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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[–] boater 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
I am not discussing removing content or hard-modding. I am discussing collapsing it and soft-modding so that it starts as minimized in the default thread view. Ideally all participants in small subverses could participate in soft-modding comments blatantly violating that subverses explicitly defined sidebar rules (ex. spam, advertising, spoilers, porn, extreme gore).
I believe my solution already strongly disincentives downvoating brigades without removing downvoating due to the three reasons mentioned here:
https://voat.co/v/ideasforvoat/comments/216460/657448
I believe that it's possible to have the best of both worlds and keep downvoats while disincentivizing brigadiers by simply changing the interface mechanic.
[–] umpaloompa 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Sorry, I didn't get your first post completely right.
The soft modding is a good tool if it is used by smart and responsible users. Unfortunately default subs will get bigger and the masses unfortunately dumber. This is what reddit's defaults look like now: an echo-chamber where everything that doesn't comply with the norm will get downvoted and that user will not want to share his (controversial) views with us eliminating.
In the end it's what will most people use the downvote button. Is it to terminates trolls/spammers or to have it used as a disagreement button. What we should do is find a way to keep the ability to indicate trolls/spammers and terminate the use of disagreeing by the downvote.
Your points in the linked comment are good but in my opinion won't make a effect to the users that downvote because they disagree. They'll just take one more minute to downvote. But I guess we should try both methods or have some sort of poll/megathread across voat and have the users explain their views and influence other users.
PS: You look like a responsible user, so I took 5 minutes the time to upvote some of your comments so you get the rights to downvote faster + I would love to have you at my sub /v/changemyview, the way yor academic-like argue is fantastic.