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[–] CptnCrunch 1 point 3 points (+4|-1) ago  (edited ago)

Shitty effort is worthy of a downvote. Spam is worthy of a report.

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[–] davydaggers 3 points -3 points (+0|-3) ago 

downvotes are how keyboard warrior faggots like you censor dissenting views. this is what we have to fight against.

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[–] CptnCrunch 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

My first downvoat, thanks

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[–] PM_ME_YOUR_PLOT_HOLE 1 point 1 point (+2|-1) ago 

I downvoat people convinced that the raliens live amongst us. I don't need to explain why I do that.

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[–] Tawm 0 points 13 points (+13|-0) ago 

Exactly, the whole 'downvote = disagree' attitude is a big part of why Reddit became such an echo chamber. People want Voat to be different, but they don't realize that how the community acts has a major influence on how the site works. If people want Voat to be more discussion based than Reddit has been lately, they have to actually discuss things instead of downvoting people for being 'stupid'.

Nobody wants to put effort into writing a comment if they are just going to get downvoated for having an unpopular opinion. As people get discouraged from downvotes, they might start giving up on commenting. This leads to the discussion being dominated by people supporting the popular opinion, and once the only people left are the people who agree on everything, there's not even anything to discuss anymore.

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[–] 123_456 0 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago 

I actively fight giving downvoats, but I sort of have to remind myself each time that I do not want to create the community that is reddit. So, I don't use downvoats as a disagree button.

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[–] coinslists 0 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago 

Downvotes should be a "that's useless" button. Dissenting opinions should be welcomed. Minds that don't change belong to dead souls.

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[–] tiecuando ago 

I think people that downvote as disagreement actually believe the comment they've downvoted is useless. Arrogance, narcisssm, the dunning-kreuger effect, etc.

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[–] upvoatme 0 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago 

If you open up one person's mind with your comment for the better you should be happy. Social validation is less important than learning. No need to be upset about people not agreeing with you.

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[–] Reow 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

I completely agree with you, but the problem is how to enforce this. Even if it should be part of the community spirit, there will always be those who misuse downvotes, and it would be nearly impossible to prove they downvoted because they disagreed instead of because they thought the comment had no value.

If downvotes are simply supposed to be about enforcing the rules of the sub, I think we should do away with them and replace them with a Report button instead. Alternatively, if we simply want people to think before downvoting, then perhaps whenever a person downvotes, they should lose a point of karma (or whatever we're calling it) as well (StackExchange does something similar to this). Honestly, though, I don't know if there is a good solution.

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[–] weeeasles 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Limiting the ability to down vote sounds like a good idea to me, so long as we stop have a system in place to prevent mass spam from exploiting said measures.

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[–] toomuchcode 0 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago  (edited ago)

This is a (crazy?) idea I have been toying with: When you click the downvote button, a prompt comes up, where you must type the reason why you are downvoting - and if the reason isn't spam or something very nasty (personal attacks?), you risk losing your downvote privs.

People with disagreements should engage in the comments rather than seek an easy way out via internet points.

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[–] weeeasles ago 

We should also be able to specify that the content was low quality, a shit post, or otherwise poorly executed.

For example, when some racist makes a part about blacks being naturally more violent, and uses statistics of incarceration rates to make their point. We know that in all actuality, income level has more of a meaningful correlation to violence etc. However the racists post wouldn't be a spam post, but it certainly wouldn't be fostering discussion in any honest or fair way.

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[–] coinslists 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

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[–] immibis 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

I have to wonder if you should also need a reason for upvotes. Majority opinions being heavily upvoted is just as bad as dissenting opinions being heavily downvoted.

I never used Slashdot, but apparently it has some kind of system like that, with a handful of reasons something can be up/downvoted.

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[–] toomuchcode ago 

Yeah Slashdot does, and number of "positive" reasons you can choose from is larger than the "negative" (just Troll, Offtopic and Overrated IIRC).

The guidelines also stated "Focus on promoting rather than demoting" which is a mantra people on voat/reddit/whatever should really take on board.

Actually I think the more effective aspect there was that the points a post can have is limited to -1 to +5. If even only a small portion of people with mod points at the time shared there was a good chance of getting modded up, but little of going down.

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[–] Boltbeam ago  (edited ago)

Downvotes should be used for spam or shitty effort. It's disingenuous to say that the community's wisdom shines through the dispensing of upvotes and downvotes. Downvotes are the lazy fucks way of expressing disagreement and are almost always used as such, moreso as voat has grown.

This. Don't know about you guys, but I don't want to be delayed in my ability to downvote because someone got butthurt and downvoted quite a few comments of mine.

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