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JubilantJaguar

@ JubilantJaguar @lemmy.world

Posts
10
Comments
863
Joined
3 yr. ago

European. Linux enthusiast. History graduate. I never downvote reasoned opinions and I do not engage with people who downvote mine (which may be why you got no reply). Low-effort comments with vulgarity or snark will also be ignored.

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  • How so? In functional terms this exact feature already exists: blocking. Essentially I'm just asking for more controls over it, because it's too brutal (and fastidious) as things stand. Details could be discussed.

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  • Might indeed be hard to implement (congratulations for making approximately the 2nd piece of constructive feedback in this whole discussion BTW). The level of granularity would have to be limited. As described, it sounds like a front-end (i.e. Javascript-based) feature. But time-limited auto-blocks are definitely possible in theory. Not exactly what I asked for but I would definitely use it.

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  • But why should I care what someone who downvotes me thinks? They could just as easily have disagreed respectfully with my post, without downvoting it and so tagging it as BAD for everyone. As I am doing right now with you (PS: meaning disagreeing without downvoting).

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  • I love criticism. Downvotes are not criticism. Downvotes are "Muh! Shut up!" with the added effect of making your contribution less visible to third parties.

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  • I don't understand. Of course you have a way to disagree with it. Reply to it, stating why.

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  • In theory, such a person could easily be blocked or banned. In practice, I don't see such a person actively choosing not to see the results of their abuse.

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  • Agreed on all counts.

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  • The difference between you and me is that I read your opinions and let them stand, while you vote mine down. Why should I be interested in what you think when you are declaring openly that my opinions are illegitimate and not worth considering? I'm not doing that to you. Because why should I? You're being perfectly respectful, even interesting. Why would I downvote you? And why would you downvote me?

    I am more than happy to deal with reasoned criticism. A downvote is "Shut up".

    Moreover (and this is really all that counts) this feature would not affect you. You would be free to go on downvoting and being downvoted. Those who don't appreciate having their contributions shouted down could talk (and disagree) quietly and respectfully among themselves as adults. It's my idea of social-media utopia and this small feature would make it possible.

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  • If "clap" means "agree with", then personally I'm not looking exclusively for content that I agree with. There's the report button for things that break the rules.

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  • OK. But then you must disagree even more with the existing block feature, which is much worse in that regard than what I am proposing.

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  • 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.

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  • Reporting them, of course.

    BTW the best moderation system IMO was invented by Slashdot decades ago. No upvotes or downvotes, you have to tag things as "offtopic" or "misinformation" or whatever ("I disagree" not being an option), and then the tags get passed randomly to meta-moderators based on reputation. It works brilliantly but is apparently far too complicated for normies, which is why everyone copied the R-site's terrible binary system.

    PS: I wrote "binary" here but meant "ternary". A binary system is in fact an improvement IMO. Upvote / no upvote. This works fine in plenty of forum software, for example Discourse. It functions as quality control without needlessly providing a megaphone for bad vibes.

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  • Yep, you have it exactly right, thank you for reading more than the title. I've added a clarification to the top of the post.

    to my mind the ranked-thread system doesn’t work without them.

    IMO it would work just fine without the down button. In other words we get a button to clap but not to jeer.

    And in the end, they’re just numbers: No amount of votes has every made me delete an unpopular comment, either of my own or as a moderator.

    Sure, but then you are likely more thick-skinned than the average, being a moderator on social media. I don't think I'm hypersensitive. After all, I guessed this would be taken down in flames but I posted it anyway. In person I'm fairly combative (though always respectful). I don't think either of us is average, same for most others here. The average (see corporate social media) is to be much more sensitive to criticism, to delete if people push back, to delete if nobody upvotes, to shut up except when we know the herd will agree with us, basically to behave like the social animals we are. I'm convinced this is what most people here don't fully grasp. For me the downvote button is like nitroglycerine for our worst herd-behavior instincts. Upvoting will be technically abused but it's a pragmatic necessity, as you say. Downvoting serves no purpose except to spread bad vibes exactly where they're least needed.

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  • The setting could have various permutations, but yes, that would be the one I personally would use. After all, downvoting my contribution you would kind of be declaring you don't care what I have to say.

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  • ever

    I specifically did not ask for this (it was one of the options and the one I personally would never use).

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  • Sure, that would work fine. Essentially the same thing as far as I can tell. The point is that it would be fine-tunable and automatic, neither of which the current block is.

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  • So for you downvoting is aggressive but shouting back is not?

    The off-ramp argument is that downvoting is a substitute for shouting back, i.e. a marginal improvement. That's the best argument I have seen for it.

    Which you mention in your comment. About the in-person analogs, surely a downvote does not exist beyond jeering and booing. That is exactly my point. It's fine to clap someone's good point, it's not fine to boo and to jeer. Just don't clap. That's what happens in person. It's polite and honest without being hostile.

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  • The auto-block would be context-specific and temporary, as I described. Essentially it's a fine-tuning of the existing block feature, which I totally agree is excessively heavy-handed (and I don't use it for that reason).

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  • So we agree in substance. Why then would you be against a feature that would allow you (entirely optionally) not to see the contributions of people who have marked your content as illegitimate? This is what I don't get.

    I don't tend to believe in technical fixes, but this particular feature would really improve my experience here. Maybe yours, too.