By default, Lemmy allows downvotes globally. However, when a server disables downvoting, it is similar to using a feature that is usually reserved for enterprises and very small, non-federated communities.
If a user prefer to not see downvotes, they can disable it by his favourite client settings, but the rest of the community should not miss this functionality for the pleasure of few users.
Downvotes on lemmynsfw were being used to bully people who posted pictures of themselves. They weren’t always disabled. But they became a problem and the instance felt that downvotes didn’t belong in a porn instance.
There was no reason to downvotes a porn post. Ever.
If it breaks the rules, report it. If you don’t like it, keep scrolling.
Forced positivity is toxic positivity.
Removing an interaction choice from users can only result in lower quality user interaction.
Removing the capacity for downvotes harms the community.
Before there was no voting, just conversations. Scoring interactions is toxic.
So your logic is that since we already have some toxic we should just go ahead and make it more toxic?
Make it less by removing downvotes, at the least.
Which server? Remote instance or your home instance?
What do you mean?
[…] However, when a server disables downvoting, […]
I’m asking about this sentence.
I am talking about any public Lemmy server.
I do not care enough, because here on lemmy.world it isn’t a thing. But I see you’re from lemmynsfw. I vaguely remember a thread where the disabling of downvotes was discussed and to this day I do not understand why people are afraid of downvotes on their wanking material.
They disabled downvotes because they want to encourage people to post porn of themselves not just to repost stuff. Getting downvoted for posting your own work isn’t encouraging and essentially kills communities before they even start.
This actually makes sense. Thanks.
Downvotes discourage reposts more than anything.
Reposting is not a problem, it’s an NSFW server, nobody will downvote repeated content. What was getting down voted were dudes and chubby women showing off.
I cannot affirm with certainty there is correlation, but the main page is far more diverse in people and content since the removal of the downvote, and constant reposting is not a thing I see (at least for now).
If you simply forced the ordering to be by new/newest comment, votes in either direction would become irrelevant. But that also means that only the most active users will ever see a bulk of the content when it is relevant, or at all.
You choose what instance you use. If you don’t like the choice you made, choose again.
How about this: you can choose whether you want to disable downvotes in your Lemmy client, and everyone can live happily ever after.
That already exists.
Exactly.
This might be a real unpopular opinion but I think the down vote is a broken feature. We do need some kind of vote to help the best stuff rise to the top, thus the up vote. Down vote basically says “I disagree with your opinion but I don’t have a strong enough rebuttal to engage in the discussion to explain why”. A basic agreement doesn’t usually add a lot to the conversation unless the comment itself comes with additional context, a disagreement requires some level of dialog as to explain why. It encourages this bubble hivemind instead of open discussion. Really makes me miss how popular forums were in the mid 2000s.
It doesn’t really stop spam, we have stronger mechanics for that like reporting, moderation and spambot tools. Plus posts without any engagement usually just fall off pretty quickly without reaching a wider audience.
Then you have your trolls who collect down votes. Having a vote score of 1 is way less compelling for a troll than -15.
Edit
4 down votes without discussion, we’ve just proved the point.
Well i think caring about upvotes and downvotes at all is the sign of someone going through an exceptionally fucking lame part of their lives. Just stop giving a shit about something so… so… extravagantly useless and bam! Life improved.
Upvotes and downvotes are simply engagement markers that prove you made an impact on that many people. If you need to tell someone you don’t like them, ya can’t downvote them, tell em! Tell em how wrong they are! Get that bag baby! Now get up, get out there and get ta arguin with your words
What is needed is better controls over who can downvote. Communities should get better controls for moderation - up to and including control over whose votes get counted. Simple controls like “only subscribers” or “accounts older than 1 week” or “accounts that have commented on the post/replied to this comment” all the way through to “only users on this list”.
But pushing the control into the individual user’s hands will simply create echo chambers worse than the existing ones. Let’s not turn Lemmy into Facebook.
It’s to encourage posting and comment by having a positive environment, especially on hobby community/instance. Lemmy is still small and post isn’t as many, and its full of people who is downvote happy and will downvote topic they don’t understand or care. Try build a community around that, i’m sure it won’t survive.
If a user prefer to not see downvotes, they can disable it by his favourite client settings, but the rest of the community should not miss this functionality for the pleasure of few users.
Let me flip it around:
If a user prefer to see downvotes, they can go to another instance that support that, the admin paying for the hosting shouldn’t need to listen to a few user.
It’s a setting, it’s a tool, let people building the community/instance adjust it how they want instead of dictating how they choose, isn’t that your point?
You can’t force people to be positive, they might still leave negative comments.
Lemmy is still small, so users don’t have the option to choose servers as they please. For instance, I’m looking for an instance where you don’t need an email to register (for privacy reasons) and where you can quickly create an account (I don’t have the patience to wait for days to get my account). Also, it should have a good number of federated servers working with it.
With these specific requirements, there are only a few servers available.
It’s pretty ironic that your posts are being downvoted here.
Why do you think not allowing dislikes is toxic positivity?
I mean, it’s more like “don’t be critic” rather than “you’re forced to like”. You can choose not like if you don’t want to.
Don’t mix things up. Don’t be allowed to dislike is not the same as being forced to like.
I’d downvote this post if I could.
I would downvote this comment also if I could, but sadly my instance disable downvotes. (◕‿◕)
I did it! Maybe i should start a special downvoting service for the poor downtrodden commenters whos got no DV of their own
I gotchoo
