Yeah this was a struggle session we had a while back. Detractors say we disabled downvotes “because downvoting a trans person is transphobic”. What actually happened is that several of our more persistent trolls were rabid transphobes who were creating alts specifically to downvote everything that known trans users were posting. And this was among a large struggle around healthy debate norms on the site and how downvotes led to unhealthy incentives during longer comment chains. The stance is basically, “State your grievance or move on.” (And yes, pigpoopballs counts as a grievance, albeit a very intense one)
it was also that transphobes were expressing discontent through downvotes, including on extremely innocuous shit like the “I love my trans comrades” posts. by forcing them to speak, we got them into the open so they could all be purged. no one can respond to a silent “I disagree” button so it promotes toxicity. if you wanna express your disapproval, put it in words so the person making the original point has something to work with.
I think lemmy as a whole should just get rid of downvotes.
That’s a terrible prank you’ve played on me.
it basically forces people to explain why they disagree instead of bandwagoning like on places with downvotes
or at the very least have to
a person, which gives them a chance to respond, unlike anonymous downvotes
You are getting upvotes though, so we clearly don’t think you’re a weenie
Yeah this was a struggle session we had a while back. Detractors say we disabled downvotes “because downvoting a trans person is transphobic”. What actually happened is that several of our more persistent trolls were rabid transphobes who were creating alts specifically to downvote everything that known trans users were posting. And this was among a large struggle around healthy debate norms on the site and how downvotes led to unhealthy incentives during longer comment chains. The stance is basically, “State your grievance or move on.” (And yes, pigpoopballs counts as a grievance, albeit a very intense one)
it was also that transphobes were expressing discontent through downvotes, including on extremely innocuous shit like the “I love my trans comrades” posts. by forcing them to speak, we got them into the open so they could all be purged. no one can respond to a silent “I disagree” button so it promotes toxicity. if you wanna express your disapproval, put it in words so the person making the original point has something to work with.
I think lemmy as a whole should just get rid of downvotes.
That’s a really good point, and I’m impressed with your community for both coming to that conclusion and taking action.
I’ve been for a while suggesting that votes should be publicly transparent, but I think the solution of just doing away with the downvotes works well.