I think they should go all in on emulating reddit. In fact, I think they should get more in line with the naming scheme of reddit, an re-rename their brand to X-it.
Half the content is screenshots from Reddit which in turn are half the time just screenshots from Twitter. May as well just keep the train going at this point.
On a more serious note, downvotes seem to be never any good for any forum or discussion platform of any kind. I’ve yet to see them used as a “not contributing“ button or whatever other idealistic definition sites come up with. It is almost universally a disagree button and every community I’ve seen that gets rid of it is better for it. I mean think about it: how many conversations have we all seen where people start bickering about votes? Passive aggressive edits because one person got one downvote, somebody acting as if their opinion is correct because they have 3 upvotes and the other person has -2. It’s honestly just not healthy and is primarily used as a cudgel rather than any meaningful sorting of comments and posts.
Twitter is already a shit hole of negativity and toxicity. Do they really need to add the ability downvote people?
Downvotes were one of my favorite features of Reddit.
Some stupid shit doesn’t deserve discussion and is best off being shut down.
That’s not how it plays out though that’s my entire point.
For the most part it is how it plays out.
There may be exceptions but the benefits far outweigh the downsides.
Even just lurking on mastodon is frustrating because there is nothing to be done about trolls but engage or ignore and we all know folks can’t help but engage; it’s trolls raison d’être.
I generally assume those complaining about downvotes existing are frustrated trolls.
For the most part it is how it plays out
We seem to be coming to very different conclusions and neither of us is providing a source so lol
I will say this, deplatforming has proven to be consistently the most powerful tool. Down votes do not stop incessant bullshit, only removing the people who do and in the content itself has proven effective.
I don’t think Reddit is user-centric enough for deplatforming to be useful.
Deplatforming isn’t just people. This includes removing communities and barring links to certain sites.
Ok.
But in regards to downvoting comments that’s not relevant.
I prefer slashdot’s moderation system over any of the others.
Here, I’d like to see limitless upvoting, but downvotes bottom out at -3.
This may reduce dogpiling whilst allowing the downvoted parent a better chance to be engaged-with, and more opportunities to present their points.
Actually that’s a golden idea, I haven’t even thought about that, would love to see some software on here implementing a downvote cap, also crushing downvoted comments could be a better way instead of hiding them
One of the things I like about Slashdot’s system is that it requires a reason for a downvote. Of course that doesn’t prevent people from downvoting disingenuously, but it nudges users away from downvoting just because they disagree.
I think for most social systems, the UI I’d use is a report or flag button that pops up a second step with a list of reasons, and like Slashdot, show the most selected reason next to low-ranked posts.
I think a cap is a great idea. Or just don’t show vote counts and push down downvoted stuff at least. But showing them to people tends to produce dog piling and false consensus
While it’s true that the downvote often gets abused as a way to stifle otherwise-good discussion, without it it’s hard to deal with discussion that truly should NOT be happening.
There’s a reason election denial is more common and looks more legitimate on Facebook and Twitter. It’s because they don’t have a mechanism for people to nuke that discussion out of the top of the thread.
Sure they can. Moderators/admins can remove comments.
I agree with you there is a problem of content moderation. But downvotes are not the solution and have never proven to be an effective deterrent. Removal/deplatforming is the only tool that has proven consistently effective. It’s why on a discord server i help run we have very low tolerance towards people who are sufficiently disruptive or have a chilling effect on conversations, even if they aren’t breaking the letter of the law. At some point you just have to get rid of these people or they cause a disproportionate amount of damage. It’s amazing what 5 people can do to a community of 500.
And before somebody goes on some rant about power-hungry mods and uses some example of how they were “banned for literally no reason“ where they probably did something but won’t show us what happened, the community actually really likes the way we do things and we only end up booting a couple of people a year because we have a handle on it lol
that’s fine for a small discord group but it doesn’t scale. you can’t be that active in moderating millions of conversations.
downvotes (and hiding downvoted comments) is a community-driven way of signaling unacceptable behavior. it largely works, except in echo chambers.
But that isn’t how it’s used at all. It’s used as a disagree/crowd vibe button. Name one site where the downvote button actually separates wheat from the chaff and doesn’t 1) just signal disagreement and/or 2) just create astroturfing opportunities.
Also, if your community is too big to moderate, then you need to close the doors or add more people to run it. I’ve never liked the excuse of “too big to control.“ If it’s too big, then stop growing.
You don’t even need “power hungry mods” for that to go wrong, you just need mods who don’t care. That’s EXACTLY where Facebook and Twitter are right now. Getting content removed there is basically impossible, I’ve reported people for death threats and was told they never violated community standards.
If the platform isn’t going to moderate itself, the users should be able to.
On Facebook I had a few death threats. One was a fucking doctor. He described in detail how he would murder me and it was disturbing as fuck. I posted screenshots of the conversation on his yelp page and reported him on Facebook. Yelp swiftly took those down and I don’t think Facebook ever did anything about his psychotic threats. Meanwhile I was banned from groups and temporarily from the platform several times for telling proud bigots they are pieces of shit.
They eventually permanently banned me from Facebook for posting that image of supposedly naked Donald Trump. The kicker was they did it like a year after I posted it. That platform is absolutely horrific with moderation. Basically if you support violence and genocide you’re fine but if you curse at people who do you’re not fine at all.
But users can. They can block people, they can block communities, they have all kinds of autonomy. It’s not complete yet but we do have tools.
I am not saying users should not be able to control what they see. I am saying that the downvote mechanism specifically is ineffective. If you have other ideas I am super down to hear them because I find this subject fascinating and I am always in favor of everyone across-the-board having control over what is in front of them and not unfeeling algorithms that only prioritize engagement.
For evidence you’re right: see the downvotes on this comment. I’ve seen so many things downvoted that didn’t deserve it. People can misunderstand your comment and suddenly you’re at -20. Just a couple days ago this toxic fuck was telling me all sorts of weird things they claimed to know about me because I was downvoted for an opinion I wouldn’t have thought was unpopular at all. A couple people misunderstood, then a bunch more saw the downvotes and made false assumptions. It’s bizarre.
It is what it is! I don’t even see downvotes on my end but not surprised it happened. It’s magic internet points so whatever lol
but it doesn’t want to emulate Reddit
well they already have the nazis and csam…
It can’t emulate Reddit as long as tweet length is capped for free users
Wait until reddit introduces that “feature”.
Mind blown, would you be interested in an executive position at Reddit. What other great ideas you got?
What if we minted all the comments our users make into NFTs and sell them? Also, POGs. They’re due for a comeback.
I don’t know if anyone remembers it, but Twitter actually had dislike as experimental feature for some users for some time before Elon, I think like 2 or 3 years ago, I remember having it on one of my accounts
News article from 2021 - https://www.pcmag.com/news/twitter-dislike-button-coming-soon-nope
I like that everyone thinks it makes a difference whether or not this is a feature, when in reality people have a tendency to carve a desire path to anything they feel makes sense. Twitter may not have a downvote but they do have the “ratio” which does basically the same thing using the mechanics of Twitter.
They had them before. What makes it any different now?
This is about that Twitter website people used to use right? Sorry, out of the loop here.
I didn’t even know x still existed
I’d prefer a filter for blue checkmarks.
It desperately needs this. Very inflammatory tweets can get widely circulated by brigading with no real way to stop it even if it’s a wildly unpopular sentiment.
