It's no surprise that this would be common, especially in some subverses. But those that are supposed to be serious and for discussion often get poisoned by this. Up-votes and down-votes can make things rather one-sided and into a hive-mind of sorts.
How can we, mods or the community at large prevent hive mind mentality? Even if people don't downvote comments or posts that go against their beliefs they are less inclined to upvote than someone that agrees and makes other good points. Doesn't this foster some sort of hive mentality and where is it a good thing and where is it a bad thing? If I don't have an opinion yet about a topic and the highest comments are all about x is really y does this mean that it is right?
Does this promote conformity and stifle discussion indirectly?
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[–] FreshieD 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago
To prevent hive mind, I think you have to start by identifying what promotes it. In my opinion, what promotes hive mind is karma-greed. People want big karma numbers because it's an ego boost. Saying a comment that you know other people agree with, in an environment where karma is free to give, results in more karma gained than stating an opinion that is polarizing and receives both up- and downvotes.
I think that the 100cpp requirement for downvoats certainly helps prevent hivemind. I've seen more interesting, lively discussion in a few days of Voat than I did in a year of Reddit. New users can't just sign up and start downvoating everything they disagree with. Were I the one in charge, I would probably take that even further. I would institute a policy of cpp as "vote currency"; with an upvoat costing you one cpp to give, and a downvoat costing 2, or maybe even 3 cpp. I'm not sure if that would work as I've never seen a site work that way, but it would be different, and I think it would be worth the experiment.
[–] Arotaes_Forgehammer 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
That would be cool, but eventually all CCP would be removed with no way to introduce it back, or collect in a few users (ahem /u/_vargas_)
[–] FreshieD ago
Perhaps add in that you always get a certain amount of free upvoats per 24 hours, much like how new users now get 10 or 20. That keeps fresh cpp coming in, but keeps upvoats still high enough value as to not just throw them about for any little thing you agree with and downvoats valuable enough to only really use them for complete toolbag posts.
[–] FiftyShadesOfBlack 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Sorting comments by votes promotes hive mind too.
Also hiding comments with negative points, but I'm not sure Voat does that.