My two cents of down voting
There seems to be a bit of a controversy on the down vote arrow; that it should be used only for reporting content that doesn't apply to one of the tribes that it was posted to, and that people are using it to show their general disagreement with the post instead. These disagreements predate Snapzu and in my experience no amount of pleading or wishy-thinking is going to change the behavior of people at large. People will use the down vote arrow to sound off general disagreement; It's what it's used for.
Instead of a down vote arrow there really needs to be a report button. When reporting a post you should then be required to select from a list of why it's not applicable to the tribe (repost, unrelated, illegal, etc...) and optionally leave an additional comment yourself. Additionally, how the number of reports effect it's standing in tribe feeds should be exclusive to the tribe that's reporting it. If you accidentally post a snap in the wrong tribe, that decision shouldn't effect the posts standing in other tribes that it was submitted to.
Now I'm not saying that the down vote arrow should be completely abolished. There are examples of communities in that other site who hide the down vote through CSS. Likewise there are communities who fully embrace the use of the down vote arrow for what everyone uses it for. Down voting should be an optional feature for moderators of a tribe to select whether or not the down tally will be used in their own tribe's standings. Likewise it would be great if a user could elect to ignore down vote and have them not effect how content is ranked on their home/front page.
Again, these are not my opinions because I think this is they way I think people should behave; these are my opinions on how to represent functions according to the way people do behave.
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Disclaimer: I'm new here, just got my invite code a minute ago, and this is my first post. So take this FWIW, since I have very little exposure to how this community works.
But in this case I'm not really speaking about this (or any) community in particular. I think it's kind of a universal thing; downvote etiquette is something that sites aspire to have, maybe accomplish they're still small, and then lose the moment the community starts to really grow. So even if they appear to work here in the short term, that's not a solution that will last into the future. The only long-term options, IMO, are to accept that downvotes are a sign of disagreement or just abolish downvotes altogether.
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The problem that I see with downvotes being used as a form of disagreement is that it could eventually turn different tribes into echo chambers due to only popular opinion staying up at the top.
This is a problem I've had over on Reddit. Discussion not wanted by the hive mind goes to -5 and hidden from view while discussion that is pro whatever the subject climbs. I've often thought that if a username could be tied to a down vote even if only seen by moderators and staff it could be used to remove habitual abusers. I don't know if that's possible, or even the right answer, but it was abused so often that there were some communities that I just stopped participating in because even though I was very active in that community outside of Reddit I could never say a word in the related sub on Reddit without it becoming hidden from view. This becomes a real issue when you go negative Karma (which happened to me more than once) and you can no longer even participate because at that point you're required to wait 8 minutes between posting comments, it completely eliminates participation because status quo.
I definitely get what you're saying, and I agree that I don't like the idea of downvotes being used for disagreement. But ultimately that's how people are going to use them, no matter what anyone else wants. At least that's how it's been in every community I've been apart of that had downvote-type functionality.
I really don't know of an example where this is not the case; whether downvotes are enabled or not. In fact I would argue that communities who disable downvotes, or otherwise respect the rule that they are only used for reporting bad content, are some of the biggest echo chambers around.
But that's what /u/dh0271 is saying, isn't it?
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Thanks!
While I agree that eventually downvotes are probably going to descend into some disagreement vs. agreement type thing in the future, I don't think we should just "accept" it. That is a dangerous precedent to set on the site. If something will likely go one unfortunate way, just let it go that way. One thing you many not know about the Snapzu culture is that we are a lot of us are pretty passionate about maintaining the level of quality in the site that it has had for a while. One of those things that have helped that is the fact that downvotes are not used as a weapon of opinion but a weapon against spam. So sure, I think it is healthy for the community to accept that there is a likely fate, but we shouldn't just admit defeat.
Also, welcome to the site!
I also want to add the old wise advice of: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. While I don't necessarily agree this applies every time, there are often times I find myself in disagreement and I can't find the nice words to rebute the statement. Or perhaps it's a complicated issue that I've replied to months/years ago and don't want to re-write my complex thoughts (or don't have the time). Yet I gotta be honest, leaving a down vote and showing myself the door is often the best course of action.
Related, I also gotta say I find Facebook's Hide Post feature sorely lacking at bookmarking sites like Snapzu. It may be a post I just don't want to deal with at the time, or especially with how personal relationships are on Facebook you just don't want your opinion to be an issue in that relationship. Or perhaps a buddy posted a tasteful pic for an underboob that you want to make sure doesn't find it's way onto your desktop at work while the boss walks by. Perhaps having a similar function at Snapzu would be appreciated as well.
I think a Report button instead of a downvote button would be nice, but only if a few things are implemented first, such as the "reason for report" and a ticket system that adds the report to an inbox of sort for the staff to see that the snap/comment was reported in. Right now, I don't see that as possible since once you click the snap you leave that tribe, unless you use some sort of token system that tells you which tribe you came from when you clicked into the tribe.
It would be either that, or allow the OP of the snap to moderate his/her own comment thread when a report is made, and then admins/staff would moderate the snaps but as the site grows this would get more complex and require quite the staff to handle, it would be better if it was all handled within the tribes themselves.
The problem I see with the report button is that it puts extra weight on the admins/moderators. That is exactly what the downvote button was invented for in the first place. It would take an incredible amount of effort if the admins had to go and personally moderate everything that is reported. The downvote button allows for the post to not raise up on the front page and also not require constant moderation.
When filing a report you should definitely be given check boxes to select what tribe(s) your report applies to.
Well, somebody is unhappy with me tonight. :)