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:

  1. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. People often use upvotes/downvotes for things they like or don’t like instead of for relevance, as they’re supposed to be used.
  3. Downvotes make content from one instance less visible in other instances.
  4. 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?

  • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    91·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been a slashdot user since almost the beginning, but the moderation system is the main reason my use tapered off almost completely.

    I am a semi-lurker but heavy moderator in terms of voting. Slashdot’s system seemed to only give me moderator points (that expired within a few days), only when I commented.

    So when I saw messages that needed higher moderation, I typically didn’t have points unless I “banked” potential moderator points by forcing myself to comment just in case I later needed mod points. I may be missing something but I’m my opinion, not a better system.