[Site Behavior] The Downvote Button and You
As you've probably seen in a very recent thread by voyager, some people seem to not being using the downvote button for things that seem to not add to the discussion, but for things people disagree with. As well as this, I have seen multiple one word witty quips, and threads that, frankly, don't give much room for discussion or /t/asksnapzu. Although I don't have a proposed solution for the second issue.
However, I do have a proposal for the first. I'm sure that many users do want quality discussion, and that they do not think views that do not align with their own should be removed, but vitriolic, and harsh words should not be among them. I'm not saying that the use of swears and cusses should not be allowed. Because I fucking love those sometimes, but I don't think posts which attack users, or are designed to incite rage/malice should not be tolerated by the userbase. One of the most beautiful things about this site is how well people get along so far. So why allow users to be harsh, and quite frankly, rude. An important thing is being civil, and I quite frankly cannot find a post attacking an author based on one simply misuse of a word, then continuing to read too far into as civil.
So I believe, the downvote button should not only be for comments that do not contribute, but comments which go out of their way to attack people, or demographics. Because in a real discussion, no one is going to appreciate the man screaming accusations from across the hall.
Edit: Voyager has shown to be a pretty rad guy, and I think he wants to put this behind him, so for all future reference. Voyager is great c:
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Everyone needs to teach me a lesson today? Jeez guys lay off. It was one discussion post, one day, in one tribe, after tons of golden and well liked content, and now it's time for my 50 lashings. Can we just drop it? Please?
I'm sorry for singling you out, I didn't really mean to aim for you, just the idea in general that vitriolic posts shouldn't be allowed. Hell, in /t/asksnapzu, a dude got the top comment for saying simple "fuck voat", not only is this not even discussion, but it's just insulting to anyone who even enjoys voat, because they think Snapzu is better.
Edit: In summary, at least you weren't shitposting, you actually had an opinion. IMO /t/asksnapzu needs to work on actually upvoting good content.
I understand, thanks.
But Raycu's points are all valid, and it doesn't read like they're against you or anything. I think that thread definitely prompted a need to have a discussion about the downvote system, which was your initial point if I remember correctly :) It's a nice Idea to try and elevate Snapzu's systems to all they can be, before a flood of new users make rules like the downvote only when bad content useless, like on other site. If we can rework the system to be a system for constructive criticism, and not a disagree button, that'd be great!
As for my view on things:
The upvote system already servers the purpose of weeding out the best content and sending it to the top. A downvote currently acts much the same way, but with added force, which really isn't all that usefull.
Why not make the downvote give a reason for the downvote, which could be transparent to the owner of the comment.
Exemple:
This comment has 5 downvotes:
3x Harassing
1x unconstructive (does not contribute) 1x Bad Language
Reasons I see would be a downvote:
Harassment (covers hate speech and racism and others), Does not contribute to the discussion, Violent language, spam, Troll, Over self-promoting, Does not belong to the tribe.
So even if you got a lashing today Voyager, you really started a debate that we, as a community, needs to have. So thanks man.