Downvotes can be a useful tool to shape a community, but one of the main issues brought up in the post I made is when several people start downvoting communities they don’t even participate in. Which I want to emphasize is NOT the correct way for downvotes to be used.
First id like to start off with an apology to those who are upset about them being enabled. It may seem very clear to you that downvotes weren’t wanted, but as an admin I get complaints for basically every decision made on this site, so what the “right” choice is, 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 the initial 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 think the best option is 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.
So with all that said, downvotes have been disabled again. Sorry for all the confusion and back and forth.
I know I’m late to the debate, but just for the sake of voicing my opinion I want to say that not being able to downvote frankly to me makes this instance feel childish and not serious, and worse than that, like I’m being nanny-ed or babysat - which is very strange for an inherently NSFW instance.
I understand the reasoning behind the decision, and absolutely acknowledge the very clear good intent, but it feels needlessly oversteppy to me, like an elementary school teacher telling their students they don’t have to merely get along but they must all be friends. And certainly I don’t want anyone to feel bad, whether by receiving downvotes or any other means, but I also don’t feel obligated to shelter the feelings of those who put themselves out there for assessment either, and I don’t think we’re being entirely honest about the situation at hand in these discussions… The potentially offending parties don’t largely appear to be breaking into people’s homes to insult them, more closely rather these potential offenders are being offered free samples by a local hot dog stand; some people are just not going to think the stand makes very good hot dogs and yes some people are just not going to be fans of hot dogs at all. I don’t think saying “I didn’t enjoy that hot dog” is the same thing as being an unruly dick. And yes I’ll acknowledge that of course there will be some bad actors, but there will always be some bad actors. I’m not trying to say “toughen up” exactly but I don’t think the benefit of sheltering some users from the potential negative impact of being downvoted by a bunch of complete strangers is enough to outweigh the restriction on users.
I understand this is a settled point and don’t expect my input to change matters, nor am I trying to pull any disingenuous ultimatum bullshit or anything, but from reading the discourse on the topic I’ve gotten the impression the admins of this instance are genuinely trying to do their best and make the most reasonable decisions while listening to the voice of the community, so I felt I would be remiss not to add mine to the discourse. Cheers.