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What do you think about disabling downvotes? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 1 year ago by zephyr to c/asklemmy

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Personally I don't care about downvotes. If you don't be yourself on an anonymous platform, how can you be yourself in real life? Plus this makes all posts conform within the general trend rather than creating discussions and meaningful debates.

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[–] DocMcStuffin 8 points 1 year ago

Downvotes give you additional information. This can be:

OP is posting crap that the mods haven't spotted
OP is just plain wrong.
- They could be intentionally or unintentionally spreading misinformation. Lies should be squashed. (Although, I believe people who unintentionally spreading misinformation should be given an opportunity to correct themselves. Which can happen in replies.)
There is community disagreement with OP
- I try not to use downvotes like this. But some people do, and it should be noted.
OP's position is controversial, i.e. upvotes and downvotes are split around 50:50.

One consequence of removing downvotes is crap can appear to have more support because it can rise above the mediocre. I'd rather see the mediocre than the crap.

In all these cases it does require reading in-between the lines to figure out what is going on, but again I'd rather have the downvote signal than not have it.