this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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Currently downvotes are disabled here because I’m a big softie. But I have found myself missing them every now and again…

Should we enable downvotes on this instance? Why or why not?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I find downvotes very useful to make sure hateful or otherwise harmful content doesn't rise to the top, and I think that outweighs people overusing it where they disagree. That being said, the nice thing about federation is that I can just find another instance if y'all don't want it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I think this is pretty persuasive. Thanks.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think downvoting can be really useful in case of problematic/malicious/inaccurate content as someone else said.

The issue is it's often abused by being used even for stuff people mildly dislike. But it is my opinion that it might be easier to encourage people on Lemmy to reserve it for more extreme cases rather than simply for stuff they don't like, because people over here seem to care more about stuff like that than, say, Reddit.

I tend to find it useful to know if something is heavily down voted because I make a mental note to examine it more critically and make sure no false or malicious "information" is presented, maybe this is similar to the cases of correctly utilized dislikes in YouTube videos.

Also, as others said, some apps for Lemmy like the one I use, still show the downvote button even if it's not available.

Since I am new here and joined this instance without knowing this, I would like to ask, does this prevent me from downvoting content from other instances as well, or just this one? Because if it's general I would definitely create more accounts to have on other instances to make sure I can practice this if needed.

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

Yes, downvotes being disabled prevents using them on any content, including content that arrives via federation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I seldom downvote anything. When I do, it's generally because I think the content is overrated, inaccurate or otherwise problematic and needs its upvotes to be annulled. On a very busy network, that can be a valuable feature. As quiescent as Lemmy is right now, it probably won't be an issue for awhile! I'm leaning toward "no."

To play devil's advocate, various UIs still show the downvote button as they're not smart enough to know it's disabled. (I'm browsing with wefwef right now and I see the button, although I receive an error toast if I click it.)

If the protocol has a way to signal to the client that the feature's disabled, then this is just a bug in wefwef. If disabling of downvotes is proprietary to the Lemmy UI, however, then it's kind of clumsy of them and there might be an argument in favor of leaving features enabled to promote a better UX.

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

Please DO NOT enable them. I don't want to see negativity

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

I'm neutral on this ordeal. I'd like to be able to downvote the weird reply guys but if I can't it doesn't actually matter. Just a Reddit habbit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Friendly reminder to be clear your asking only users of your instance for a vote. Federation shows your post to everyone and everyone can interact!

I think downvotes are dumb if you want my 2c.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am refraining from giving my opinion because of me being from other instance.

I do believe that it's healthy that they have this discussion openly though. There are far bigger instances that also have downvotes disabled.

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

Liftoff also shows a downvote arrow resulting in the same error as mentioned for wefwef. (I tried it on this post.) I do agree with consideration for UX, but I haven't missed the ability to do so because I rarely downvote.

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

Downvotes enabled — but only for me. 😏

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Did they get re enabled? I noticed a downvote button yesterday and thought it might be a glitch, but it's still here today.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, I enabled downvotes.