What's your opinion on downvotes?

I've seen a good bit of debate on Kbin surrounding downvotes, so what are your thoughts? Should they exist? Should they be shown separately? Should you be able to see who downvoted?

I personally like downvotes and especially like that they're shown separately. You're able to get a much better idea of how people feel about something, and you can more easily express a minority opinion. Of course, there are downsides (e.g., brigades), but I think the pros outweigh the cons.

Sanctus,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

Downvotes are necessary. Only allowing positive feedback is a disservice to everyone involved.

nicetriangle,
nicetriangle avatar

Agreed. Yeah they get abused sometimes but so does everything online.

amio,

I was completely opposed when e.g. Youtube essentially removed downvotes. They're a pretty important indicator of when someone is full of shit, even though there's an obvious abuse potential as well. As a kbin user, I understand there's a limited federation of downvotes. I actually think it's nice, whether or not it's representative of the rest of the fediverse.

I try to limit my downvotes to irrelevance, spam, intentional douchiness and bad faith participation - as far as I can figure out what's what. At least while the community seems worth it. Unlike, for example, Reddit, where the proportion of bad faith participation was huge, and the general tone was quite hostile. I like the fediverse better.

spider,

Unlike, for example, Reddit, where the proportion of bad faith participation was huge, and the general tone was quite hostile.

Also, sometimes they downvote comments they apparently don’t understand, or can’t be bothered to read closely.

TheArstaInventor,
TheArstaInventor avatar

Or for fun randomly, spamming downvote functionality on every recent post (back at some subreddits on Reddit), and that sucks.

EmptyRadar,
EmptyRadar avatar

They should absolutely exist. Negative feedback is feedback, and expression of only one side of the emotional spectrum is a strange and unrealistic facsimile of actual life.

Gordon_Freeman,
Gordon_Freeman avatar

I fail to understand why people dislike them and why sites remove them.

Imagine giving a fuck about strangers on the internet disliking you...

Blakerboy777,
Blakerboy777 avatar

@Gordon_Freeman

@ThatOneKirbyMain2568 they only work if people care about it, so double edged sword.

ContentConsumer9999,

The poster doesn't need to care about it. Just the ones looking at the posts to see which ones are a waste of time. Hell, the algorithm might already be doing that anyways so even they don't need to care about it.

Behaviorbabe,

I want a community that values feedback. Downvotes are a form of feedback (low response effort too!) that anyone who is a part of that can choose to engage with, even people who don’t want a comment history at all. I have used them in the past to reflect on myself, and the community I was a part of as well.

Templa,

I used to think I liked them until I started being active on an instance that disables it.

SteleTrovilo,

I’m from an instance that doesn’t allow - or accept - downvotes. It’s honestly nice. Try it out!

Vuipes,
Vuipes avatar

I always loved sorting by controversial, so I would keep them, but not to hide them as Reddit does.
Also, I would remove the Activity button.

Destragras,
Destragras avatar

To copy and paste my comment from another thread regarding down votes:

I never really saw the point of downvotes/reduces on Lemmy and Kbin. There isn't an equivalent of those actions on other Fediverse projects (except if you count reactions on Pleroma) and it causes problems like what you have described [in the thread the OP was describing being downvote bombed through no fault of their own].
I use the kbin enhancement script's option to hide the reduce button because I have no reason to touch it.

Reddit has downvotes as a means of rating down content that doesn't contribute to the discussion or is spammy, but it tends to be used as a lazy "I disagree" button that attracts bandwaggoning. Why put in the effort to explain why you disagree with something when you can just hit the down arrow and be done?

I do not know what the intended purpose of downvotes/reduces is here on Kbin. Is it a lazy disagree button or is it like what Reddit intends where comments and posts that don't contribute should be downvoted?

detun3d,

I’m tempted to say I’d prefer not to have downvotes but it could be a bit better if you were forced to write a comment before either upvoting or downvoting. It won’t fix abuse as it doesn’t entirely fix review bombing on Steam for instance, but it would make it harder and encourage conversation.

Brkdncr,

I’d like them to exist but require and extra step to get to.

ada,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

They’re disabled on this instance and I prefer it that way.

bug,

A slightly different opinion: I think you should have them but not show totals anywhere, that way they can still be used to sort popular posts and comments and to filter out terrible ones, but people don’t judge the quality by the number next to it or obsess over their imaginary internet points.

Prej,
Prej avatar

We should have downvotes, but we also should be able to see who up- and downvoted.

iquanyin,
iquanyin avatar

@Prej why?

@ThatOneKirbyMain2568

Prej,
Prej avatar

Taking away the anonymity of downvoting could make the people think twice before they do, I think.

CharlesReed,
CharlesReed avatar

If you're on kbin you can. On whatever comment you just hit more -> activity. Although for whatever reasons the 'upvotes' are labeled as 'favorites'.

Prej,
Prej avatar

Oh, I didn't know that, thanks for the heads up.

ThatOneKirbyMain2568,
ThatOneKirbyMain2568 avatar

I imagine the "favorite" name is to match with Mastodon's favorites. Still not a huge fan of the name tho.

justlookingfordragon,
@justlookingfordragon@lemmy.world avatar

Let me give you an example from a different site: youtube.

Rockstar recently released a video advertising Red Dead Redemption for the Switch, and I have to admit, it does look neat at first glance. The video even has 40k “Likes” and to someone who is used to much smaller numbers, this seems like a LOT of positive feedback. Cool game, eh?

The same video also has 304k Dislikes, more than seven times the amount of Likes, and that’s the sole reason why I took a double take and tried to find out what the heck was wrong with this game that people hated it so much.

Now, on the Fediverse, the entire upvote/downvote thing is a whole lot smaller - no multimillion dollar companies trying to sell stuff, but private people discussing opinions and sharing memes and the like … but the core concept is the same. If someone is behaving like an asshole and gets 20 upvotes every comment, then they might feel vindicated with their shitty opinion because it looks like a lot of positive feedback.

If the same comments also get 150 downvotes at the same time, the statement from the community is suddenly completely different. But this can only happen IF there is the ability to downvote stuff.

Is is a perfect system? Far from it. But I’d still rather keep the ability to downvote for situations like these.

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