My wonderful co-admin @supakaity@lemmy.blahaj.zone has made a modification to the downvote system. It’s not currently enabled, but if we were to turn it on, downvotes would be available for use, but they would weigh 5 times less than an upvote.

Which is to say, it would take 5 downvotes to counter an upvote. This would let downvotes have an impact on what appears in the hot topics sort, but hopefully mitigate some of the more negative impacts of downvoting.

Are there any strong objections from Blahaj Lemmy users to enabling downvotes with this modification?

  • Shae@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    32·
    1 year ago

    Is it possible to have no downvotes on Blahaj, but do have downvotes on federated communities?

    This would give Blahaj users the same perception of federated communities as other instances have and give us a safe space in Blahaj. It also means we can sort federated communities like normal and see what everyone else sees, while still having downvotes nonexistent in Blahaj communities.

    I’ve never really wanted downvotes in Blahaj, but I’ve worried about not having them for other instances. It feels like I’m not on a “level playing field” when I can be downvoted by others on a federated communities, but can’t downvote anything myself. I’m also worried that with downvotes = 1/5, it would result in a skewed perspective of federated communities if Blahaj sorts federated communities that way too.

    I don’t know what the code looks like (yet?) but I feel like denying downvotes only on local communities wouldn’t be a hard change to make.

    Edit: I also wouldn’t mind if downvotes were 1/5 on Blahaj but 1=1 on federated communities, but I can see that being a harder change to make.

    Edit 2: if this is a straightforward change I wouldn’t mind implementing it when I have time. I have some familiarity with Rust, TS, and JS so it wouldn’t be difficult to jump into.

    • Paige (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      12·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, I’d like it if other instances were treated “as is” and that their individual policies on voting were respected when displayed to blahaj.zone users. Although, I do not know if it is possible to have two separate policies depending on whether the user is in their home instance.

      • guildz@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        All this change would do is alter the weighting downvotes have in the sorting algorithm, I dont think it is possible without big changes to alter the displayed score. In anycase the downvotes are still being stored, so anywhere without these changes are unaffected

  • altoids0@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    22·
    1 year ago

    I love that we have the fidelity here to implement things like “downvotes are at 0.2x power” and stuff like that! That sounds cool, should totally try that out and see how it ends up feeling. I think people would ultimately be OK with a near-zero-power downvote, if that ends up negatively affecting conversations too much.

  • hodgepodgehomonculus@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    14·
    1 year ago

    I like the partial weights, it basically means that the whole community has to band together to hide something, which is essentially what they were originally supposed to be used for on reddit.

  • Changeling@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    14·
    1 year ago

    Downvotes are a useful tool for sorting content and unless they are being abused should be implemented with a 1:1 weight with downvotes.

  • ‘Leigh 🏳️‍⚧️@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    11·
    1 year ago

    Would it be possible to enable this at the topic level but not the comment level? My thinking is that it makes sense for helping users decide what posts to read in the first place, but would still discourage low-effort negativity that doesn’t actually contribute to a discussion.

    But even if the answer to that is “no”… I don’t strongly object to trying this out and seeing how it works for this community. 🙂 If de-weighted downvotes still lead to problems, the change could always be reverted. Thank you for exploring the options!

    • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPMEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      Would it be possible to enable this at the topic level but not the comment level?

      That’s actually a really good idea, and it addresses most of my concerns with the downvote system. However, I have no idea what is involved in making that happen in the backend, and don’t want to throw even more work at @supakaity :)

      • Sekoia@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        7·
        1 year ago

        So, looking at the Lemmy code it seems pretty straightforward (like, really straightforward. There’s two checks, one for comments and one for posts, so just make them use different functions). I can try doing it, maybe even propose it as a PR upstream. Might take me a day or two for a PR though.

        • Lanthanae@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          If you don’t end up making the PR I’m down to go check it out. If you do make the PR, link it so I can go give my support for it lol.

            • Lanthanae@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
              2·
              1 year ago

              Ah that’s a shame, although I understand where they’re coming from being wary of complicating settings for the front-end. Either way I’ll look into it a bit when I can get to my PC and see if there’s still any hope for it lol.

              Regardless of what happens with it, I appreciate you making the PR!

  • Malakai on Lemmy@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    10·
    1 year ago

    Sounds like a really good compromise. “Rediquette” says it’s only to discourage spam and posts that add nothing to the conversation, but in practice, basically everyone uses it as an “I disagree” button. Gets used as a tool to discourage dissent and silence the actual unpopular opinions.