this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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Really loving the new experiences here on Lemmy.one. But I’m seeing many subs with off-topic posts. Community downvotes will help overworked mods find and remove such posts. I understand no one likes to be downvoted but it’s a necessary tool for our community and only helps users understand and refine what and where they are to be posting their content.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't know. I like the lack of a downvote.

If I like it, I up vote.

If I have something to say to support or refute, I comment.

If it needs to be reported, I report it.

Otherwise, I exercise my own right to social media "mokusatsu" and just move on. Almost like it's not even worth my effort to downvote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokusatsu

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Yeah, the downvotes are really unnecessary. Just a lazy way to be negative.

Speak up, report, or move on with your life. Whatever is appropriate to the situation.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 years ago (7 children)

I disagree. Initially, I thought lacking downvotes was an issue as well, but I’ve changed my thinking.

If it’s a post or comment I disagree with, I try to reconcile WHY I disagree, and then use that to participate in the discussion, as opposed to just dropping a downvote and moving on.

If it’s a post or comment that needs active intervention by a moderator, reporting it is the best solution anyway, not simply downvoting it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Without the downvote option, i just seem to block people way more frequently. Which honestly probably works out for the best

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

It definitely leads to a more relaxed experience.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Vote counts are a great way to measure public sentiment at a glance. It's also mostly (but not always) correlated with the quality and/or accuracy of the post. If people only judge a post based on that number, it's a problem with the people and not the voting mechanism.

I recently had the experience where I was looking for a squid farm design in Minecraft. A Youtube video came up that explicitly said it worked with my version. As you probably know, Youtube recently decided to hide all downvotes. But the video had a few thousand views and ~50 upvotes, so I spent 3 hours collecting the resources and building the farm in my world. And then it didn't work at all. There wasn't even an adjustment I could make to fix it. If I could have seen the probably 100+ downvotes, I would have known to look into it more and not waste my time and effort on that stupid design.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't miss it. For a lot of people down vote is just a I disagree with your take button instead taking the time to leave a comment instead of refuting it.

If a comment is really problematic better to just report.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Absolutely my feeling as well. I think the discourse is better for removing that button, and I haven't missed it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

I also know that if it returned I would use it as a I disagree with your take button as I've always done.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Oh crap. Lemmy.one doesn't have downvotes - this is bad.

Without downvotes it is not easy to know which comments are controversial. I don't want to join another tiktok or instagram, I want to join something informative and thus a proxy of the value of the information (while not perfect) is critical.

I thought it was community specific, but looks like I can't downvote even on other instances.

I need to look for an alternative now.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Yes, you will have to be sure to join an instance aligned with your values on moderation.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

I think not having that will turn this into a tiktok or instagram.

I'm now trying out lemm.ee which has downvotes, and so far looks good.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I disagree, but it sounds like lemm.ee will be a better fit for you, and that's the beauty of the fediverse 👍

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Do you happen to know what happens if someone is on an instance that allows downvotes and downvotes a post on a different instance which doesn't allow them?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

The downvote isn't federated.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

In my experience, downvotes do little but encourage dog-piling and echo chambers. I have a few accounts on instances that disabled downvotes, and few that enabled them. The difference is very clear. The instances that disabled them have noticeably more rich and diverse discussion, with users being less afraid to disagree with each other and have proper debates.

The instances that have them enabled vary a bit, but I noticed a pattern that certainly reminds me of The Hard R: Most comments on a popular and highly upvoted post are basically people agreeing with the post over and over again with different words, and then there a few comments that actually disagree, but you'll have a hard time seeing them because they were downvoted into oblivion. This isn't always the case, certainly not as much as the other place (at least not yet) but I have already noticed it happen.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm conflicted when it comes to down votes. In the reddit universe I'd watch within a small community where things were corgial and welcoming that for inexplicable reasons posts and replies would get down voted. This was a fountain pen group.

It might take hours or days for the up votes to take the comment or post into positive territory. The best the group could figure out was it was bots. I suspect some curmudgeon who didn't like when you'd mention Kaweco or what have you because they had a beef with them.

I believe an option just to report is the best option.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

corgial

I think I like this word better than the original

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

I vote we use this as the new official word. Corgies are very corgial, so it just works :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Haha. My stupid brain wants to spell how we normally say stuff. Yes. Cordial.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Too late, new word created:

corgial: adjective

showing or marked by warm and often hearty instinctive friendliness, favor, or approval, as if welcomed by a pack of corgis.https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b1/c0/d4/b1c0d463c0839198b83dc63151d7c4f6--crazy-animals-welsh.jpg

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

You are correct. This is how society moves forward. Love the new word and definition.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Speaking as a mod, our tools are pretty limited. It's easiest if you report something so we can take a look.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I was initially skeptical of not having access to downvotes, but I've not really come across a situation where I want to use it.

My view is likely to change though as more Reddit users migrate to the lemmyverse/kbin as a whole

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

It's been interesting because I've caught the reflex to downvote - and I haven't been able to. I've needed to think harder about my responses.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

I dunno. I realize the intent behind downvotes, but on reddit this led to dog piling. And regardless of whether you were "right" or not, if the first 1 or 2 down votes, by pure chance, didn't like you, your post/comment was basically nuked to the phantom realm.

If it's that bad, just report it. If its not worth reporting, its not worth the dog piling either

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

And not having dog-piling leads to reverse dogpiling, where only those with the resources/know how to have a botnet army surreptitiously upvote all other comments achieves the same thing.

You haven't gotten rid of the problem, you've just removed your own and other average users' ability to participate in the solution.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Wouldn't those other bots also downvote if they could anyway?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

I have to disagree, as I’ve seen posts get an initial few downvotes well into negative playing field and come back after the rest of the community has had a read. We’ve all seen the back up comments to a post like that “not sure why you’re getting downvoted…”

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

I disagree. Downvoting was often used as a super anonymous way to bully people. I am glad it's not a feature here and hope that it remains not a thing on Lemmy.one.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

I agree.

It would be interesting to open this up to the instance and see how they feel.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

I would down vote this post if down vote was possible

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I think something that isn't considered is that people aren't always going to be happy with you and the ability to downvote is an outlet, not being able to give a downvote could increase the likelihood that the person responds with their disagreement in a way that results in more negative comments.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

And if they're disagreeing in a respectable or kind way, then that's good! It encourages discussion and debate, instead of simply clicking downvote and leaving the poster no way to know why you disagree at all.

If they're being rude or inflammatory, then that's breaking the rules anyway, so instead of being downvoted, it should be reported.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The answer, then, is moderators, not institutional passive-aggression.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (8 children)

What's wrong with disagreement? Personally, I'd rather see words that add context rather than an anonymous downvote that could mean anything.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Yeah I don't think it really makes sense to disable downvotes for everyone on the instance. Why should I be unable to downvote something on an external community when everyone else viewing that community has the ability to downvote?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

As far as your instance is concerned, no one can downvote, even outside of your instance, because downvotes are rejected by your instance. This means that downvotes from other instances aren't visible to any users of your instance or any other instance that has downvotes disabled, and they don't affect the sorting of posts.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I agree with this, I have no problem with Lemmy.one disabling downvotes for its communities, but it's frustrating not to be able to have the option in external communities which allow downvoting.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

On Hexbear we found that downvotes were being used by trolls to anonymously manipulate perceptions on the site. In particular, there was an organized campaign to downvote trans-positive content to try to drive them out so stupidpol types could elbow their way in. We ended up cracking open the database table and banning everyone responsible. We also disabled the downvote.

The problem with the downvote is that it is lazy and anonymous. If somebody is spreading misconceptions, they should be confronted in the open, so those misconceptions can be corrected. If somebody is posting something inappropriate for the site, it should be removed outright. By removing the downvote, we brought a lot of arguments out into the open and have since found consensus on many issues which would otherwise remain ongoing sectarian squabbles.

On the software side of things, I think it would be better if downvotes were enabled / disabled at the community level, rather than the instance level though. There are places where they can be appropriate.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Can we downvote lemmy.one posts and comments from another instance?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

you can, but it won't have effect on lemmy.one, because it's going to discard downvotes

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

So a top post on lemmy.one could be a controversial post on other instances?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

please no! This is the reason I chose this instance, and downvotes is something I always hated on Reddit - and occasionally even HN

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

unfortunately downvote are not only used on off-topic posts. it could also be about disagreement, not about the quality of the post.

so it's not always a good indicator of the value of the post and can be use in a way to shut off divergent opinions, encourage a single point of view. not always a good tool.

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