Currently downvotes are enabled on a trial basis, this was done by me to see if they can be enabled to prevent spam from rising to the top of communities, along with the fact that is another form of interaction/feedback.
However I’ve gotten some pushback for this and so I’d like to see the general consensus of this decision. Please put any comments/concerns in this thread, and please vote here: https://forms.gle/zqDxemJCiTAXJi5i9
the results of this poll and the comments will determine if we keep or remove downvotes again
Yes I like having downvotes. I use downvotes to notice trends of spam so I can better identify who to report/block.
That site sabotages the back button, fyi.
the downvote disabling feature never worked as intended. It only blocks lemmynsfw accounts from downvoting anything, lemmynsfw or otherwise. THIS account could already downvote anything federated
Sure but those of us on lemmynsfw can’t see them.
Ok. I generally like being able to see things.
You could downvote from another account but it wouldn’t be federated and tallied for anything but your home instance.
Downvotes are good, just as good as upvotes, having it one sided defeats the entire purpose of voting.
Everything just being upvoted is a terrible idea and you can see the negative impacts it already has in other places of the internet.
I changed my mind. I was pro downvote but I just looked at the new community list, saw one I liked, and then saw that a lot of the posts that fit the theme just fine have been downvoted for no reason. The mod is clearly upset about it also.
So yeah, please turn downvotes back off.
Removed by mod
I can see a lot of pros and cons, and I don’t think we can know what is best without a longer-term trial. There’ll be some trolling and harassment that comes with it, which is really bad, but also it allows user filtering of spam and junk posts, which is good. Hopefully there’s less of the former and more of the latter.
How do you know that there was no reason behind the downvotes?
True. I mean no discernable reason.
No downvotes. People use it as a “this isn’t my fetish” button and everything even slightly niche gets sent to oblivion. Especially bad for gonewild posts where people’s self image gets involved.
Also using a Google doc for this poll seems like a bad idea since people who aren’t from this instance can vote
You are using “some people misuse a thing” as a rationale to get rid of the thing.
If someone posts fetish x on a vanilla community, they should get downvoted. If they post that same thing in a community about fetish x, then the community can simply be blocked by those so inclined.
This is the important part:
Especially bad for gonewild posts where people’s self image gets involved.
We don’t need a “go away, you’re ugly” button. That’s what blocking is for.
Hm… what if downvoting was weighted only 1/10th as much as upvoting? So a few downvotes here and there from people doing it wrong wouldn’t amount to anything in others’ view, but if a post is heavily downvoted due to being in the wrong community or low effort, that’s visible?
Maybe? I dunno. Turning off downvotes seems like a pretty simple solution. Trying to come up with complex ways to make it hurt just the right amount doesn’t seem like it’ll work in all cases.
It’s called fine-tuning, and if everyone gave up that easily, many domains would suffer, like medicine, architecture, manufacturing design etc. Don’t be afraid of something simply because the ideal fix is more complicated than 2+2.
If they post that same thing in a community about fetish x, then the community can simply be blocked by those so inclined.
The problem is the majority of people don’t actually do that. They just downvote it to oblivion. That’s a significant part of why they were turned off in the first place.
If they post that same thing in a community about fetish x, then the community can simply be blocked by those so inclined.
Yes, they could. But that’s not what’s going to happen.
Believing that fetishes should be separated in their own corners and downvoted otherwise is an excellent reason to not have downvotes - or to just not post content in this instance anymore
Separating things into their own corner is literally the point of subs.
Unless a community explicitly has a rule excluding content, and the uploads are valid there, downvoting something just because you’re not into it just seems like entitlement to me. Its the same “reasoning” people use to get gay content outside of Rule34 or other general boards, because they find it “icky” (of course none of these people complain about lesbian content)
Having to enumerate every single rule on a sub would be horrific and more importantly preference can’t be written into rules. What a community likes and doesnt like is based on the voting system, thats the fundamental point of Lemmy and reddit.
Thinking you can post whatever you want and expect all the exposure without regards to a communities tastes just because it doesnt explicitly violate rules is entitlement.
Seems like the divide is between people who actually contribute to this instance and post content, versus those who don’t and want to decide what get seen or not. Question, when we are gone, are you going to start posting? Will you create and moderate communities? Or are you going to keep sitting and expecting poster to cater to your tastes?
Its pretty rich to sit on your ass, makes demands and still call others entitled.
I posted when this instance first started and there was nearly nothing. So yeah I would and did. I didnt complain about the down votes and wasnt demanding up votes either.
I’m entitled to nothing, posts or votes. You are entitled to nothing as well.
by that same logic a use that sees content they don’t like on a community they do can block that user.
is there a problem with content being posted that doesn’t match communities right now? i haven’t noticed one. the biggest problem on this platform right now is lack of content. downvotes, or any tool for creating explicit negative social interaction or feedback can make a community more hostile and less inviting. right now i generally see almost no posts on any nsfw communities that should get downvotes that don’t just get taken care of by a moderator. right now we need to draw people in to posting content way way more than we need better tools to organize it.
the biggest problem on this platform right now is lack of content. downvotes, or any tool for creating explicit negative social interaction or feedback can make a community more hostile and less inviting.
Exactly this. We don’t have enough content to give users the tools to discourage posting.
I don’t see much reason to have them. Others have spoken of helping with spam. I haven’t noticed any spam on this instance.
You haven’t seen the new posters that suddenly show up, drop the same 2 pics in about 40 different places, then never post again?
Oh sure but I wouldn’t have considered that spam I guess.
I see a handful that have upvotes.
I don’t like downvotes. I post stuff here, if it gets downvoted it can fail and go below the level of visibility that garners it more votes. People will downvote for any reason that comes into their heads. It’s almost like random noise but it messes with my post’s path to its intended audience.
I don’t see what possible motivation I would have to keep posting when that is happening.
You aren’t entitled to exposure. Voting the good up and the less good down is the fundamental basis of sites like Lemmy and Reddit. As a content creator/poster it of course hurts when your stuff isnt enjoyed by the community, but its the decision of the users what gets big and what doesnt.
No, it’s you who aren’t entitled to content.
If I have to make an effort to do something it has to be rewarded. Else why do it?
You don’t wake up in the morning and whack yourself in the face with a teaspoon, do you? It wouldn’t happen because there would be no reward in it. Except for that one person in 100,000.
So without me, and people like me*, you ain’t up or downvoting anything because no on is posting.
*Unless you want to leave the posting to the bots…
Lol I’m sorry but you’re are entitled to nothing when posting. If people like it, great you get upvotes. No one is entitled to those votes though. If you were, then they’d be meaningless (or at least more meaningless haha)
Well I’m not going to post anything, so you’re not going to decide whether it gets exposure or not. So that’s that sorted.
Up to you.
We can’t afford to shit on the few posters we have.
Radovic is prolific - they post a tonne of content. If they are saying they don’t like the change, listen.
I am also being shat upon in the past few days by anonymous blanket-downvoter(s) and it’s not a pleasant feeling. Rather discouraging, too.
Posters need viewers and vise versa. One cannot function without the other. So no I reject your appeal to authority fallacy.
I don’t need viewers. I choose to share content with users that like it but if you think I won’t walk away from this instance over this and carry on with my life without looking back then you’re mistaken.
You don’t need viewers yet you’re up in arms about the -1 vote button coming back?
What you have to do to actually win this argument is to tell me why I should bother to post anything when people are downvoting it.
What would motivate me to service the needs of people that hate the majority of content?
I don’t care about winning against you or getting you to do anything, your opinions and actions after today are your own.
Suppressing down votes is something I disagree with, and I’m voicing those concerns.
When is a decision expected?
Probably about a week, just to make sure everyone is able to see the poll
A poll isn’t a good way to decide this. Regular posters suffer from downvotes more than others, and they drive our community. Their opinion should count for more.
Currently three regular posters have complained about it:
- Radovic
- Cleverhans
- LVL3_Eroticism.
Yes I definitely understand that, that’s why the comments here and the poll are being taken into consideration
To be quite frank, I don’t know why you’re even doing this. We had a discussion about it last year and all the same points were raised after which you turned them off, only to turn them on and have another debate a few weeks later and you then had to turn them off again. I think you know that you will probably have to turn them off again at some point. So how about you level with us, what is it about downvotes that you find so compelling?
Downvotes can be a useful tool to shape a community, the issue comes in when several people start downvoting communities they don’t even participate in. Which is one of the main issues brought up here.
It may seem very clear to you that “no one” wants downvotes, but as an admin I get complaints for basically every decision made on this site, so what is the “right” choice is sometimes hard to determine. I’ve been getting complaints about downvotes being disabled for awhile now, so it wasn’t clear to me. Even now, the opinion is still very split. Which is why I enabled them quietly to see if it would cause any issues. It did, so I made this post to see if people think the issues created by downvotes outweigh the benefits, and what peoples’ other opinions about them are.
This is my opinion based on what I’ve read and the results of the poll: I think at a later time when lemmynsfw is larger, downvotes may be viable, especially if lemmy implements a custom home feed so that not everyone sees the same posts. This would help mitigate the issue of people not in communities downvoting posts. But as it stands, I’m leaning towards disabling them again. Frequent posters, which are kind of needed for this site to survive, don’t seem to like them, and the poll is split almost 50/50. I have to try to balance enjoyability of posting and enjoyability of consuming content on the site, and it just seems like downvotes really hurts posters and only marginally helps consumers.
I’m leaving the poll up for a few more days and am going to continue to read the comments, but, if nothing changes, that’s probably what’s going to happen.
All this seems very fair. I’m under no illusion as to the popularity of downvotes, I would say that damn near all of them want to be able to downvote.
The question I have asked you and have asked @CombedSpaghetti is what motivates me or any of your other regular posters to post when they know that all their efforts can be nullified, for any reason you can think of, by someone pushing a button at the wrong moment.
And you can’t. Not unless you cut us in on that sweet crypto action 😜
Like I said I understand what you’re saying, my answer is it’s not always as simple as doing something that makes one group of people happy, I have to weigh the options, which is why I made this post.
Also, I don’t get paid to do this, they crypto money goes 100% to paying for hosting the site to my knowledge. All the admins have day jobs.
I know this is an incredibly divisive topic and I don’t envy the position this puts admin in. For what it’s worth, I appreciate that you’re trying to make it work and involving the community in the process.
Downvotes are a useful tool to shape a community and help with moderation, but with the size of the active posting population as well as the broad reach for posts across the greater Fediverse downvotes don’t lend well to fostering the human element. It’s fine to have them with a larger active community where people can form their own content bubbles, but pretty much anything that’s posted here ends up at the top of local for a few hours and is going to get a lot of eyes on it that may not enjoy the premise of the community. You’ll have no posts to downvote after the community has chased away anyone who posts though.
With Yiffit, pornlemmy, and now Lemmyf.uk all shut down this is the only dedicated nsfw instance left that I’m aware of. It honestly just seems like Lemmy in general is hostile to nsfw content.
The stated reason is spam. We’ve been getting a lot of that recently, so I get admins are looking for a way to deal with it. But the spam is being upvoted, so I don’t think it’s working.
Yeah this time spam. This is admin Yay talking about it last year:
Some people found it right, some people hated it, some people hesitated. At the end of the day, since we are on a disorganised platform like fediverse, I find the decision we took right. However, I was also annoyed by the lack of downvotes. So I searched for a solution.
https://lemmynsfw.com/post/4962186
Then he said this a few months later:
As you may notice, downvotes have been completely off for the last few days. I did this because I couldn’t resist the pressure of some friends :/ I still don’t know what to do about this. The majority of members probably want it to be completely open. As mods, posters and admins; some think it should be closed, some think it should be restricted (I guess).
I guess there is no solution that makes everyone happy. I realized I don’t have admin skills in stressful situations, I’m a fucking stupid lol :D I miss @gabe so much.
lemmyposter212 suggested “fuzzy votes” or something that can work for us too. I think I’ll just ghost this issue for a while.
https://lemmynsfw.com/post/7152586
“Annoyed by the lack” and “:/” sounds like the admins just want downvotes. Well, it is their instance and they will have what they want.
I personally believe downvotes can be of use, but that would require a much, much larger userbase than what Lemmy - as a whole, and also LemmyNSFW - has. Maybe the biggest stances could afford to have downvotes (though from what I’m aware, plenty of them don’t) but in NSFW I could easily see a few people with bad intentions deciding what gets or doesn’t get seen in smaller communities.
The average activity in non-niche communities of NSFW is also much smaller than their Reddit counterparts, plus the fact that - from my experience - there’s quite a few mods missing, inactive for several months to +1 year, and I’m not sure what one would do in case of brigading.
Unfortunately you can’t really stimulate people to comment, which really would’ve been a boon to uploaders
when it comes to harassment or brigaiding please report it to me and I’ll take care of it, if mods for a community are inactive
Ability to downvote is an important part of these communities, it’s a self control mechanism. I surely don’t want to block some users just because I don’t like some of their posts, downvote should suffice.
Enabled downvotes and place immediately got more argumentative and a bit more toxic. No, not want.
I too, as a person who has no feelings for men, have clicked posts for gay porn by accident. I too have come across posts which I did not prefer, even if they were concerning women. I, too, have seen some things which in general I do not like. In these cases—
I simply became more careful and started taking a look at the community name first. Secondly I started looking for communities whivh fit what I like better. Niche ones without exposure. A good sign. For the last, there are a number of ways for me to deal with it, like simply moving on. Blocking where maliciousness exists. Finding other communities. Et cetera.
I was for disabling down votes the last goaround wrt this topic, and I’m of the same opinion.
LemmyNSFW hasn’t grown much more in the past year and this will just drive away more posters (of which there aren’t much left) imho
I’ve just counted 100 communities I had to block to get a semi interesting “local” feed, in addition to 7 posters who were really not my taste. How many hentai/anime communities are really needed for example? So yes, downvoting makes sense as long as there is a local feed, that’s how lemmy works.
And yes, I have witnessed a clear improvement since downvotes are back.
Currently downvotes are enabled on a trial basis, this was done by me to see if they can be enabled to prevent spam
There’s a bunch of spam from a user called “BravoIsabella” that has positive upvotes, and a grumpy post from one of the AI communities saying “mystery downvoter show yourself”.
Yeah, I posted this. Somebody or a number of somebodies are mass now downvoting nearly everything I post. Presumably, they have some beef but they should have stated it openly and we could have discussed it. Instead they are just blanket-bombing me.
Frankly, it’s the sort of thing one expects on reddit. But this is supposed to be a better sort of place?
Oh and the “mystery downvoter” post got, as of this moment, a -11. In a new community with 5 subscribers. It basically means a gang of people are just going around and downvoting everything I post. It’s no longer about artistic differences or anything, it’s a vendetta.
And frankly, I am not here for this type of shit. I’ve put a lot of time and effort into creating art and sharing it, including creating new communities. But this gang of self-appointed anonymous vigilantes is really making me reconsider whether it’s all worthwhile.
Sorry about the whining. But since the admin asked how people feel about downvotes, that’s how I feel.
It’s shitty. I appreciate your posts. Here’s hoping OP turns off downvotes and we can go back to the way we were.
Thanks!
I think a lot of responses were correlating downvotes with censorship which is something I can agree with. I personally don’t want to see someone’s dick in gonewild but I know it’s for someone. Maybe we can have a tagging system that user can filter what they don’t want to see. But I don’t care if downvotes comes back or stays away because I’ll just block the accounts that shows things I don’t want to see.
I think it’s better to have a button to report spam, harassment, etc , rather than using downvote. Downvote is too ambiguous.
Such buttons aren’t really supported in mobile apps though.
I suppose it makes sense if the change is lemmy-wide
I mean, that’s how the report button works site-wide. If we are talking about a button that works automatically, then you are basically copying the downvote, but worse, since it cannot be offset by many people upvoting.
You need to remember that it is hard to distinguish between a downvote / button use because of spam / harassment and because of people not liking something. You need a human to do that. Fetish content will get downvoted / buttonned by people “not into it” when obscure enough. Regular OCs will also get that treatment - since users will get bored and seeing new content from them may make them downvote / button.
From a user interface perspective, I think it’s far less likely people will report spam than downvote when they do not like something. I suppose we both are only hypothesising here though.
I don’t see offsetting as a good feature. It just seems to drive people into tribalistic up/down wars. What’s the point of users seeing the net votes?
Only if it isn’t a single button.
The point is the same as with hiding the yt dislike button. It helps people determine if something is of higher quality or not.
do reports downrank posts?
It might even remove the offending post entirely.
automatically/instantly? or do you mean after review?