This is a general proposal that concerns Lemmy specifically, but also other forum-alike software that uses ActivityPub, such as Piefed.
For me, the original sin of social media is downvoting (rant incoming). Specifically, its rampant misuse as a “Me no like!!” button. Apart from conveying totally uninteresting information (i.e. a subjective binary opinion), downvoting encourages schoolyard social dynamics and discourages heterodox views (and therefore debate). The nearest in-person equivalent (saying “shut up”) is universally considered rude. At scale, the effect of downvoting is to brutalize a community that might otherwise be pleasant and welcoming. I believe this practice is almost always toxic and poisonous. Those who defend it (in good faith, I do not doubt) need to consider the possibility that it has helped to homogenize their communities into people like them (to caricature: insensitive males). Most ordinary people do not participate actively in social media. There’s a reason for that.
No, this is not a popular position here (cf. selection bias) and so it will of course be… downvoted. But it’s how I see it. I like to think that I’ve added some value to the fediverse with my contributions, but if there’s one thing that regularly causes me to consider leaving, it’s this. Going to Beehiv or Blahaj-whatsit is not a solution, because the communities I’m interested in are not there. Hiding downvote scores does not work because… it does not hide the downvoters.
Which gave me an idea. Given that the identity of downvoters is technically public, I propose a new setting: “Auto-block downvoters”. That’s it. Automatically hide comments (or posts, or anything) by users who have downvoted your contributions. Logical, no? They don’t care for what I have to say, and I don’t care for their inane negativity. It’s win-win! Lots of possible variants:
- Hide [ subsequent | all ] comments by users who have downvoted [ a post | a comment | anything ] by you [ in this thread | on this post | in this community | everywhere]
- Hide [etc] by users with an upvote-downvote ratio lower than [ X ]% etc
Such a setting (especially #1) would immeasurably improve my experience of Lemmy. No exaggeration. I like to think it might also serve as a subtle incentive for users to be more generous and tolerant in their behavior towards others, but that is secondary.
Downvotes are a deliberately built in feature of this platform, so it would be really stupid to have a feature that punished people for using another feature.
If you’re this petty about downvotes maybe move to another platform.
Which lemmy alternative is alive and has no downvotes?
No idea, if there isn’t OP just has to write one I guess.
You talk like a kid
This guy text-to-speeches.
Same bullshit as if tou don’t like the usa just leave. This is 5 years old or lower mentality
This guys shakespeares!
You keep confirming that you act like a 5 years old. Acting like typos and language police
So stop being so interested in me you damn paedo.
How does it punish anyone if it’s an opt-in read-only feature? Are you against any feature that you might not want to use yourself?
I’m against features that undermine other features. Also I think votes shouldn’t be public in the first place.
This at least makes your objection coherent to me.
Ok, I’ll try, what do you need? eli12, eli8, eli5?
Orrr, move to an instance that has the downvotes disabled. They don’t exist if I can’t see them ☺️
An instance removing downvotes can still get it’s post downvoting by other instance.
The comments still do. As I said in the post.
Okay I just reread your post, as I missed the bit you mentioned about instances like blahaj hiding the downvotes.
So a couple of questions for you.
You mentioned the communities aren’t on the instances that hide downvotes… Are these communities that live on instances that are not federated with for example blahaj.zone?
And also, you mentioned that instances that are hiding downvotes is also not a solution due to the downvoter and others still being able to see the downvotes. So I ask, why is that an issue for you? Why be worried about fake internet points that aren’t even really tracked here (unlike Reddit for example), that you can’t even see? Actual engagement in discussion between people is far more important no?
To reiterate: I don’t care about the scores, which I can already hide. I want to hide the content. Effectively: put a temporary block on people who express their dislike for my content, so that I don’t have to deal with theirs. Not a permanent block - everyone can change their ways!
You indicated you are against homogeny and pro discussion. I wonder how your proposed solution doesn’t contribute to these.
That’s a fair point. But I assume then that you are against the blanket block feature (which is much worse than what I am proposing) and want it removed?
Downvote limit posts visibility, mass downvote literally is a form of censorship. It is not mere useless points
Finally. I’ve made exactly this point before. It’s somewhat less true given the plethora of sorting options, but it still seems directionally correct: all else being equal, downvoted comments are always going to be less visible, which means downvoting is a form of censoriousness.
My issue is more of downvoting posts then downvoting comments. I don’t think there is a filter allowing to see the most downvoted posts and most people would probably not use it which would effectively means it hide aka censor content.
My view is upvoting posts you like, do nothing against subjective content that you are not interested in and report for objectively wrong stuffs like racism, settler colonialism, genocide etc
Agreed on all counts.