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[–] 1 pt

Because on Voat people would just downvote someone they didn't like regardless of what they actually said constantly.

[–] 1 pt

I think the downvote button ought to be a valid way to disagree, in principle. It's really the lack of discretion and abuse that makes it an issue, because some adult people act like children. Although, it should also be possible to see whether authetntic brigading was taking place. Admins should be able to look at a comment and track the downvotes to the users, and know if, say, a Q sub was brigading a criticizer on another sub.

I don't know. Part of the reason it worked more smoothly at Voat had to do with the fact the points didn't matter. Points are tied to privileges here, so I suppose the stakes are a bit different. There's really no way to make 'downvote to disagree' work unless you eliminate the significance of the points in terms of site privileges. At Voat, it wasn't that the points had no significance at all. Ratios were still useful to be able to judge a user's reputation and contributions.

[–] 0 pt

Yeah but the issue is that people would just go around down-voting everyone's posts/comments as a way to silence and censor them, I had people following me around and doing that to every single post/comment I made regardless of if they actually disagreed with what I was saying or not and so did a lot of other people. I don't think the issue is using it as a "disagree button" it's that people use it as a "I just don't like you" button.

[–] [deleted] 0 pt (edited )

Completely agree - sounds like Reddit

Down-votes can also alter the perception of a post - especially new ones. If a post is heavily down-voted, it';s human nature that many won't read it - even though it may be informative.

[–] 0 pt

The one problem I saw with it was people would down things they simply didn't like. So while I personally don't agree with porn for me, I didn't down it when I saw it so long as it was in the appropriate sub. Other people would just down it to try to "bury it" because "porn is bad mmkay." They wouldn't even block the sub if you told them.

[–] 0 pt

That's an interesting point.

Not holding user grudges is a new concept for me.

[–] 0 pt

So how we prevent a subversive from causing problems???

[–] 0 pt

Depends on what you mean by subversion, I think the rule is mainly to stop people from attacking people like me and who have different viewpoints but are White Nationalists, not people like the_magic_man and the spammers

[–] 0 pt

A subverter: a poisoner of discourse by portraying reality other than it actually is for their own benefit. Sure there are spammers and that is usually obvious.

[–] 0 pt

Man this has been discussed since reddit was a libertarian shithole. Maybe look at hacker news where its generally up vote only iirc (until you get enough account points at least). Either disagree with words or ignore and move on and save the downvotes for spam or what not.

[–] 0 pt

Suppression, censorship, echo chamber...

Maybe, this will force more voaters into actually thinking and explaining why they disagree with something instead of downvoating to bury their post or comment.

[–] 0 pt

The downvote policy will fail. It may have worked with 12 people posting but with hundreds it will not work.

People will tire of seeing obvious shill posts with nothing but upvotes.

[–] 0 pt

I'm okay with the downvote being a "disagree button". Why not just make it so that getting downvotes has no negative consequences? You get rid of the "muh censorship" crying from the likes of tallest_shill but people can still see that most others think he's a shithead. Then just have an actual report button for real spam/abuse.

[–] 0 pt (edited )

I, for one, don't understand why - if they insist that "downvote" is for SPAM only - won't they change the down_arrow icon to an actual report_SPAM button or at least a red "STOP" sign that says "SPAM" or sth. Why make it look like a "agree/disagree" combo and then insist it's not? Or remove the down_arrow altogether and have a Report SPAM link on the other side of the post/comment.

All in all, I don't get why there can't be a proper disagree button which is usually used to vent. They say that if I don't agree I should leave a reply......but I don't even want to talk to some assholes, just want to bash them with a "-1" and move on.......instead I have to neuter myself and "simply ignore" without uttering a word (very unhealthy), or waste hours fencing meaningless insults with a half-obvious troll (at least as unhealthy); very strange design.

Minus points don't have to block the poster from anything or remove his lvls, privileges, bury the posts and shit.....it should just mean that he's widely known for posting shit-quality posts. Might even get a special badge of "honor" - "Shitposter" or sth, like that "Suspicious behavior" tag or sth similar.

Other concept: Replace down_arrow with a flag_icon that has a "Report as SPAM" text on mousover (works just as now, giving minus points - simply graphical upgrade) + introduce proper "Disagree" and "Shrug/Don't_Care" buttons with their separate counters which are informative only - this allows better communication with the community anyway, i.e. your post has "only" 8 upvotes because "20 people don't agree and 15 don't care" vs "somehow only 8 people saw mah post and it just got buried under new stuff, well shit".

Naw, I already have gotten a downvoat from some crank on here because he could not refute what I posted. On Voat I had pissed one user off enough they downvoated whatever I posted. It was amusing, the concept of internet points are amusing. When you call them into question very quickly someone that holds them dear and believe that they define their status comes out of the woodwork. Like Mr. OK who has amassed over 8000 comments and has a red badge of honor. Hahah Reminds me of the whorish Scarlet letter.