this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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It often makes me sad seeing some posts receiving downvotes, even though I know it's from random people across Lemmy instances who probably aren't furries.

I could disable downvotes which would make it so that they're ignored by the instance and the count would only reflect the amount of upvotes. But, that also means that Yiffit users wouldn't be able to use downvotes anywhere else.

What do you think?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

My initial, knee-jerk reaction to this question is a strong no. However, I've seen good arguments on both sides. I personally don't like reporting unless it's something very obviously and/or egregiously problematic, as I feel that getting admins or mods involved and potentially silencing someone as a result is not a thing to be done lightly. Downvotes provide a bit of granularity here. (Though whether that's actually needed or if it just makes me feel better is debatable.) If a post does warrant reporting, downvoting it as well can help prevent it from getting more attention in the time it takes the mods to act.

On the other paw, I'm a trans former-Redditor so I know all too well how downvotes can be abused to silence people in favor of bigoted disinformation. A bunch of downvotes early on can prevent a quality post from gaining any traction at all, especially if people gain and use the option to hide posts below a certain karma threshold like some in here have suggested. It may not be much of a problem now, but if Lemmy really grows we may start to have issues with brigading.

So I guess my real answer is a resounding "meh." Neither option is perfect, and I suspect tackling these problems for real will require more complex solutions.