1y ago

Allowing downvotes only to community members

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.

58 comments

Without down votes, votes are meaningless.
- This whole thing is stupid..
  Why would I upvote when my choices to express my satisfaction with a post is intentionally limited?
  Having abilities and then them being taken away, and now a "vote" with no options I agree with, feels wrong to me.
- I guess I’ll upvote this..
  I agree though
- Exactly this.
  
  Why is your comment highlighted?

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
People not wanting to post things
People who do like those things not discovering those things in hot/top
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.
- I mean...what did you think downvotes were for?
  
  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.
  
  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.
- Downvote

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?
- 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.
- Downvote

Everyone should be able to downvote.
- 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.
  
  Well I hope you have no opinion on music if you aren't dropping albums yourself..
  
  Downvote

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

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?
- Will it be possible to prevent someone from subscribing to a community to downvote and then unsubscribing?
  Not sure how many downvoters would go through this exercise, but if this workaround is possible then the rule would seem a little bit pointless.
  It would be nice if votes, up or down, could be weighted or scaled somehow so that the votes of more active users would count for more. Users who never post or comment just get one vote per click, but users users that actually make post would get more votes per click according to some formula.
  
  I’ll add buffer for that if it gets accepted.

only members of that community.
\ Local is ment to discover communities and subscribed is ment for content that you like, see and want to follow. If you don't like something, just don't interact with it, simply as that, if see you something that does not fit the community or breaks the rules, go ahead downvote + report it.
If there is content you li
big edit: When I first register here, I don't like yiff, and thats me thats that, but I didn't start downvoting every post I saw, I dud start blocking them, and that was on local. Today I browser and no yify content has shown up.
- Nah that's how you use the platform..
  I came to this instance to browse local and block the communities I don't like. I'm not going to manage 100 subscriptions and limit myself to it. To me this instance solved all of my problems.
  
  I came to this instance to browse local and block the communities I don’t like
  Fine, as long as you dont downvote every post you see!
  
  Then you give up the option to downvote. Make use of the block feature to limit what you see. I see restricting downvotes to members as the best option. As it limits molding of the community's content to those that are invested in it without people who don't want that content ruining it for those that do.
  If you browse local, you get to see all there is but you'll need to block communities or users to get rid of content you don't want to see.
  If there is content you like to see, then join the community and help improve what content gets posted by investing in the community.
  The members of communities can use the vote system to mold the content to fit their community best without losing the option to view content they are interested in. Content creators or posters get to learn what the community likes to see without a flood of downvotes just because a bunch of dudes don't like dicks in their porn or some other dumb reason to downvote from local.
  I like to browse local too but my subscribed is where I should only see content I know I'll like. If I don't want my mood ruined by a bunch of dicks in my face then I keep to subscribed and if I just want to explore or find new content or maybe feel better about my own dick, then I go to local and see whats new.

Voted in poll.
I think only allowing community members to vote is a reasonable solution. This is similar to political parties and having primaries, so it's not a radical idea.
If one is not invested in a community and not contributing (in whatever ways), just stay quiet and observe on the sidelines.
If one is invested, then by all means take the time to subscribe and truly help build a community with your engagement (even if just by silent voting).
I'm confident there will be some known trolls and haters who simply like to downvote for the fun of it and they will spitefully subscribe to every imaginable community to demonstrate their "right to downvote". 😂 Bless them...

Still a bit on the fence about the whole ordeal. But i can live with community based downvotes, to mitigate the downvotes from all browsers for OC posters.
I think the arguments, in the last thread, from the nsfw AI communities made alot of sense to me. Downvotes within an already formed community can be beneficial.
And i do miss not being able to downvote comments on other instances tbh.
Im voting pro this new rule, its gonna be a bit of trial and error. So let's just try it for a while and see how it goes.
It apparently is/could be an option to ban users from communities as a mod, that gives me the freedom to curate my audience a bit in my own one. I could post for the entirety of lemmy and eat some downvotes when im feeling up for the exposure or retreat in my safespace/community when i wanna interact with users specificaly subscribed to my content.
- Yes, you definitely can ban accounts from community you mod. At the time of the ban, there is a checkbox option (via default browser UI) to also remove all the past crud posted in the community from account you are banning - easy way to do wholesale cleanup rather than having to do one message or one comment at a time.
  
  Thats good news :D
  So how does banning an account from a community works?
  Can the account still see the community and just looses the ability to comment? Or does the whole community dissapears for the banned account?

Did something change in the last day or two? Looks like downvotes are gone again, but there was no post about it here 🤔
- Noticed it too. Sneaky admins. Why would you bother with a fucking poll if you are going to change it anyways.

I commented on the original thread about the decision that I thought downvotes for community members only would be a good solution, and I'm very glad to see it under consideration. I have voted in the poll accordingly.
Meanwhile, I do appreciate the viewpoint expressed so eloquently by @WooBoy@lemmynsfw.com, and want to express appreciation for their contribution to the community and empathy for their experience. As a user who subscribes to communities that interest me, pretty much keeps to my 'Subscribed' feed, votes on posts, and sometimes comments on posts or participates in discussion, but who hasn't really posted any OC, my interest is of course in expressing my satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a post, and marking it such that it no longer appears in my feed when I have 'Show Read Posts' unselected in my preferences.
I bring up the latter point because I'd ask, IF you ultimately make the decision NOT to make downvotes available to community members, would it be possible to institute some ability to hide a specific post (rather than block a user), or mark a post as read. This could also be a workable alternative.
Sincere thanks for being proactive, transparent, and willing to consider community feedback.

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.
- You'll be able to downvote remote instances without subscribing.

Not a big deal but it is kinda confusing that despite not being able to downvote a post the default browser UI shows a downvote button.
- The downvote now only registers within communities you are subscribed to.
  The downvote button does show up everywhere though, which may cause some initial confusion (as i was too, but on second thought, makes sense. Now non-subscribed folks can press that downvote button as many times as they want to vent, but these votes won't register)
- Now the buttons are hidden conditionally but unfortunately only on default UI.
  
  Thanks!
- Same. I’ll find a solution for that.

58 comments