I mean, yeah, they allow you to say, "I disagree with this", and voice your opinion as an opposite to "I agree", but on the other hand they come with a lot of negatives.
- They encourage group-think
- Discourages controversial opinions from being posted
- Discourages commenting in general
- Controversial opinions are buried/hidden
I'm not saying disable downvotes because someone's fee fees would get hurt, I'm suggesting to just let "shitty comments" (or so the community thinks) stay at 0 or positive (but with a low score relative to the good comments). The good comments would still technically rise to the top.
Downvoting in general is a shitty way to disagree anyway, because if you don't explain why you're disagreeing it's sort of useless. The only time they're really worth something is for spam posts, but they can just be reported, no?
Thoughts?
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[–] feanturi ago
You've got good points, and I agree with your reasoning for how they are bad. But if used correctly, downvoats are good. That's the thorny issue, everybody has a different idea of what "correctly" means. To me, it means downvoating comments that are intentionally inflammatory or that make poor arguments against some comment they are attacking. Sometimes just because they're being an asshole. Plus modifiers based on my mood at the time. It's a moving target.
And I am not referring to people that I may wind up in an argument with. My downvoats are generally given as an observer rather than a participant. I generally refrain from downvoating my nemesis-of-the-hour on principle. Unless they're coming off like a psycho. But that's another thing, what I think makes someone downvoat-worthy is different to someone else.
I think that the primary rule to look at is that downvoating should be reserved entirely for comments that do not further the conversation at hand. If they do further the conversation but do not conform to your worldview, you should not downvoat it. Because you disagree, you would actually be better served by letting it rise to the top, if rising it is. Because it will be seen by more people, which will give more people on your side, more eloquent than you, the chance to see it, and refute it skilfully. If you downvoat it, it has less of a chance of being seen by someone that really knows how to "put them in their place". If nobody champions you, then maybe you've got something you need to look at in yourself. It's really a win-win when you don't downvoat people you disagree with.