I’ve been thinking about the impact of downvotes on LemmyNSFW and whether it’s worth having them enabled. Here are some pros and cons I’ve come up with:
Pros:
- Downvotes can be used to lower the visibility of low-quality content that doesn’t break the rules, although this content would have low visibility either way.
Cons:
- Since there are more males than females, male nudes tend to get buried with downvotes, even on communities that accept both male and female content, like gonewild.
- People often use upvotes/downvotes for things they like or don’t like instead of for relevance, as they’re supposed to be used.
- Downvotes make content from one instance less visible in other instances.
- Receiving downvotes may discourage users from posting content, leading to less overall content.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this matter. What are the pros and cons of having downvotes in your opinion? Do you think downvotes should be reconsidered for LemmyNSFW?
Consider cow paths / desire paths or the iPhone 4 “you’re holding it wrong” fiasco. In my opinion, rather than battling people / trying to stop them from using things in the way they’ve discovered is natural/efficient, embrace/accommodate/learn from them.
On a somewhat related note, I also agree with @Cephirux@lemmings.world: “why not create multiple communities that can cater to different individuals with different tastes?” It seem like “solving” the issue of guys posting on /c/gonewild getting downvoted by taking away downvotes is addressing the wrong problem. If a nontrivial portion of that community is signaling that it thinks male nudity deserves a downvote, find/create a welcoming community, or empower the moderators to view the members who are downvoting that content so they can be warned or blocked (if a community’s rules prohibit downvoting on the basis of gender, or whatever).
Separately, seeing something that has a score of -11 (+2 / -13) signals something different to me than something that has a score of 2 (+2). Taking away downvotes removes that information.
Agree, I downvote content I don’t want to see in communities I am in, and block communities I don’t want to see
This issue will perpetuate until communities are split
As a moderator of various communities, I strive to encourage inclusivity, rather than forcing folks into splintered various corners/communities.
One possible solution is to disallow voting by lemmings who are not subscribed to the community the post is made in. That will solve a lot of the uninitiated new users that are browsing “all” or “local” and don’t bother to read the intent/ rules of each community.