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

I think this could work really well. The purpose of the voat mechanic is to push quality content to the top and crap content to the bottom, correct? If people can still upvoat quality content, it would rise to the top while the crap content would sink to to bottom because it has less upvoats.

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

Downvoting is necessary to enforce subverse specific rules in a decentralized manner in instances where a subverse does not possess a moderator available 24-7 and still wants to hold structured conversations.

For instance, suppose there is a collective desire for a subverse for discussing a series of books where the majority of participants want a strict "no spoilers" rule enforced in comments in threads without a spoiler tag in the title.

Removing the ability of users to downvote would require the presence of extremely active moderator, or for people to draw additional attention to the spoilers and spam by posting additional comments under them.

I think that a possible solution is to have the downvote button open a list of subverse specific rule violations each time it is pressed. This way in order for a downvote to go through, the downvoter must select the reason they are downvoting the comment from a finite list of options every time.

The list of rule violations which a downvote must fall into to be considered "valid" would be equivalent to the list of sidebar rules of each subverse, and determined by the subverse creator, the subverse moderation team, or perhaps by a majority of active subverse participants via a direct amendment process.

This would allow different subverses to develop different policies and cultures concerning the use of downvoats.

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

I like the idea of the drop down. I still don't know that simple upvoats wouldn't accomplish that purpose though. If I post a spoiler to the Game of Thrones sub without a spoiler tag - it shouldn't be upvoated. By not upvoating me, you are condemning me to the bottom of the pile. It will still show up under "new," but you really shouldn't be browsing new if you're an episode behind.

Back to the drop down though. I like the idea in theory, but what's to stop me from just selecting anything regardless of whether or not it applies?

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[–] 12_Years_A_Toucan [S] 1 point 0 points (+1|-1) ago 

That's my general thought process as well!