphasizes those voters you disagree with, but that would probably create a pretty significant overhead for the service.
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And I’m saying that some communities have a “dominant mentality” that’s pretty obviously correct. The only thing worse than a person who says “just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s right” is the person who swings the pendulum too far in the other direction of saying “it’s unpopular so it must be right.”
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Minority use case? I’m talking about how downvotes are useful for communities to enforce their own norms, or ensure that erroneous information is excluded. Someone who insists on a proof that the angles of a triangle add up to more than 180º is probably going to get downvoted, especially if he’s being an asshole about it. Same with someone who insists that the common cold is caused by exposure to cold air, or that the earth is flat.
Or there are broad consensus beliefs about what is or isn’t off topic for a discussion, what types of insults break the forum rules on civility, etc. When a community largely agrees that someone is being an asshole for using racial slurs, downvotes quickly sort that out. In other words, toxicity can get filtered out through the downvote/hide mechanism, as well.
Even for beliefs that are simply matters of opinion/taste/preference, the community can decide what’s actually up for debate and what’s not, within that space. A forum dedicated to fans of Real Madrid doesn’t have to tolerate trolls coming in and saying “Real Madrid sucks” or “lol soccer is a stupid sport you Europeans are so stupid” or “sports are dumb.” Same with a vegan forum downvoting someone’s brisket recipe (or a BBQ forum downvoting a “meat is murder” manifesto). These “echo chambers” are just how people organize with people who share their interests, and it’s weird not to be able to see that there’s value in those communities.
So yeah, I think that you have a problem with people’s desire to organize into groups of similar interests, not with the actual mechanism by which those groups enforce those norms. It wouldn’t be any better with a mod-enforced echo chamber, either.
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