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  • FrootLoops (edited 8 years ago)
    +4

    I just got a couple of downvotes today again.

    I would like to see the following:

    1. Make a reason mandatory

    2. Show who downvoted, make the User PUBLIC. If he has a valid reason to down vote there is no shame in showing it.

    3. Let other people decide if the down vote was justified, if not hurt the down voter.

    4. Or even better, make a downvote only count if, lets say 3 people have down voted for that exact reason to verify it is valid.

    In my book this would eliminate troll down voters or at least make it harder.

    • ekyris
      +4

      1. Fair point, but it should be quick to do.

      2. Making a user public for downvoting, quite frankly, would be a terrible idea. It would be incredibly easy to witch-hunt and make people targets for harassment.

      3/4. And why should someone's downvote need to be validated by other people? As in, my opinion doesn't matter unless someone else agrees with me? Maybe have a threshold of downvotes before something is reported, but a single downvote should count on its own. And penalizing a downvoter if others don't agree with them seems spiteful.

      As far as I can tell in my experience here, there aren't any 'troll' users going around downvoting people. Besides, the limit on votes (which is fairly stringent) really effectively prevents that from happening.

      • FrootLoops (edited 8 years ago)
        +1

        Hi ekyris , thx for the reply.

        2) Why would it be so terrible? I am a big fan of transparency. If you are down voting you should stand for it and if you are right there is nothing to worry about.

        3/4) I see your point and you are not wrong. This is simply a way they could handle it. Obviously i would like nothing more if it would not be necessary but i think it would be a reasonable way to verify a down vote reason. If you get two or three down votes for the same reason that makes it MUCH more likely that it's valid, don't you think?

        On a second note. Why is it spiteful to "judge" down votes? The down vote itself judges a snap so why shouldn't it be reasonable to judge the down vote itself? In my book it makes much more sense to judge a down vote because it is mostly negative feedback which should be reviewed more critical.

        • ekyris
          +2

          I mean, I'm a fan of transparency myself, and yes people shouldn't be ashamed of a downvote. But as the community grows, unfortunately we are going to get people who abuse the system and downvote improperly. Downvotes becoming public makes it incredibly easy to return-downvote someone out of spite or even anger, plus even going through someone's history and downvoting their other posts. Again, shitty behavior, but I did hear about it happening on reddit. The benefits of a system like that does not (imo) outweigh the risks.

          Well yes, a downvote is more valid if others agree with you. However I'm uncomfortable with the idea that my downvote only 'counts' if someone agrees, especially/mostly in smaller tribes. If a post is only getting a few (let's say 3) upvotes, a single downvote is more significant that 5 downvotes on a post with 100 upvotes. Maybe there could be some sort of rule in place for larger tribes, but we don't really have default tribes like reddit does to I'm not sure where to draw the line of a 'big enough' community.

          The distinction I'm making in terms of spitefulness is that there is a difference between the act of downvoting and the person downvoting. For example: say I downvote something for a reason you think is unreasonable. If more people agree with you, maybe have some system where my downvote is 'judged' and mitigated (which would be incredibly hard to do, but that's outside the scope here). However, I do not think I should be punished because you all disagreed with my reason for downvoting. If I find something offensive, I would downvote it, but that's a personal opinion. The fact I disagree with the majority about the offensiveness of a post should not penalize my account. Does that make sense?