No, but that should trigger moderator review
That’s a kind of soft removal
That’s a kind of soft removal
Not if the mod is smarter than a piece of wood
no
Depends on why it’s being downvoted?
If the OP was saying that anything other than firefly is the greatest sci-fi-western ever … leave it up.
If it’s something truly inappropriate… mods can take it down, yeah?
That’s an orthogonal thing though. Downvotes and removals are generally triggered by different things, even if they intersect occasionally:
- “I think The Mandalorian is the best sci-fi western ever” is a reasonable thing to post in c/tv, c/scifi, c/westerns, etc.
- “I think The Mandalorian is the best sci-fi western ever” might be a reasonable thing in an open topic about comparing Firefly to other space westerns in c/firefly
- “I think The Mandalorian is the best sci-fi western ever” is clearly an off topic troll if posted as a top level reply to a question “Do you think Mal will ever find his true love” in c/firefly
In all three cases, it’s entirely possible the comment will get a lot of downvotes. But the fact it’s off-topic and, in context, intended to troll, that means the third case is the only one where you’d want it removed.
Indeed, it’s possible to envisage a highly upvoted comment that also ends up being removed because it’s off topic or an attempt to derail. Those are actually harder to remove, and I’ve seen (Reddit) moderators make the wrong call on them when they’re successful attempts to derail because they’re not always as obvious.
So it’s a matter of whether you like it or not. Which is reflected in your vote.
No. It doesn’t matter if, for example, one likes, let’s say Babylon 5… and posting bab5 memes to the star wars community. That’s not what that community is about, and should be taken down.
And this is ignoring the kind of things that are absolutely awful and never appropriate
On the other hand, let’s say I post that same Babylon 5 meme in the sci-fi community, and get downvoted because people don’t appreciate the classics any more… that should stay up.
Nonetheless, whether it’s an inappropriately placed post or a post extolling the virtues of racism, you will downvote it in exactly the same way. There is only one kind of downvoting.
whether it’s an inappropriately placed post or a post extolling the virtues of racism, you will downvote it in exactly the same way
Ideally in those cases you should be reporting it for mod review, not just downvoting it.
Also note that it’s perfectly possible that a rule-breaking post/comment gets highly upvoted, and it should be still removed. Thankfully you won’t see this here with racism, but think on off-topic content (e.g. a cute cat picture in a discussion community).
To use a Reddit example, think of it this scenario:
Last I recall the most downvoted comment of all time was when a representative from EA said paying $80 to unlock Darth Vader in their recently released Battlefront game was to give players a sense of pride.
The fact the community was downvoting it with such fervor should have been important feedback to EA. If any platform were to blanket remove posts without review of an overly negative sentiment then EA wouldn’t have known they flew too close to the sun with greed on that comment.
I do think the idea of downvote removal is a valid one to clear out a lot of garbage, but it removes the community’s voice and could result in easy suppression mechanism of types of content or information by those gaming the system which is why I would vote no on auto-deletion, but maybe leaning yes on triggering review.
Though in that review there would have to be some guidelines from the mod team in the channel’s sidebar on what content would and wouldn’t be removed. Would a question people where people don’t agree with what is being proposed be deleted even though it’s not a stupid question? That could be an opportunity to learn more. Would a highly racist/sexist/etc question be removed? I’d vote yes, get rid of that troll.
One last thing on auto-remove: sometimes timezones have differing viewpoints. I clarified some terms that I’m an expert on and most newbies confuse, but I did it at a weird hour of the day for me. I was downvoted pretty heavily for the first 12h of my post, but then it recovered back to zero, then positive. Despite being a worldwide sport different regions have different definitions for the same labels. This is not something any of us in the community had realized until the follow up comments of people coming to my defense which led to a back and forth discovering both sides of the debate were regionally grouped. I still thing my region is right. But that mod review would have been dependent on the mod region, and we may have never gotten an answer, which is why my vote on auto-review is a maybe. I’d want to see a more fully flushed proposal before saying yes.
No, because that would open up an exploit that would give vote brigades a form of censorship power.
No.
If a post gets many downvotes, then it might be because of rules violation.
But downvotes are still no reason for deletion.
Rules violation should be the only valid reason for deleting a post.
But it brings it under the scrutiny of the mod. Bringing the possibility that it may be removed. A possibility that did not exist before. And if you didn’t like the post then there is a chance that the mod doesn’t like the post. Then voila, removal.
“mod doesn’t like the post” doesn’t always mean “mod removes post.”
Mod never examining post means that the mod won’t remove the post. Mod examining the post means that the mod might remove the post. Thus downvotes increase the likelihood of removal by catching the mod’s attention that way.
I feel like you’re looking at it wrong: If you imagine a community to be a town square, then every comment is someone standing on a soap box shouting into the crowd. The mods are the police standing on the side lines.
In this scenario, as long as no one says anything illegal (or against the community’s rules), the police should just stand there and keep watch. If the whole crowd starts booing the person shouting on their soap box, it would clearly be wrong for the police to silence this person or to remove them from the town square. They should be allowed to be there and say whatever they want, just as you should be allowed to voice your opinion on what they’re saying.
Saying something that people don’t like hearing should never be a reason to silence someone by itself. There are valid reasons to “silence” ( you know, remove a comment or ban them) someone, but "I (we) don’t like what they’re saying can never be a reason to do so.
I didn’t mean that “wrong speech” is a good reason for removal. I meant that it just works out that way.
By bringing scrutiny where it wouldn’t otherwise.
And by getting buried by downvotes, as somebody else pointed out.
Either way.
It’s not being removed because it was down voted. It’s being removed because it broke the rules. Reports can serve the exact same function if you disable down votes. Heck, they would probably work better at getting mod attention.
That’s got nothing to do with automatic removal based on down voting. Think about how easily that could be abused? And with honestly no options aside from flatly leaving the platform. If you have an issue with a moderator, or the rules of a community you can simply find different community or even instance.
How else would we roast OP?
See, they like what you just said. They upvoted you. These people like roasting.
a downvoted post gets buried anyway
That’s a very good point. I actually hadn’t thought of that.
I guess one difference is that when the post is removed it locks out further conversation.
Depends. Troll posts, yes. Unpopular opinions, no.
no
Downvoting should be removed. In most instances, it is someone downvoting for a dumb reason. If it is a violation it should be reported. If it a difference of opinion, just don’t upvote.
People want a way to express their dislike without getting in to a stupid internet fight about it. Look at how long people rallied for a dislike button on Facebook.
Downvoting should be removed.
I need to downvote this!
:-)
Most of us downvote anything that criticizes or deviates even slightly. We are as sensitive as a ripe pimple in that way.
It basically makes social media what it is.
As for how it “should” be… well, I have some ideas too. I guess that’s a question of engineering.
Let’s hear them.
I have seen a few instances remove downvoting, and they seem to run more smoothly. They tend to be more civil.
I have seen a few instances remove downvoting, and they seem to run more smoothly. They tend to be more civil.
That’s one of the cases that we need to remember that co-occurrence does not necessarily imply causation. It’s perfectly possible, for example, that the removal of downvotes doesn’t make those instances more civil - but instead that admins seeking more civility try a bunch of stuff out, alongside the removal of downvotes, and something else makes the users in those instances more civil.
To sort this out we’d need some sort of A/B testing.
(Note: this doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re wrong, it’s more like “do we [people in general] know it? I don’t think that we do.”
In all fairness, it doesn’t mean I am right either and that is a fair criticism.
Here’s one of my ideas.
Instead of all votes being equal I’d like to see voting weighted according to the votes you have issued a person in the past. Reflecting your respect/disrespect for that person.
Thus, if person X is somebody that you have upvoted in the past, then when they vote on person Y, be they up or down votes, then those votes on Y will count for more. And if you downvoted X then, when they vote on Y, those votes on Y will count for less.
And those votes would propagate. IE your “opinion” of X would weight X’s votes. And it would also weight the votes of those whom X votes on.
This would provide a pretty smart map of the value of the persons who you are talking to here. And then you filter or whatever.
I actually like that. It would also help with sockpuppets since, over time they would lose their value.
There are some people who just downvote to downvote. They add no value but just want to be jerks.
There are some people who just downvote to downvote. They add no value but just want to be jerks.
I’ve heard that called the Chinese system. Anything that catches my attention gets downvoted. Any nail that sticks up gets hammered down. It’s genetic or something.
If the fediverse wants to survive, it has to spawn conversation. Otherwise, the numbers will never grow, and eventually, they will fizzle out. Echo chambers don’t last since people get bored easily when you can just macro the conversations.
Reddit and Twitter work on the model of causing outrage with downvotes to spawn people to the site to generate ad revenue. They spend a lot of time and effort allowing the outrage. That is how they generate revenue. Yet, it creates a very toxic environment and one that shouldn’t be duplicated.
Reddit likes the conversational equivalent of a first person shooter. As opposed to a polite tea party. Maybe we just need to separate the two. But every FPS fan wants to shoot up the tea party so it’s gotta be a pretty rigorous separation.
