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?
In my opinion, the problem is that upvotes and downvotes are aggregated, like if 1 upvote and 1 downvote were the same thing that 2 users not reacting to a post. Presenting votes this way destroys information.
Somehow, this allows the downvoter to express something outside of their own opinion, as they have the power to silence an upvoter.
I find downvotes useful only to have a kind of crowdsourced moderation for bordeline posts. But, if there was no upvote option, I could just report these (few) posts, and let the mod team decide.
I can see upvotes and downvotes in the Jerboa app, so I wouldn’t say the information is destroyed. Maybe not prominent enough or hidden in the interface you’re using?
Indeed, I’m using Connect because Jerboa bugged with an other instance (I don’t know if it has been fixed)