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?
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?