Voting things up or down based on whether you agree with them is sometimes called opinion voting. That is, as you say, adversarial. More than that, it's a vicious cycle. It gets to be a habit for some people, thinking of themselves as fighting an enemy with their votes, until ultimately they become mechanized to opinion vote on everything they see as if it was bravery on their part. Which provokes the same from whatever that enemy was, only further reinforcing the breakdown. It's nigh on impossible to break users, let alone an entire board or community, of this after an outbreak.
The way up and downvotes can be collaborative is when we vote based on what something does for the conversation. On the best boards, I know that I can post things that infuriate the members there, but if it's on topic, informative or poignant or clarifying or whatever, it won't be downvoted into oblivion. Or it'll be upvoted, despite being crazy-making. Same goes with comments. If you're only ever voting based on whether you agree with a point of view, either you're doing it wrong or the people you're disagreeing with are just lousy conversationalists.
Let me tell you about a Reddit user, /u/bjo3030. This cat was sharp as a tack, acid wit,didn't seem to like the taste of his own wit much, skeptical, concise, as paleoconservative as the day is long, and deeply knowledgable. About lots of things, but especially legal reasoning and the Supreme Court. He held court, in his modest way, on /r/politics. Other places, too, but it was more striking there because it was a simmering ferment of opinion-voting, jacked up idealogues itching to talk past one another. /u/bjo3030 himself would've told you that nearly all of the people at /r/politics knew practically nothing about the actual facts behind the sensationalized, rabble-rousing propaganda pieces that passed for content in those, the heady days after the Bush Administration had broken the world. It wasn't necessarily all as bad as that, but that's what he would've said, and he did at the time.
He'd be the one with the comment downvoted into invisibility at the bottom of comment thread after comment thread, but it'd be the most incisive, biting, informative comment there, time and again. Lots of folks there got in the habit of scrolling to the bottom of comment threads, to find the most heavily downvoted comments. Quite often, there he'd be, with a comment at -268 points, hitting nails squarely on their heads. The reason, in hindsight, I think he was the most important person at /r/politics in those days, was because the quality of the conversation was so apparent, his presence down there in the downvote netherworld taught a lot of people how to vote for people they completely disagreed with.
/u/spaceghoti may remember him. He was there. Maybe my favorite piece of trivia about that fella, is that he actually built up a solidly positive comment karma score. On tenacity, not pleasantness. Yes, I invited him. Not a peep from him in months.
Blindly upvoting everything, thinking that by doing so you're fostering community, is also a pernicious vice. Especially at Snapzu, which I suspect may cancel away much of that like so much background noise. Reading the link is key; voting, commenting,contributing, those should come after that. Like /u/bjo3030 did, way back.
Very engrossing story! I see what you mean about opinion voting being contagious and taking over. That's unfortunate, and I hope it doesn't get going on Snapzu. If someone puts effort into something, I'm not going to downvote it even if I don't like it. It's totally irrelevant and lazy comments, especially ones that are meant as bait, or that are tired slogans I've heard a million times, that I would downvote.
As for your comment about reading being the key, I see what you're saying. That's the only true way of ensuring quality content. However, I think it's okay, and probably nessisary, to have varied styles of interaction on any site. People enjoy different things, and they have different aptitudes, so they're likely to contribute differently to a community. I think it's fine that some people prefer commenting, and some posting, and some reading and voting. You need people to do all those things to have a vibrant and active community.
I was considering the possibility of having two levels of downvotes; a red for total garbage like click-bait spam, and a yellow/orange for lesser transgressions like reposts. That would make the fact that not all downvotes are equal more obvious. I was also thinking of a nuclear downvote that just says "I hate you, jerk!" that's actually a shadow downvote that doesn't do anytime but display a graphic to the downvoter, like those crosswalk buttons that do nothing but make you feel a bit better. ;)
Hah! Some buttons you press for luck, some you press over and over for more luck. Like crosswalks. That Snapzu allows you to give a reason why you downvoted a snap is brilliant. What it does with that simple value is impressive as well, but just being able to look up reasons behind downvotes is a milestone. If that fuzzy logic was ever extended to comments or upvotes, it’d be meta fascinating.
You mentioned /u/graphictruth before, and I worry that I may’ve been the one to’ve given you the wrong impression. Sorry for that. Here's what he'd actually said:
So, I went, did a lot of stuff, got politely chided for "not following the rules (which are largely unwritten, of course)" and decided that I prefer a little more anarchy and chaos.
Voting things up or down based on whether you agree with them is sometimes called opinion voting. That is, as you say, adversarial. More than that, it's a vicious cycle. It gets to be a habit for some people, thinking of themselves as fighting an enemy with their votes, until ultimately they become mechanized to opinion vote on everything they see as if it was bravery on their part. Which provokes the same from whatever that enemy was, only further reinforcing the breakdown. It's nigh on impossible to break users, let alone an entire board or community, of this after an outbreak.
The way up and downvotes can be collaborative is when we vote based on what something does for the conversation. On the best boards, I know that I can post things that infuriate the members there, but if it's on topic, informative or poignant or clarifying or whatever, it won't be downvoted into oblivion. Or it'll be upvoted, despite being crazy-making. Same goes with comments. If you're only ever voting based on whether you agree with a point of view, either you're doing it wrong or the people you're disagreeing with are just lousy conversationalists.
Let me tell you about a Reddit user, /u/bjo3030. This cat was sharp as a tack, acid wit,didn't seem to like the taste of his own wit much, skeptical, concise, as paleoconservative as the day is long, and deeply knowledgable. About lots of things, but especially legal reasoning and the Supreme Court. He held court, in his modest way, on /r/politics. Other places, too, but it was more striking there because it was a simmering ferment of opinion-voting, jacked up idealogues itching to talk past one another. /u/bjo3030 himself would've told you that nearly all of the people at /r/politics knew practically nothing about the actual facts behind the sensationalized, rabble-rousing propaganda pieces that passed for content in those, the heady days after the Bush Administration had broken the world. It wasn't necessarily all as bad as that, but that's what he would've said, and he did at the time.
He'd be the one with the comment downvoted into invisibility at the bottom of comment thread after comment thread, but it'd be the most incisive, biting, informative comment there, time and again. Lots of folks there got in the habit of scrolling to the bottom of comment threads, to find the most heavily downvoted comments. Quite often, there he'd be, with a comment at -268 points, hitting nails squarely on their heads. The reason, in hindsight, I think he was the most important person at /r/politics in those days, was because the quality of the conversation was so apparent, his presence down there in the downvote netherworld taught a lot of people how to vote for people they completely disagreed with.
/u/spaceghoti may remember him. He was there. Maybe my favorite piece of trivia about that fella, is that he actually built up a solidly positive comment karma score. On tenacity, not pleasantness. Yes, I invited him. Not a peep from him in months.
Blindly upvoting everything, thinking that by doing so you're fostering community, is also a pernicious vice. Especially at Snapzu, which I suspect may cancel away much of that like so much background noise. Reading the link is key; voting, commenting,contributing, those should come after that. Like /u/bjo3030 did, way back.
Very engrossing story! I see what you mean about opinion voting being contagious and taking over. That's unfortunate, and I hope it doesn't get going on Snapzu. If someone puts effort into something, I'm not going to downvote it even if I don't like it. It's totally irrelevant and lazy comments, especially ones that are meant as bait, or that are tired slogans I've heard a million times, that I would downvote.
As for your comment about reading being the key, I see what you're saying. That's the only true way of ensuring quality content. However, I think it's okay, and probably nessisary, to have varied styles of interaction on any site. People enjoy different things, and they have different aptitudes, so they're likely to contribute differently to a community. I think it's fine that some people prefer commenting, and some posting, and some reading and voting. You need people to do all those things to have a vibrant and active community.
I was considering the possibility of having two levels of downvotes; a red for total garbage like click-bait spam, and a yellow/orange for lesser transgressions like reposts. That would make the fact that not all downvotes are equal more obvious. I was also thinking of a nuclear downvote that just says "I hate you, jerk!" that's actually a shadow downvote that doesn't do anytime but display a graphic to the downvoter, like those crosswalk buttons that do nothing but make you feel a bit better. ;)
Hah! Some buttons you press for luck, some you press over and over for more luck. Like crosswalks. That Snapzu allows you to give a reason why you downvoted a snap is brilliant. What it does with that simple value is impressive as well, but just being able to look up reasons behind downvotes is a milestone. If that fuzzy logic was ever extended to comments or upvotes, it’d be meta fascinating.
You mentioned /u/graphictruth before, and I worry that I may’ve been the one to’ve given you the wrong impression. Sorry for that. Here's what he'd actually said:
Around bjo3030, found an off-hand remark in his Reddit comment history that sadly may explain his absence.
How did you find Snapzu? Don’t know that you’ve ever shared that with us. Ulterior motive: are there more like you?