However, if you’re going to down vote something, have the balls to explain why.
This is why downvoting is fundamentally flawed. It could be “I don’t like it” all the way up to “I know for a fact that’s wrong,” but nobody else will ever know the rationale.
I don’t even see downvotes on my instance, and I never want to, because it just raises questions and confusion.
Absolutely! Not making fun, but whenever somebody brings up Emacs in earnest, this is what I think of!
Emacs is not that hard. You can learn Emacs in one day, every day!
I think they’re still a pretty small operation, and I’m just grateful that I have a functional alternative to Goodreads.
I don’t know that I’d be on board for clamping to zero. You would have to decide if you are going to have a weighted zero (i.e. secret negative tally), and if so, why bother with clamping? If not, why have downvotes?
Scoring just demonstrates popularity. It’s a voluntary poll, and it has no bearing on the quality or validity of someone’s comment. I’ve seen good posts go unnoticed, and I’ve seen bad ones get lots of points. Voluntary polls are almost useless as a metric, and especially for a system like this one where all you have to do is click a button, it’s even less useful than one where you are required to write a statement about why you voted the way you did.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t be allowed to have downvotes as a way to gauge popularity, if that’s a metric they want to use to filter their content, nor do I think they should be forced to experience the Fediverse my way. I am however saying that reporting helps everyone, regardless of whether downvoting is enabled or not (plus it has the added benefit of potentially removing content that doesn’t belong; server space is a premium here, after all). We have options here on the Fediverse, and it’s a small ask to use the reporting feature and not assume there’s a “correct” or “standard” way to experience Lemmy. We can create something better than Reddit.
Not having. Enforcing.
If better means “more inclusive,” then yes. It’s better. Did I say to stop downvoting? No. Did I tell people to abandon their downvoting-enabled instances? No (though have a look and see how I’ve been told multiple times to leave mine).
Dunno why people are hellbent on excluding people who don’t want optional downvotes when non-optional reporting exists.
But do go on about how I’m excluding the poor instances with downvotes by recommending an inclusive action that they also benefit from.
It’s not basic functionality. It’s optional, and I don’t want it. So, no thank you.
The insistence that everybody experience the Fediverse in a particular way is what makes centralized services garbage and prone to enshittification.
If you mean a mod from this comm, I’d love some clarity on this matter, too.
But as a general application, what would that tell you? Moderators aren’t some special class of people; they’re regular people who volunteer.
The better question is: what would you do if you were a moderator? Would you want to review and remove a post that was potentially AI slop, or would you keep it and let users rely on downvotes and sorting?
For my part, if a particular community’s mods aren’t interested in clamping down on AI slop, then I know where I don’t want to be.
You’re supposed to report posts that break instance or community rules, not whatever you happen to consider to be “bad faith”.
This isn’t Reddit. Mods aren’t beholden to some set of standards handed down by moneyed interests. They’re real people with (hopefully) common sense and a desire to create something better than Reddit.
Besides, even if your instance has disabled downvotes, other instances can still see them.
That’s my point. If instances like mine can’t see downvotes, it’s excluding people like me, because people can’t be bothered to report. Furthermore, all it is is a popularity contest. “A bunch of people don’t like it” is no guarantee you won’t, nor does it demonstrate that the content is in fact garbage; it just shows a bunch of people don’t like it.
On your instance, yes. Those downvotes get dropped on my side, so I can’t see them, and neither can anyone else on a non-downvote instance. My proposal would address the issue of slop for everyone, whereas downvote proponents are just saying, “Yeah, well my way is better. Lemmy is only for people who do it my way.”
If this thread is a lesson in anything, it’s that the bad habits of Reddit carried over, and people are so fucking lazy, they can’t be bothered to click the report button.
I fundamentally disagree with downvotes, so changing instances isn’t an option. Just report it. It helps everyone and it removes it from the Fediverse, not just pushes it to the bottom of a list by the arbitrary metric of popularity.
No. My instance doesn’t have downvotes. You downvoting a post does nothing for instances like mine.
Report that shit instead. There’s no reason it needs to stay on the Fediverse.
My instance has downvotes turned off (which I like). That action only benefits people who care about downvotes.
The better option that helps everyone is to report bad faith posts.
So yes. Use the report tool and downvote it to oblivion.
My instance doesn’t have downvotes, so reporting is the most effective remedy for everyone’s benefit
You forgot the acronym “EVIL.”
Not a clue. Care to eli5?
It’s resistant, though, specifically because you can fork it. Don’t like where things are going? Like the features of a previous version? Fork that version and run with it.
It does mean extra work for somebody to maintain that forked version, but the option is nonetheless there.
Oh, that’s an interesting way to do it. You’d probably have to have a handful of moderators each for the various comms, but it sounds like it would at least resist lazy engagement.