EDIT: Maybe just for comments? Downvoats may still help with content quality control
There is some good in the concept of downvoating however in practice we've seen and continue to see the primary use a downvoat button will be an "I disagree with this person" button.
Removing downvoating entirely will not negatively impact the site. Misinformation will still be called out and not upvoated, spammers should be reported(hoping for that report button one day), ass holes will be called out, irrelevant posts and comments will be ignored/receive very few if any upvoats or get reported.
Removing the downvoat ability would also deal with any future issues with brigades, which was a big issue on that other place.
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[–] umpaloompa ago (edited ago)
That why we should have a report as spam button. It deletes the comment until a mod approves it to be a good comment.
[–] boater 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
This presupposes the feasibility of extremely active moderators existing for all subverses.
What about if we are dealing with a smaller subverse discussing a specific book or television series. Say, one where 90% users want to forbid posting spoiler comments in threads not explicitly labelled as allowing spoilers, but one in which there is no moderator on call 24 hours a day.
It would be much more efficient if these smaller communities retained the ability to conduct "soft modding" of comments in a decentralized and non-heirarchical manner rather, than having to turn over all power to hide comments over to a moderator which may either not exist or may not be able to keep up with the workload.
While brigading may be a problem on popular subverses, I think we can decrease the probability of it occurring by tweaking the functionality of the downvoting button without getting rid of it. I believe that disallowing downvotes entirely would case great harm to the ability of smaller subverses to hold structured conversations for a comparatively small gain.
[–] umpaloompa 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
First of all subs in the likes of /r/SRS and /r/SRD should not be allowed here. If something happens in a sub mods of that particular subverse need to be transparent about it with their users.
A good idea would be to have approved downvoters as /r/polandball is practicing, which are appointed by the mods themselves. Maybe if you garner a specific amount a CCP/SCP in that specific subverse you can start downvoting content.
Although this actually what voat has done site wide I think this will help greatly for small subversers for keeping downvote brigades outside.