The "I disagree" ideology can be very dangerous too. The Boston Bombing threads on Reddit? People got downvoted for saying they shouldn't be witch hunting. The result? Reddit fucked up, big time, the admins? CEO? had to apologize to the family of the man reddit accused, and it turns out he had been dead for a month from suicide anyway.
If you want to have a downvote happy place (like it seems OP does) g to reddit. They(downvotes) only discourage discussion, which Snapzu is all about, especially since it's community is so small. Hell, that's one of the reasons I'm leaving that website.
Yes, I think a lot of the people that advocate for a disagree button do not realize the implications of shutting out content by majority opinion. Reddit's downvote culture can also be attributed to the perception of majoritarian discrimination on the site.
Yeah, the circlejerk should not come here. There were many times on Reddit where I saw people, and including myself, downvoted. Even in the smaller threads, it's the whole "oh you don't share my exact feelings and interests, well fuck you, here's a downvote", attitude that is really off-putting.
But how do you think the circlejerk got to reddit in the first place? I believe that it grew naturally out of the voting system. Snapzu has this same system.
Posting similar comment as below as it applies here as well.
Under any system that allows a hive mind to decide on the content, certain ideas will always proliferate across it, even under a pure "Like System"
E.G:
Like system
A = +1000
A = +600
A = +500
A = +200
B = +10
No reason that the "Boston Bombing" threads wouldn't had the same result under a pure like system.
In fact having such a system, allows for abuse of the system, where a vocal minority can manipulate the content to push their agenda. Take /r/SRS (non-redditors this is a sub-reddit that targets comments and posts that goes against their opinions and downvotes them). Applying the same concept but with "like" you could easily push your ideologies to the top.
The way the admins are handling it is by far the best approach. They are moderating the effect of the downvotes by the frequency of downvotes by the user. That way people who do abuse it, and downvote any opinions that they disagree with, won't make much effect.
There is nothing inherently wrong with an upvote/downvote system. Its always going to come down to the community.
I think that using the Boston Bombing Witch Hunt to justify your point is a bit extreme and a bad example. The people doing the witch hunting were not going to be dissuaded if a post about stopping been upvoted to the top. None of that was about up or downvotes. They made their own threads; they weren't open to discussion, and that was the problem. A sub-commnity had formed within reddit with new thresholds for what was deserving of up and downvotes. FallenWalnut has a really well laid out example of why the absence of downvotes wouldn't even have solved this problem. This was about individuals doing the wrong thing, not a failure of the voting system.
All you've done is reference a huge, terrible incident that, although it happened on reddit, has no weight in proving your specific point here.
I think it's a good example of the culture. You are absolutely correct that it wouldn't have/didn't change anyone's mind or derailed the witch hunt, but it's an excellent example of how the hive mind works. There are many subs where even expressing a contrary opinion or raising the "wrong" question results in massive downvotes, and in some cases, mod bans. While it may come from a minority of site users, it's a very active minority in those particular subs.
Why doesn't Facebook have a dislike button, even though its users have been requesting one for several years now? Why doesn't Google+ have a -1 button next to the +1 button? I think the reason is very simple. You don't want your users to have a negative experience. Posting something and having it receive a couple of dozen downvotes is a negative experience.
If somebody wants to disapprove of something, there's a very simple (and much more constructive) way to do it: post a comment! This also forces the person who disapproves to engage in a dialog.
Not upvoting is the same as "I disagree". That's how I see it.
I've only downvoted one thing here because I believed that it was done to perpetuate an argument. I came back and removed the downvote later because any sort of attention given to them justified their cause.
Up vote what is something that is worth it, If your post doesn't get upvoted, then it probably wasn't worth posting.
While I admire the sentiment, I think that trying to discourage superfluous downvotes is doomed to failure. Even if you could get all of the regular site users to agree with this, there's still the matter of impressing that value onto new users. It's only natural to view the downvote button as an "anti-upvote". If upvote = I agree / I like this, then downvote = I disagree / I don't like this. To advocate anything else is to go against human nature and is an uphill battle for sure.
I think instead of upvote / downvote we should have a thumbs-up and a report button. Reporting carries a lot more weight than downvoting, because you know a human is going to see it, and you might have to justify your dislike.
We want to discourage the attitude that's so prevalent in other sites where users treat the downvote button as shorthand for "I disagree."
The "I disagree" ideology can be very dangerous too. The Boston Bombing threads on Reddit? People got downvoted for saying they shouldn't be witch hunting. The result? Reddit fucked up, big time, the admins? CEO? had to apologize to the family of the man reddit accused, and it turns out he had been dead for a month from suicide anyway.
If you want to have a downvote happy place (like it seems OP does) g to reddit. They(downvotes) only discourage discussion, which Snapzu is all about, especially since it's community is so small. Hell, that's one of the reasons I'm leaving that website.
Yes, I think a lot of the people that advocate for a disagree button do not realize the implications of shutting out content by majority opinion. Reddit's downvote culture can also be attributed to the perception of majoritarian discrimination on the site.
This is one of the best attributes of this site's culture.
Yeah, the circlejerk should not come here. There were many times on Reddit where I saw people, and including myself, downvoted. Even in the smaller threads, it's the whole "oh you don't share my exact feelings and interests, well fuck you, here's a downvote", attitude that is really off-putting.
But how do you think the circlejerk got to reddit in the first place? I believe that it grew naturally out of the voting system. Snapzu has this same system.
Posting similar comment as below as it applies here as well.
Under any system that allows a hive mind to decide on the content, certain ideas will always proliferate across it, even under a pure "Like System"
E.G:
Like system
A = +1000
A = +600
A = +500
A = +200
B = +10
No reason that the "Boston Bombing" threads wouldn't had the same result under a pure like system.
In fact having such a system, allows for abuse of the system, where a vocal minority can manipulate the content to push their agenda. Take /r/SRS (non-redditors this is a sub-reddit that targets comments and posts that goes against their opinions and downvotes them). Applying the same concept but with "like" you could easily push your ideologies to the top.
The way the admins are handling it is by far the best approach. They are moderating the effect of the downvotes by the frequency of downvotes by the user. That way people who do abuse it, and downvote any opinions that they disagree with, won't make much effect.
There is nothing inherently wrong with an upvote/downvote system. Its always going to come down to the community.
I think that using the Boston Bombing Witch Hunt to justify your point is a bit extreme and a bad example. The people doing the witch hunting were not going to be dissuaded if a post about stopping been upvoted to the top. None of that was about up or downvotes. They made their own threads; they weren't open to discussion, and that was the problem. A sub-commnity had formed within reddit with new thresholds for what was deserving of up and downvotes. FallenWalnut has a really well laid out example of why the absence of downvotes wouldn't even have solved this problem. This was about individuals doing the wrong thing, not a failure of the voting system.
All you've done is reference a huge, terrible incident that, although it happened on reddit, has no weight in proving your specific point here.
I think it's a good example of the culture. You are absolutely correct that it wouldn't have/didn't change anyone's mind or derailed the witch hunt, but it's an excellent example of how the hive mind works. There are many subs where even expressing a contrary opinion or raising the "wrong" question results in massive downvotes, and in some cases, mod bans. While it may come from a minority of site users, it's a very active minority in those particular subs.
Why doesn't Facebook have a dislike button, even though its users have been requesting one for several years now? Why doesn't Google+ have a -1 button next to the +1 button? I think the reason is very simple. You don't want your users to have a negative experience. Posting something and having it receive a couple of dozen downvotes is a negative experience.
If somebody wants to disapprove of something, there's a very simple (and much more constructive) way to do it: post a comment! This also forces the person who disapproves to engage in a dialog.
Not upvoting is the same as "I disagree". That's how I see it.
I've only downvoted one thing here because I believed that it was done to perpetuate an argument. I came back and removed the downvote later because any sort of attention given to them justified their cause.
Up vote what is something that is worth it, If your post doesn't get upvoted, then it probably wasn't worth posting.
Edit: My english is failing me this morning.
Upvoting is sorting. Downvoting is voting to remove a post.
While I admire the sentiment, I think that trying to discourage superfluous downvotes is doomed to failure. Even if you could get all of the regular site users to agree with this, there's still the matter of impressing that value onto new users. It's only natural to view the downvote button as an "anti-upvote". If upvote = I agree / I like this, then downvote = I disagree / I don't like this. To advocate anything else is to go against human nature and is an uphill battle for sure.
I think instead of upvote / downvote we should have a thumbs-up and a report button. Reporting carries a lot more weight than downvoting, because you know a human is going to see it, and you might have to justify your dislike.