Slightly off-topic, but I don’t think downvotes should be a thing at all. Silences minority opinions by lessening their visibility and discouraging further discussion even when they’re correct. People also tend to not respond to those comments/posts in good faith, as if the downvotes prove them wrong. Turns the place into an echo chamber.
Taking out downvotes would allow for less popular opinions to have higher visibility and discussion since the majority can’t just downvote it, just because they slightly disagree with it or are biased against it, and silence discussion.
People who do agree would also be able to show it through upvotes, and it wouldn’t be eaten up by the downvotes.
Spam, hateful and rule-breaking comments/posts would just be reported instead. As is the case for some Lemmy instances already.
I don't think that it's off topic at all, in the contrary. If you analyse the situation described by the OP, the issue is not the fact that our actions are transparents, the issue is due to the consequence of downvoting a post and how this action made another person feel and how they acted on this feeling.
Downvoting is not a constructive tool and should be abolished. It's not a matter of the users not using it the right way, it's a matter of psychological behaviour.
We should design tools that help us to bring the best in us, not the worst. We are not here on a commercial platform who need to hook us with dopamine shot, and trigger us on engaging by frustrating us. We need to build things differently. Federating servers is great but not enough.
I think that an option to be able to remove the display of the downvote tool and downvote count should be available in the settings. I would like to abolish it all together but I'm not interested to impose this on other users, so bring me an opt out please.
what do you think @ernest? let's change this paradigm and build another better tool?
if you take out the downvotes, the upvotes must go with it. but also, kbins algorithm isnt over-programmed and calculating, i see varying levels of upvoted and downvoted comments mixed together and i like it that way so everyone is included. on kbin, if youre downvoted, its usually been for good reason as far as ive seen, and ive also never had to go LOOKING for downvoted comments that are buried like on reddit. they are right there on kbin. the 'algorithm' is no algorithm. its honest
You should be able to block that user from interacting with you by simply clicking on their name and pressing the block button.
That will prevent them from downvoting future posts and if you have a negative interaction with somebody you can do that as many times as is needed to create the environment that you will enjoy participating in here.
I for one would like to see a minimum ratio of upvotes to downvotes as a measure to mitigate abuse. That is to say you "earn" a down vote for each upvote you cast.
Additionally I think the ratio of downvotes to upvotes you give should be public on your profile, and an admin tool should be available to Magazine administrators to block voting, posting new threads, etc. Based on a user's vote ratio.
This is a behavioral problem with clear mechanical fixes.
I don't see how that ratio thing could be enforced on a protocol like ActivityPub, it would be an instance-by-instance thing and people from instances that weren't enforcing it would be able to downvote however they liked.
There are instances that blocked downvoting entirely (beehaw.org, for example) but when I saw threads from there here on kbin.social there was plenty of downvoting on them from non-beehaw users. Only on beehaw.org would the threads be seen downvote-free and would users be prevented from downvoting on them.
try to explain your downvotes, or, better yet, voice your disagreement and have a discussion without relying on downvotes to express yourself. Use your words.
when you feel it necessary and that using your words isn't working, upvote/boost everyone but the person in question. Realize downvotes don't really do what you'd hoped and are a poor crutch and means of expression. Elevate what you do agree with. Worry less about what you don't.
just don't care about internet points. As others have said and covered extensively.
Hopefully, what remains is that conversations are important. Having an outlet for undescribed/unformed/ambiguous disagreement/dissent really doesn't add anything to anything for anyone. Making a point or saying something correct is more valuable than shooting down those you find to be incorrect. And, ultimately, it's not just what you think that matters. The consensus of the group and the conversation that gets them there, the experience and the interchange and the community itself are all much more valuable than the destination of a single conversation.
Edit: (And, for the record, while I disagree with your assessment, I've boosted and upvoted your thread, because I think the conversations being had here are valuable and worth seeing by more people.)
@billothekid2 honestly, it's not an uncommon phenomenon, it has nothing to do with seeing your downvotes.
Over the years on reddit, where votes are anonymous, I would sometimes notice all my comments being downvoted (usually after some kind of altercation, my favourite was the guy who singled me out for criticizing Margaret Thatcher... hardly a hot take).
In fact iirc reddit had to change its interface so that voting on comments from a person's profile page doesn't change their comment count.
Some people are just petty. I think it's better to at least know when it's happening so I can avoid that person.
The same thing happened to me. The downvotes don’t bother me nearly as much as knowing that trolls can stalk us like that. It’s creepy. That’s the real issue.
Everyone telling you not to care about downvotes is missing the point.
It doesn’t change the behavior if you can verify who did it or not. It literally doesn’t matter that you can see who downvoted you when it’s always been the case that anybody can go into your history and downvote all of it.
How are you going to call viewing a post history on the public facing internet “stalking”?
Jesus you guys play some gymnastics up in your domes.
In your interpretation, maybe. I just think it’s obnoxious and rude to do it to all of someone’s comments. If someone genuinely disagrees with what I’ve posted, that’s not a problem.
Sometimes people get weird bees in their bonnet. Personally I'd much rather know who it's coming from.
If I put a lot of effort into a comment or post and it gets downvoted by someone out of spite, I'd much rather know that's what happened than sit there wondering what's wrong with my post.
Right? Leave me a comment telling me why you disagree! Maybe you have a point of view that I hadn’t considered. Maybe I got a fact wrong - I’d rather be corrected than keep on being wrong! I’m a big boy; I can take it.
Or, maybe I’m just being a jerk and all someone needs to do is talk some sense into me. By itself, a downvote doesn’t tell anyone anything. Reply! Talk to me!
@magnetosphere this! I love it when someone points out stuff I haven't considered, especially if it turns out I'm wrong. Acknowleding that is the fastest way to actually turn it around and become right again.
I don't know any other social media site that allows you that level of freedom of customization.
Reddit used to have custom CSS, still does if you use the old design via the settings or the old.reddit.com address. Check out /r/steam for a subreddit with heavy custom styling.
Sadly in later redesigns they threw that feature out in favor of a more professional but boring looking uniform design.
Some stuff like spoilers started out on the platform using custom CSS. Spoilers used to be done by styling links pointing to a specific address. The worldnews subreddit uses it to hide paywalled articles.
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