If you're a Kbin moderator, YSK how to remove downvotes and upvotes.

This method only works within your magazine, and will remove downvotes or upvotes on comments as well as posts.

To implement it, go to Magazine Panel -> Appearance, and enter the following in your CSS box to remove downvotes:

{span style="color:#323232;"}.vote__down { display: none !important; } {/span}

and/or for upvotes:

{span style="color:#323232;"}.vote__up { display: none !important; } {/span}

Example with downvotes removed : @13thFloor

Many thanks to @Anafroj for writing the original CSS code, and suggesting it as a way to combat trolls. Note this test shows that standard CSS works in Kbin, but you do have to replace <> with {} to get it to parse properly.

This isn't a perfect solution, but it should mitigate the amount of users that try to sink communities through downvote spam.

Thanks to @some_guy and @cre0 for posing for the picture.

10A,

I'd love to see an option made available for magazines saying, "Voters must be members", and perhaps "Hide content from /all".

Arotrios,
Arotrios avatar

Agreed, although I do like the "all" exposure as it brings in new contributors. I'd also really like to be able to set separate notifications options for magazines you mod, instead of having the only option be magazines you've subscribed to.

Pons_Aelius,

The whole reason I use kbin over lemmy is that Dvs exist and all voting is public.

I understand the combating trolls reason but I see it as losing more than you gain.

Arotrios,
Arotrios avatar

I agree for most magazines, it's pretty good as is.

However, for the one I run, it led to trolls spam downvoting in an attempt to hurt the community. As we're geared towards being a safe place for creators to post their OC and inspirations, this behavior was driving away potential contributors, and wasting my time having to ban downvote spammers who would come to the forum to trash OC without any intention of contributing or commenting.

I'm still weighing the pros and cons of making the change permanent, and I'll be observing how things go over the next few days (along with a community poll) to see if the effect is positive.

Regardless of how it turns out there, I did think that giving moderators the knowledge of how to implement the option was useful, especially for smaller communities that can easily be sunk by a couple of dedicated trolls.

Pons_Aelius,

I know your m.

It is your space and I understand the decision but I have unsubbed.

Personal opinion: Any place that blocks the ability to voice dissent is problematic, no matter what the reason behind it is.

Regardless of how it turns out there, I did think that giving moderators the knowledge of how to implement the option was useful, especially for smaller communities that can easily be sunk by a couple of dedicated trolls.

What do you mean here?

What does sunk mean?

I have seen and read pretty much every post on 13th and never noticed anything.

Arotrios,
Arotrios avatar

Hi @Pons_Aelius - per my previous comment, the discussion thread is open here if you would like to participate further.

Side note, the two trolls I mentioned that led to this post, @cre0 and @some_guy showed up to prove my point with downvotes - they love to chase me around the Fediverse downvoting posts off the forum (been two weeks now - crazy obsessive compulsive disorder on display). It's actually a two-headed troll, as it appears that the accounts are sockpuppeting each other and downvoting within seconds of each other. Needless to say, I'd like to spare our contributors attention like this.

cre0,

Your 0 contributors won’t have to worry about downvotes

Trolljegeren,

Jeg trenger fortsatt den blodprøven. Din oppførsel er en rabiat hund, og vi må finne ut om du er smittsom.

Arotrios,
Arotrios avatar

Dissent is absolutely ok. Reasoned, polite critique is more than welcomed.

Spam downvoting without commentary is not, as it adds nothing to the discussion, and just makes the poster feel bad about contributing. It's like walking into a gallery, taking a shit on a sculpture, then leaving without a word. No artist would willing show their work in a gallery that allowed that sort of behavior, unless it's Dada, but that's crap anyway for the most part IMHO.

This is the exact opposite of the forum's founding intentions, which is to encourage creativity and the expression of it.

This is the dynamic I observed when running a non-profit publishing site for a decade during the early internet - the best artists were often those most shy about showing their work, because the sensitivity that allowed them to create also made them vulnerable to negativity on a greater level than others. This became very true of our political artists - one fell afoul of the Turkish government for posting the aftereffects of a riot in Cyprus, and she was hounded off the site (and the site was targeted by Turkish hackers, which made my life hell for 3 years). I still think about her often, and hope she's ok.

That being said, I'm still undecided about making the change permanent, but I have noted (and respect) your opinion, and I will be posting a poll / comment thread in a bit here to see how other subscribers feel. You're welcome to participate if you so choose.

Side note - I'm glad you didn't notice anything - I did move quickly to remove the problematic individuals (who refused to stop their behavior after I contacted them directly, which is why they earned the bans).

Regarding "sinking" a forum, visibility of posts on various platforms is affected by downvotes (although not as badly as Reddit). Spam downvoting is way to attack a forum to try to ensure the posts of a new community never get traction, and thus don't build an audience.

Destragras,
Destragras avatar

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.
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?

Arotrios,
Arotrios avatar

I'm coming to that conclusion myself - thus far in my experiment on the 13th floor, I've had one subscriber leave, but gained another five since. I've left a pinned thread up as an opportunity for folks to comment, but haven't heard any complaints other than the ones here, so it seems like most of my readers agree with your assessment.

Crul,

Image credit: Rien Poortvliet, from Gnomes (1976)

Arotrios,
Arotrios avatar

Thank you much, kind sir! Have an upvote on me.

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