R.I.P Downvotes (first ever Megathread)

I’m not going to miss them. Caused unnecessary toxicity and too often folks would just swing in, leave a downvote, and fly off and the op would have no idea why it was getting downvoted.

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so whats with some of these people in this thread all of a sudden LOL I was gone for two hours and I’m seeing some madness.

Downvoted NEVER censored people’s opinions. It was VERY easy to read downvoted posts.

If anything, allowing upvotes but not allowing downvotes is censoring people’s opinions, because now people are allowed to easily agree with a post, but can’t easily disagree with a post.

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And you can still do that, all you have to do is flag inappropriate threads or posts and they will be moderated.

You don’t need to be able to downvote a thread to remove inappropriate posts.

Downvotes are unproductive, and only incite bitterness within the community. I’m glad to see they’re gone.

What are you talking about, fam? I like threads that I don’t necessarily agree with all of the time because I like the effort and thought that went into them.

Like != agree. Like simply meant that I liked how the post was written.

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Accordin g the the “Read this before posting” thread You are supposed to upvote posts you like and Downvote posts you don’t like.

Just because you wanted it to mean something different doesn’t mean that was it’s purpose.

(Irony, that even got copied over to this forum, even though downvotes no longer exist.)

Continuing the discussion from Welcome! Please Read Before Posting.:

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That’s not what that says. You’re supposed to upvote posts that you liked because they brought something to the discussion, and downvote posts you disliked because they brought nothing to the discussion.

They were never meant to be a form of agreement, they were meant to be a way for the community to highlight or darken helpful or destructive posts.

And I can also guarantee you that the devs / CM’s never cared how you voted anyway. If they liked an idea, they would pass it on regardless of what the vote count was.

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I completely agree with that, which is why I was wondering why people argued that you were “Censoring them”

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The downvote button was a quick way to say “I disagree.” The removal of the button isn’t going to suddenly make people who used it type out multiple paragraph replies. They’ll either type “I disagree” or not even bother. Wow, incredible improvement. Reading “I disagree” multiple times in a row totally improves my forum browsing experience. :roll_eyes:

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The point of a discussion board is to foster discussion. Since you state replying with “I disagree” is pointless and adds nothing to the discussion, surely that logic can be extended to the downvote feature.

If people don’t have anything to add to the discussion, they don’t have to post.

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I Disagree.

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But hitting the upvote button without replying is totally fine and fosters tons of discussion amirite? Both buttons should be removed or neither. It’s completely hypocritical otherwise.

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Again, the whole point of the upvote button is to highlight a post because it is insightful. It isn’t meant to add to discussion or even validate it. It was INTENDED to be a tool to say “Hey, I like what you’re doing, keep doing it” while downvotes said the opposite.

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And if downvotes are just the opposite, then why is it okay for them to have kept Upvotes but remove Downvotes.

If they are equal but opposites, then they should have been treated equally.

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Safe spaces everywhere! Soon your parents will not be able to tell kids any negative otherwise the state will take the kids away to a more “positive” environment.

Spoiler alert - It’s a science fiction novel that was written in the past!

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Well there is a flag option for your “i disagree” thing you have going on

That makes zero sense. Upvote = “I like this/agree.” Downvote = “I don’t like this/disagree.” It’s completely hypocritical to claim one is ok and working as intended while the other isn’t.

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Flagging a post is asking it to be removed and the poster to be Banned from the forums…

That is a bit strong for “I Disagree”.

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They aren’t equal, psychologically a downvote is demeaning (as they were intended to be to combat trolling) and does not help a poster become better. Punishment resonates much more loudly in the brain and eventually, the poster will just become spiteful and start making hateful posts.

This has been repeated in several studies involving voting systems on sites like Reddit.

An upvote on the other hand has next to zero negative effects. It doesn’t promote trolls to troll more when their posts are upvoted, nor does it have any effect on increasing the frequency of how often people post, nor does it affect the quality of their posts negatively.

Downvotes, on the other hand, DO affect posting quality negatively.

To say they are equivalent is to ignore human psychology.

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I Disagree.

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