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Should I disable downvotes? (yiffit.net)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It often makes me sad seeing some posts receiving downvotes, even though I know it's from random people across Lemmy instances who probably aren't furries.

I could disable downvotes which would make it so that they're ignored by the instance and the count would only reflect the amount of upvotes. But, that also means that Yiffit users wouldn't be able to use downvotes anywhere else.

What do you think?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

While it may be a little demoralizing to see a downvote on something you care about, 'tis a part of life. When I see something I posted get downvoted, my first instinct isn't to assume it's people being malicious. I take it as an oppurtunity to look at the post and ask myself "what is it about this post that people don't like?".

I noticed another person brought up the YouTube Dislike removal thing, and I'd like to add that programmers were rightfully upset to the point of creating a third-party API and browser plugin just to bring it back. That was more in response to the rampant amount of misinformation and scam videos on the platform, but I think it has some resonance here as well. I don't think taking away a feedback mechanism, regardless of it's potential for abuse/harassment, is a good idea.

If I may, I'd like to bring in another comparison- E621. Say what you may about E6, but the up/downvote system there works well because some posts just aren't good. Sure, it may have passed the janitors, but the post itself and/or it's contents may be objectionable. With E621, you can hide posts that pass a certain score threshold. This is a good way filter out some of the more... questionable things for a lot of users on top of the existing blocklist system they have in place. Some people may try to game the score system to artificially boost or dump a posts's score, but the admins/moderators are pretty good at nipping that in bud, so to speak.

Finally, I'd like to bring in the (#)fediblock argument. Even if an instance blocks another, it doesn't stop the offending instance from replying/reacting to posts that it may have discovered through a relay or another instance. All it does is stop the defending instance from seeing the reply/reaction. Disabling downvotes is the same thing. You can just hop to another instance and see if your post was downvoted.

For now, until the lemmyverse becomes a bit more stable, I don't think messing with any core functionality is a good idea. It is definitely something worth revisiting again at some point. Who knows? Maybe the developers are working on something to address these concerns.