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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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
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.
Should be tied to comments. If you don’t comment, you don’t get a vote either way.
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.
A study that sticks in my mind is that negative comments outweigh positive comments in how they are felt by the receivers. What is perceived as balanced is a ratio of one negative comment to five positive comments. Do downvotes have the same weight as comments? IDK, but I without the feedback of comments, there isn’t much to base anything on. I get attacked in droves if I comment about anything Russian. We clearly do not see events through the same lens.
