There are issues that have been on my mind for a few days, and I wanted to talk about them with you.
Downvotes
As you may notice, downvotes have been completely off for the last few days. I did this because I couldn't resist the pressure of some friends :/ I still don't know what to do about this. The majority of members probably want it to be completely open. As mods, posters and admins; some think it should be closed, some think it should be restricted (I guess).
I guess there is no solution that makes everyone happy. I realized I don't have admin skills in stressful situations, I'm a fucking stupid lol :D I miss @gabe so much.
lemmyposter212 suggested "fuzzy votes" or something that can work for us too. I think I'll just ghost this issue for a while.
Donations
As you know, all our donation accounts have been closed. Since it was my first time opening a site in the NSFW area, I had no experience. I reviewed some adult donation sites but most of them were shady. Honestly I couldn't trust them.
There are only coins now. But I guess most people don't want to deal with coins. It is because I didn't get any donations about 4 months now :D Those sent from Github Sponsor or Patreon were also returned to donators as well. I received $200-ish donations so far.
We are currently the 2nd largest instance in Lemmy. After lemmy.world, we're bigger than lemmy.ml and lemm.ee! I don't think it will work this way anymore. On an annual basis, I need to spend a month's salary for Lemmy NSFW.
Does anyone have an idea to solve this problem?
Well, regardless of how you might feel about the just you’re doing, as a frequent user I think you’re doing great. Moderation of any platform is a thankless job. It’s a lot like politics where the people that want moderation power probably aren’t the ones that should have it.
Downvotes. I think they should be on. I know brigading is def a problem. But on the other hand, not having downvotes enabled forces users to rely on reporting everything to a mod instead of letting the downvotes do their job.
The costs and donation stuff. That’s a lot of personal investment without much in return. Once I’m employed again I’d love to help out somehow.
Good luck on the UI stuff. I been on Voyager app on IOS since it launched so I have no opinions.
Keep up the good work amigo!
For a few months I was just on the technical and moderation side and things were simple. @gavi was handling the management well but left. You know, everything is fine in the beginning when it comes to hobby work. However, as you progress and other work gets in the way, it gets a little overwhelming. I believe we experienced this here.
The down vote issue is really complicated. Can't comment for now.
For new UI; rather than replacing existing UIs, we trying to create an alternative for consuming visual content. We plan to have a structure similar to scrolller.com in the final product.
I genuinely don't know so forgive my ignorance. What does downvoting do for moderation purposes? People still see it on their feed and don't downvotes count for "active" posts to be presented? It does not remove the rule-breaking post and if people just downvote them a mod might completely miss the post since no one is reporting it.
It doesn’t do it directly. Downvotes promote self-moderation. Posts getting downvoted disincentivizes someone from posting another thing that might get downvoted. When you take downvotes away, people are less inclined to self-moderate and it shifts the burden to a mod.
I don't think you're aware of what's getting downvoted as other users have expressed in these comments. How does one "self-moderate" being a different gender from what someone wants to see or being unattractive to the person downvoting? Your scenario highlights the abuse is effective at dissuading anything someone might not "like", not content that doesn't fit the communities posting guidelines.
Downvoting does both things. I know the downvotes happen for “unwanted” gender stuff happens and that sucks. Both things can be true at the same time and there is no single solution that will make everyone happy.
This post got over 20 downvotes and cruel commentary about the submitter's appearance. It was on topic for the community. I don't know about you, but that's exactly what I don't want to disincentivize.
https://lemmynsfw.com/post/6909667
Also, for several months the place was empty. In large part because commenters were nasty and downvotes abused.
As a mod I'd be happy with downvotes turned back on. But I want some kind of enforcement with teeth when community members abuse real human beings. Reposting commercial porn is one thing, who cares about downvotes. But commentary and mass downvote brigades intended to disparage real people who expose their nude bodies for our entertainment should never be allowed here.
That's JMO.