In our previous announcement, we announced that we closed downvotes.

Some people found it right, some people hated it, some people hesitated. At the end of the day, since we are on a disorganised platform like fediverse, I find the decision we took right. However, I was also annoyed by the lack of downvotes. So I searched for a solution.

I think the planned post flair support will be a good improvement in this regard. But it seems to take a long time to develop.

What do you think about limiting downvotes to only members of that community? I see it as the optimal way in the current situation.

Please vote with empathy, not just as a user, but assuming you are a poster user. Is it right decision?

Poll: https://strawpoll.com/DwyoDBooDnA

Result: done.

  • Mammalian@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    6·
    10 months ago

    Did something change in the last day or two? Looks like downvotes are gone again, but there was no post about it here 🤔

  • rustling_leaves@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    5·
    11 months ago

    My problem with downvotes is that people are using downvotes to downvote that things they don’t like.

    I have observed people heavily downvoting the following things:

    • SPH
    • Humiliation
    • Cocks/gay
    • Cuckold content
    • Male gonewild posters
    • Celebs
    • OC posters that are not a perfect 10/10
    • Niche fetishes

    This leads to

    1. People not wanting to post things
    2. People who do like those things not discovering those things in hot/top
    3. Less activity on the site overall because of decreased morale of posters especially OC posters

    This is why I am in favor of disallowing downvotes.

    Having upvotes is enough to determine which is “good” or “great” or even “bad” content in a community. Because the upvote count relative to other posts in the community tells how it was perceived by the community.

    Having a more “targeted” home page may help people find things that they like instead of an endless stream of a big jumble of random content.

    Reddit doesn’t have this problem because no one browses the entirety of NSFW content by new instead there is an “all” but even that had NSFW content removed from it. So really people are browsing only by the things they have subscribed to meaning if someone were to downvote a post they don’t like they would have to go out of their way to see it.

      • rustling_leaves@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
        2·
        11 months ago

        Downvotes should be reserved for things like spam, links that lead to malware, posts that are off-topic, etc. Things that mods would normally remove.

        • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          11 months ago

          Downvotes are for down-voting. The entire idea is to give feedback. You are positing that it’s only meant for cruft, when the entire is for unliked content, hence, a downvote.

          If I show up in the thread and start posting puke pics, I expect downvotes being the compass to telling me where I’m not welcome.

          You’re saying that all content should be welcome, unless it’s for the silo reference you mentioned. Disagree. If you’re being downvoted, this might not be your crowd. Your assertion certainly says so.

          • justsillyme@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
            2·
            11 months ago

            The problem is that people downvote from c/all, just because Joe Blow doesn’t like it, so content is buried that that specific community would like.

            Hence, in the original comment, what seems to be your average straight guy seeing cocks and gay stuff will downvote, whereas people that subscribe to that community would enjoy it. I have niches that your average dude finds weird too, and I don’t want stuff I would like to be buried just because MOST people don’t want to see it.

            Sure you can bring up that they should mute those communities, but everyone knows people just j/o and scroll and don’t bother doing anything other than one-tap or click feedback.

            So limiting the downvote to people subscribed to that community makes a lot more sense. It makes sense overall now that I think about it. There is stuff I would downvote on my regular account if it’s posted in the wrong place that I would upvote if it was in the right place.

        • AlternativeBrick@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          Up- and downvoting are ment to be opinion based. You are supposed to upvote what you like and downvote what you don’t like. Things like spam, or other things that are against the rules are ment to be reported. The reason for this is that the report will reach a moderator, but a moderator has no way to automatically be notified whenever you downvote something.

      • demonologic@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        Lots of people browsing all local communities probably downvoted posts in communities they weren’t members of. In especially more niche communities this can mean that the downvotes from people who aren’t in it can drown out the upvotes from people who are. Allowing only upvoting means that the number reflects who many people actually actively liked it

        Edit: ah sorry, just read the comment from @justsillyme@lemmynsfw.com below and they said pretty much the same thing I did but better.

    • yay@lemmynsfw.comOPMEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      No. You can check previous announcement for the reasons.

      I’m not able to explain here that we disabled downvotes not for algorithmic reasons like TikTok, Twitter, etc; but to protect posters. It is also funny that people who do not share any content make this criticism.

  • some_guy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    It’s wild how much people care about downvotes. From policing what downvotes “mean” to outright disabling them.

    Why does it matter? I mean that sincerely.

    • b9999998@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      Read through the previous announcement and discussions.
      There’s no need to rehash here these same points already made…

  • show_me_what_you_got_grrl@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    I think it’s a good solution. To date, I’ve been on the fence about disabling downvotes. I can see the positive impact it’s had for posters who can be more confident that they won’t be downvoted into oblivion by others. But not having downvotes has been hard to get used to, it somehow makes upvotes seem less valuable

    Will it be possible to prevent someone from subscribing to a community to downvote and then unsubscribing?

  • CuprumX@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Posts on lemmit.online tend to have 0-1 upvotes. We need down votes to help give some information to the sorter algorithm, otherwise it’s just guessing. By disabling upvotes here, my app (Voyager) doesn’t let me down vote other instances, idk if that’s the app or the instance.

  • WooBoy@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    As someone who posts OC, disabling down votes has been a big improvement.

    I post pictures of my wife and I. We do this for our own pleasure and to help contribute to the community.

    We are not conventionally attractive, but on Reddit we were able to find many places where we could feel welcomed, valued, and hot!

    When I started posting here our content was heavily downvoted, even in communities appropriate for it. This was very discouraging. It made us feel bad about doing something we should be doing for fun.

    Removing downloads has been a positive change for us. It’s made us feel better about posting here.

    I would prefer to keep no down votes for the time being. The biggest problem facing this platform right now is a lack of people posting OC. We need more contributors.

    To focus should be on making things as comfortable and positive as possible for the people who choose to contribute.

    It’s only been a short amount of time since the change was implemented. Is there any data to show if there has been a change in the amount of OC posted?

    • wooki@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      I hope you keep posting! Keep up the good work.

      I think likes are your best gauge for your best content. Dislikes could be easily used as an indicator to gauge audiences you dont target in the same manner. Value in all data.