Haha, nope. Def not. That would only make sense if I was Magnora7 and wanted to migrate people to a site with downvotes because I realized that a site without downvotes is harder to get rid of spam and also easier to get co-opt'd. But I didn't want to admit I was wrong with my initial premise.
It gives a clearer signature for spam accounts that can be scripted to identify candidates to look at. With zero downvotes all posts look identical from a numerical perspective, sitting somewhere on a distribution of being upvoted.
It doesn't mean it can be automated on that basis alone but it is a useful signal that can help.
Ok I hear you. Yeah wouldn't want to auto assume a downvoted post is spam or it needs to be censored. On saidit everyone used the laugh vote as a down vote anyway. Just like on Facebook.
But a laugh vote would just increase the post score on Saidit. I didn't address the other half which is being more resilient to being co-opted. I don't assume downvotes do enough but when you don't have them at all and the site's downvote functions as an upvote then the community really has zero immune system.
Where downvotes fall short on there own is a few ways. One is that there are many "principled" people who refuse to use them without realizing that's a false principle. If a principle leads to bad outcomes it is a false principle. If a good culture has been cultivated and refuses to downvote they do an insufficient job at diswelcoming bad actors. But if a more kniving group wonders on they will camp new and downvote. This is why downvotes can become a liability if your better users don't use it.
But having no downvote available at all leaves only the admin to be the immune system which a lot of people don't like either. If you don't want the admin to be the immune system then the users have to do it.
Well said. When this has been debated at Saidit - years ago - (2018 and earlier?) I remember recommending a 3rd button that would be a frown face, or any downvote option, even if a weak option, that would help with community engagement, otherwise users could easily - and often did - manipulate the system. I recall that m7 and d3 were receptive to that, but didn't want to take the time to implement it. And there were calls for the conversion of the silly button to a downvote. I think m7 wanted to focus on inclusion and assumed downvoting would turn people away.
I don't know why folks from Saidit like so many buttons. Ultimately a button isn't what it is labeled, but what it does. That's what buttons are. Controls. Otherwise we could all just make buttons and label the "be happy," press it and be contented for the rest of our lives.
Saidit didn't have a reasonable button and funny button. It had a full upvote and half upvote button. Silly.
Yeah he didn't like downvotes on Reddit. I feel like all this philosophy talk about a Reddit copy website is unnecessary, it's best to keep it simple, have it be like Reddit except without the censorship. Of course any website that gets popular will be attacked by bots and dnos. There's talk of automatically deleting posts if they get enough downvotes, that's bad, that's censorship, a post might be unpopular but true. End of day, need mods to watch for spam.
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Haha, nope. Def not. That would only make sense if I was Magnora7 and wanted to migrate people to a site with downvotes because I realized that a site without downvotes is harder to get rid of spam and also easier to get co-opt'd. But I didn't want to admit I was wrong with my initial premise.
That's.. totally not what happened.
LOL - now you've convinced me you're m7
Why would downvotes matter for all that, is Reddit with its downvotes great at those things?
It gives a clearer signature for spam accounts that can be scripted to identify candidates to look at. With zero downvotes all posts look identical from a numerical perspective, sitting somewhere on a distribution of being upvoted.
It doesn't mean it can be automated on that basis alone but it is a useful signal that can help.
Ok I hear you. Yeah wouldn't want to auto assume a downvoted post is spam or it needs to be censored. On saidit everyone used the laugh vote as a down vote anyway. Just like on Facebook.
But a laugh vote would just increase the post score on Saidit. I didn't address the other half which is being more resilient to being co-opted. I don't assume downvotes do enough but when you don't have them at all and the site's downvote functions as an upvote then the community really has zero immune system.
Where downvotes fall short on there own is a few ways. One is that there are many "principled" people who refuse to use them without realizing that's a false principle. If a principle leads to bad outcomes it is a false principle. If a good culture has been cultivated and refuses to downvote they do an insufficient job at diswelcoming bad actors. But if a more kniving group wonders on they will camp new and downvote. This is why downvotes can become a liability if your better users don't use it.
But having no downvote available at all leaves only the admin to be the immune system which a lot of people don't like either. If you don't want the admin to be the immune system then the users have to do it.
Well said. When this has been debated at Saidit - years ago - (2018 and earlier?) I remember recommending a 3rd button that would be a frown face, or any downvote option, even if a weak option, that would help with community engagement, otherwise users could easily - and often did - manipulate the system. I recall that m7 and d3 were receptive to that, but didn't want to take the time to implement it. And there were calls for the conversion of the silly button to a downvote. I think m7 wanted to focus on inclusion and assumed downvoting would turn people away.
I don't know why folks from Saidit like so many buttons. Ultimately a button isn't what it is labeled, but what it does. That's what buttons are. Controls. Otherwise we could all just make buttons and label the "be happy," press it and be contented for the rest of our lives.
Saidit didn't have a reasonable button and funny button. It had a full upvote and half upvote button. Silly.
Yeah he didn't like downvotes on Reddit. I feel like all this philosophy talk about a Reddit copy website is unnecessary, it's best to keep it simple, have it be like Reddit except without the censorship. Of course any website that gets popular will be attacked by bots and dnos. There's talk of automatically deleting posts if they get enough downvotes, that's bad, that's censorship, a post might be unpopular but true. End of day, need mods to watch for spam.
Yeah me down voting spam would seem a waste of time unless I actually thought it'd matter.
LOL, thanks for the clarification!
Brothers from a different mother. Also zyxzevn, but he didn't change his European name.
Magnora kept getting banned on Reddit so made a new name each time just adding a number. I used to do that too lol