I like not having a downvote aka disagree button
Actually I didn't at first. But getting involved in more contentious discussions I've come to realize the downvote was merely used as a weapon for groupthink. It was used to facilitate echochambers by killing off dissenting voices so that they don't even show up. Taking Reddit for example, it happens across subreddits of all political ideologies - left and right - and even subs like /r/Android for criticizing things like the Pixel haha.
But I am guilty of this too, don't get me wrong. When I see a comment I dislike I itch to whack that downvote button and sometimes even do. Here, though, not having it forces me and others to actually engage the commentor they disagree with and get a good conversation out of it. I think this is so important if we want to be a site that facilitates good discussion and not easy to follow groupthink. Because I've noticed a large difference in even my own actions by how I am forced to respond to things without it.
I agree. A downvote is too easy. It requires no thought, just knee-jerk reflex and it becomes habit. They also have a negative feedback loop aspect to them where users have downvotes used against them simply for going against the prevailing group think so they in turn start doing the same to others and the cycle continues.
The nicest thing about not having downvotes is it forces users to engage with words if they disagree with something. This has its own problems, particularly the risk of certain contentious issues getting too personal and threads being derailed as a result. However I think that can be dealt with through moderation whereas incorrect use of downvotes cannot.
I think forcing the user to reply with words instead of whacking the downvote button is a positive thing, even if their response may be a negative one. If somebody said something you disagreed with in a conversation, you wouldn’t just bonk them on the head and then leave. You’d hopefully stay and try and understand their point and opinions and share your own.
I think as long as the civility stays on tildes and is hopefully enforced either by moderation or another means, conversations could go on for ages with new ideas and perspectives being created. This is one of the reasons why I gave up on Reddit a while ago, every conversation quickly gets out of control and before you can have an interesting conversation about the topic the thread gets locked.
Yeah establishing civility and a good faith willingness to at least hear someone out is important to be able to actually get anything out of the discussions. Reddit mods are much too heavy handed in some of my experiences, and the subreddits are much too focused on blocking out opinions they don't like. That's their right, of course, but we should strive to do better. Moderation will be a tricky topic though, figuring out when it is time to step in vs step back and let the users hash it out.
Moderation of discussions is always difficult, but in order for tildes to achieve it's goals I think it should be based upon how personal the argument becomes. If a user or group of users are clearly being targeted and the original topic is no longer being discussed, then it requires intervention. If the topic, no matter how offensive or controversial, is still being discussed in a civil manner and people are treating other people with respect, then I say leave it alone. Clearly in order for this type of moderation to work people have to be prepared to logically argue with others who disagree with them, but if this can be maintained I think some really interesting discussions could arise. The simple rule of "keep it civil, logical and not personal" sums up this method of moderation quite nicely.
Yeah, I think that is a good start. Being sure to attack the argument and not the person goes a long way in keeping discussions civil and good faith. That would likely be a good moderation policy to have actually.
Exactly, and like you said it's a good start, clearly the moderation and rules could be developed further but personally I think it's a good basis to build upon and agrees with tildes overall goals as a community.
reddit modding is heavy handed because reddit users, in general, have lost the ability and the desire to be thoughtful or polite.
When a huge chunk of commentary is personal attacks, one line jokes, hundreds deep pun threads, copypasta, unoriginal karmawhoring etc mods who want to keep a semblance of order or "on topic-ness" have to be strict.
And that's enough talking about reddit from me this week.
Yeah you are right, Reddit is a whole different beast when it comes to handling discussion. But sometimes I feel like it does more to censor than it does to promote actual discussion. But you know what, isn't that why we're here on ~? Lol
I have actually seen threads getting derailed in this regard like you mentioned. But even with a downvote button that could still happen. Sometimes you just get so caught up going reponse after response you don't really realize where you started haha. But, I do feel it is better this way - at least for now.
I feel like the issues you bring up are still inherent to having an upvote though: it's very easy to simply reflexively upvote something that satisfies you on an emotional/visceral level then to actually read and comprehend a post you might disagree with but you still think is valuable. Because upvoting is free of consequence and just as easy as downvoting.
I agree although the extent to which upvotes has an effect is different than downvotes, both psychologically and in visibility, especially on reddit with the "don't show me comments/post <X score".
But the issues you describe are a factor for sure, and precisely why the location of the vote buttons on ~ are under the comments and to the far right of the topic title (unlike reddit where they are located left of the comments and submissions). They were put there specifically to encourage people to actually read the comments and read the topic/article before voting. Voting is also less of a factor on sorting location for topics/submissions on ~ as well thanks to the default Activity sort, and there are also ideas being bounced around to try and attempt to do the same for the comment sort as well.
p.s. These issues are also why I have suggest a multi-step "context for the vote" process as well which I think may help mitigate some of the issues that ease and general thoughtlessness of upvoting brings with it as well.
I agree with most of what you say, and I like to "context for vote" idea (although I suppose comment tagging is going to be meant to fill a similar role). But I don't think the placement of the vote button is going to change much in the long term: muscle memory/habit will likely mean people will simply scroll down before finishing reading. And the "Vote" button is still the very first option presented to them.
I think the position does have an effect, although perhaps a marginal one but every little bit helps IMO. Better slight encouragement to think before you vote than to present the vote button before a comment/topic is even read like on reddit. But as with all things, it will ultimately come down to culture, I think. If ~ can foster a culture of encouraging people to think before voting and voting even on things they might disagree with so long as they are presented well, it will also go a long way. We shall see. :)
There's generally little to discuss if you agree with the comment or post made. The conversation would, in most cases, be relatively short, in the form of "I agree". This can be said in a large variety of word combinations, but they effectively add nothing to the discussion at hand.
Downvoting, in the sense of "I disagree", however, is different. When disagreeing with someone, there are reasons to be explored that led you to coming to different conclusions. This is a good basis for a discussion, as now you can try to learn, together with your discussion partners, new ways to look at things, and reconsider your stance.
I'm not sure I agree with you. I don't think it takes more effort to type "No. Just no" then it does to type "Came here to say this".
Well, in that particular instance, there's still no discussion. There will always be people that do not want to engage in discussion, whether we have votes or not. I am unsure what they're doing on Tildes, but that's a different discussion. I do like to note that both of the example comments you noted do not bring anything worthwhile into a discussion, in my mind.
What I'm trying to say is that, on Tildes, if you actually disagree, you can't just hit a button and be done with it, you'll have to make your voice heard (or text read, in this case). And disagreement flows into discussion much better than agreement. Since this is a platform for discussion, it should be encouraged, which is what the current system is doing. Since agreement doesn't flow into discussion all that well, having a vote button for only that specific circumstance is not an issue (at least to me).
I see your point, but the fact is that the vote button actually influences the position of a post. The vote button here is not meant to be an agree button but a recognition of the quality of the post, regardless of your personal feelings on it. Yet I think the risk is still there that that is how it's going to be used and you'll be faced with the same hivemind issues you find on Reddit.
I don't want to argue in favor of a downvote button, but I don't think a lack of downvote button in and of itself resolves the problems we're trying to avoid.
It does, and I don't think that alone should work that way. In your use of the button (to indicate quality), it could, but I think we can both acknowledge it's not being used that way (as I already admitted that it's going to be use as showing agreement, not quality). Vote contexts, as mentioned elsewhere, would be an improvement to the current situation, I think.
I also think that threads are more interesting than posts, and that one should be able to sort based on votes contained on an entire thread of comments, instead of individual comments only. I haven't thought this idea through very well, so I would appreciate your thought on this.
You might be right. I did always consider the upvote to be an "I agree" or "This is beneficial to the topic at hand" button in most cases relieving you from having to write out and make a similar argument which would mirror the post you upvoted. You can then always expand upon it with a reply, or choose not to. Whereas a downvote button is a disagreement without reason why which seems inherently worse to me. But I do see what you're saying, as a lot of upvotes shoot those comments to the top which still causes problems.
Are you making assumptions of my real world interactions? How dare you!
I posted something like this in another somewhat related topic recently, but this seems more suitable.
I agree with all the positives listed here, but I think the lack of a downvote button only slightly fixes the echo chamber issues.
The two main issues I see with the function on Reddit is effective censorship and discouragement for those with a nonmajority view.
The first part is somewhat solved as posts aren't hidden, but it still messes with sorting due to the core problem that people don't typically vote for posts on controversial topics for any reason other than agreeing with the main idea behind them. What I see happening is downvote is just replaced by no vote. I don't see this ever being solved outside of vastly different demographic makeups to balance out this inevitability, as no amount of disclaimers and suggestions and well-intentioned mission statements will change the culture to something I've never seen anywhere on the internet, including Reddit where I haven't seen the idea of reddiquette be anything more than theory in 10+ years. More people will probably just make it worse.
More importantly though, I imagine for most who might have some view that would truly create thoughtful conflicting discussion, it's just not worthwhile.
Imagine you were on some politically mirrored version of somewhere like this. There was a thread about hate speech. The prevailing opinion was hate speech is a thing that should not exist legally. People should be free to say absolutely anything, and they should be judged and dealt with by the public choosing to dispute or not associate with people saying truly hateful things, and the idea of people with guns forcing people to not make sounds with their mouths is repugnant and pathetic and has no place in a free society. That this will all ultimately create a more equal and ethical society, without the use of violence and the demeaning of groups of people around the idea that they're poor broken victims who can never thrive without the righteous and enlightened people to protect them from so much as some jackass on the street yelling slurs at them. Many express how hate speech certainly exists, and it disgusts them, and etc., but the alternative solutions are just wrong. Some posts are incredibly well thought out and articulated, but many are just superficial repetitions of these reasonable views, often with broken logic and sometimes demonstrably false information, usually with thinly veiled insults towards anyone who disagrees.
You decide to post something as innocous as the idea that maybe limiting hate speech just in the public sector is worthwhile. You write out a well reasoned essay for that thought, and you even make sure to include multiple disclaimers about how you mostly agree with everything everyone is saying, and you don't even necessarily agree with what you're saying, but it's just an alternative position to think about.
You get 1 vote. Some person replies with a terse paragraph that doesn't really address any of the concrete points you made, at best tosses out some tangent you didn't mention that supports their position, and it all boils down to 'but freedom'. They get 10 votes. Everyone moves on feeling great for being part of such an open platform.
How interested would you be in continuing to participate? It's as someone else said in another recent topic... it feels like every conversation you enter is you against 100 people, the majority of whom don't care about anything but promoting their position. It's just exhausting and boring, and it creates this faulty sense of validation for the people seeing everyone is voting for what they want, therefore they're right.
I'm obviously exaggerating the current Tildes atmosphere (and I probably should've picked a different topic as the last hate speech thread was not nearly as bad as some others), but still. I've not bothered a number of times already as based on the responses I've seen to mildly-not-standard views, I'd likely be called a whateverist and probably not get any of the things I want out of a constructive conversation, whether I'm sharing a sincere view or some devil's advocate position.
Anyway, sorry for kind of getting into another topic. I agree that a lack of downvotes is definitely an improvement. Hopefully more of the features that have been discussed like tagging and sorting systems get implemented and work out well as well.
You bring up some really good points. It's really hard to fight an established norm or idea that everyone has already agreed upon. Like you said, "every conversation you enter is against 100 people, the majority of whom don't care about anything but promoting their position." Very great quote to consider every time you make a post.
But, how should Tildes combat this effectively while keeping discussions unharmed? I'd love your thoughts about how we as users, as well as Tildes as a platform can work to combat these sort of things.
I think there were some potentially workable ideas in this thread from the other day I mentioned on a similar subject.
But I tend to not like trying to modify behavior by modifying systems... though they'd certainly help a bit, like the lack of a downvote helps a bit.
It would be great if everyone were just somehow convinced to not use the vote button as an FB like button or a Reddit upvote. I definitely have no good ideas on how that can happen.
I suppose the most realistic option is one most people wouldn't like, myself probably included. Accepting that things are broken, and having a broken kind of equality by having the same kind of undesirable stuff from all perspectives so that it balances out. If, for example, at least a third of the userbase are people who prefer Donald Trump to the alternatives, then it'd be 'better'.
Then again, that's probably not very realistic considering a place like neutralpolitics has such a small fraction of the activity of all the clubhouse subs.
I think we shouldn't fix anything that isn't broken, but we certainly need to at least some guidelines to handle this. Then, we can try more mechanical options as well as light moderation to help guide discussions. And that thread does have some good ideas we could certainly try implementing.
Yeah, was being a bit overly pessimistic seeing some of what I'm talking about here and there, but it's certainly better than most other places now and doesn't warrant any drastic action. Am probably kinda jaded from the evolutions of Reddit/TrueReddit/etc. Just always worth keeping in mind I think, particularly if more people come in.
maybe votes should be invisible. they can serve their purpose without anyone being able to see them.
we're supposed to be trying to discourage "popularity seeking" behavior, anyways. maybe the lack of being able to see how much agreement you're getting would discourage attention-seekers from participating at all
But if we know posts are being sorted by votes, wouldn't we be able to implicitly see which opinions are popular? Though, it won't be quite as strong of an effect as it is seeing the number now I don't think.
Same here. On Reddit pretty much anything can get downvoted. There was a time I commented some information (That was correct) and it was downvoted to oblivion for no reason. Even the OP was confused by it. The problem with downvotes is some users just follow the crowd. If they see -x downvotes they figure "eh he probably deserved it".
Yep, and sometimes downvotes are a way to hide dissenting opinions that make you feel uncomfortable. Perhaps some punishment for misusing it would help, but how would they track that sort of thing? And when the hivemind kicks in it's hard to combat.
I wonder what prompted you to make this thread 🤔
For real though, I completely agree. I’ve seen discussions here that would have stopped/been hidden on Reddit after the hive mind decides who’s wrong and who’s right
Haha, I was thinking about this after a comment on one of the previous threads and really began to appreciate it. I really wasn't sure I liked it at first, funny enough.
I'm a simple person, I upvote everything I see.