Ask Lemmy

26996 readers

1522 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

-39

What do you think about disabling downvotes? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Personally I don't care about downvotes. If you don't be yourself on an anonymous platform, how can you be yourself in real life? Plus this makes all posts conform within the general trend rather than creating discussions and meaningful debates.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Downvotes give you additional information. This can be:

OP is posting crap that the mods haven't spotted
OP is just plain wrong.
- They could be intentionally or unintentionally spreading misinformation. Lies should be squashed. (Although, I believe people who unintentionally spreading misinformation should be given an opportunity to correct themselves. Which can happen in replies.)
There is community disagreement with OP
- I try not to use downvotes like this. But some people do, and it should be noted.
OP's position is controversial, i.e. upvotes and downvotes are split around 50:50.

One consequence of removing downvotes is crap can appear to have more support because it can rise above the mediocre. I'd rather see the mediocre than the crap.

In all these cases it does require reading in-between the lines to figure out what is going on, but again I'd rather have the downvote signal than not have it.