As the fediverse continues to grow, let’s reflect on some of the things that we disliked most about posting/lurking on reddit and what we can do differently now that we have a chance to build something new.
As the fediverse continues to grow, let’s reflect on some of the things that we disliked most about posting/lurking on reddit and what we can do differently now that we have a chance to build something new.
downvoting for disagreement. people on reddit treat upvotes/downvotes as agree/disagree, when they really should be used to promote thoughtful and good content, not necessarily what you agree with. If you think someone is participating in a thread properly, and promoting and inviting discussion and making the place better (even if you disagree with them) you should upvote instead.
reddit all too often let “lazy” comments float to the top because they were agreeable with the masses, but low effort.
It’s a good point, but very difficult (maybe even impossible) to achieve. Downvoting to disagree is a kneejerk reaction that is very easy to do, so it’s going to require a lot of self discipline to avoid - and I don’t think you can expect that from most people.
I don’t even really think that there should be downvotes. Just different categories of votes, kinda like how Fark does comments with ‘Smart’ and ‘Funny’ votes.
Generally, shifting away from a binary system could be beneficial. What would be the options? What’s enough but not too many options to cover the gamut? Maybe two types of positive (“I agree” and “This is quality”) and two types of critical options (“I don’t agree” and “This is poor quality”) ?
I’m not sure I want to feel like I’m doing a psychological evaluation or political survey when I’m liking a post. Up and down is fine.
That’s part of the reason why platforms like Reddit took off: they’re simple and easy to approach and people don’t get overwhelmed at first sight
Nothing sounds more fun than a paroxysm of analysis with every 'doot
Granted, you could easily replace the two arrows with a four-part diamond (❖) with those two axes … but I have a strong suspicion that nearly everyone who’s going to vote “I don’t agree” will also vote “This is poor quality” except in extraordinary cases. It’s just human nature: one would be disinclined to explicitly acknowledge the quality of one’s antagonist.
While a better system might be one where you can apply a range of reactions to a post, that would probably make things look cluttered and spammy (if a post has a dozen different reactions on it)
The upvote/downvote system seems like the most useful one, at least right now while people are migrating over and these sites are in the expansion phase
@AnonymousLlama I like forum software that offers a range of reactions (ala vBulletin / XenForo). The default reaction could be a simple “Like” with an additional click or two required to change the reaction to Informative, Agree, Funny, Sad etc. Two of these reactions (probably positioned last to add that extra little bit of friction) might be Disagree and Off-Topic.
But if this is too convoluted, maybe just cap the number of downvotes a post/thread can get. So if a post gets 5 (or whatever the cap number is) downvotes, additional downvotes do not change the downvote counter. This would discourage “piling on” but there’d still be an indicator that a post might be poor quality or contentious. On the other hand, upvotes should probably be unlimited (or have a higher cap number) to encourage positive feedback.
I like how wiki tribune is doing it where you can set trust levels for users. Hey this person comments are always intelligent and useful. I set the trust value to 100. This other guy is always trying to promote some wierd conspiracy. Set trust level to 0. Now I see way more posts and comment from user 1 and way less from user 2.
unfortunately true. it would be nice to avoid though
I avoid it on my instance by disabling downvotes
Of course downvotes can be ironic such as the one I’ve just added…
My instance just drops external downvotes, so it’s all the same thing to me :)
okay, but in a social environment like the fediverse it kinda doesn’t matter what your instance does: up and down votes are entirely to do with other people, and their instances still show all your down votes
disabling downvotes on your instance just means your local communities don’t have down votes: your posts on other instances still do!
Not quite. What it means is that people on my instance don’t have the same view as people on other instances. When we visit a community or look at a post, we see it as if downvotes don’t exist, wherever those downvotes come from. You seem them with downvotes included.
How you see my post doesn’t bother me. How I see other posts is what I’m interested in, and for me, downvotes don’t influence ranking
For this to work, the upvote would likewise have to cease meaning “agree” and instead mean “good answer.” Unfortunately that’d be a step too far for most people. At the end of the day, entertainment, not edification, is the primary driver for most people to be on social media. So they need a way to express favor for answers that are enjoyed even if they don’t lead to deeper discussion.
Perhaps a three button system would work.
All that said, I also would love there to be less lazy comments.
Your expectation of what upvoting and downvoting represents does not match up with the most intuitive psychological interpretations are - and therefore, it is unrealistic.
However, I will also state that while the problem you perceive is more relevant for comments, having up/downvotes represent Like/Dislike is more appropriate at the Thread/Post level - as the idea for a subreddit is that content users like should be promoted and content they don’t want to see should be demoted.
That makes it even more difficult because now you want the arrows to mean different things depending on the area they are used.
You will never break the link between voting and Like/Dislike. However, what you can do is have a separate control to indicate whether a comment is appropriate or not.
Since “approving” can be done with both voting and boosting, I feel like the context of the vote is different. It’s more like something I’d want to see implemented as “drag and drop the posts to help rank them”. You would still have people who try to bury things by moving them to the bottom of the thread, but the additional friction of ranking high-to-low would turn the reaction into a more complex “but which one of these is actually the Best Comment”. Like, you’d automatically bias towards putting the best at the top, not burying the worst.
IMO: upvote = relevant comment in the thread. boost = I want to share this with my followers.
I don’t actually know how boost effects a comment?
https://youtu.be/X8-Q9UijnYM?t=21
I always commented way more than I voted. When I was like, wow, this post is great and useful to me. It got an upvoate. Conversely when someone just made no sense or seemed to be trolling then it got the downvote. If I simply disagree I just comment to say so.
I’m doing my part. It’s a hard habit to break, but it’ll be worth it. If this interpretation of the system catches on, then there should be less echo chambers as a result, because different perspectives will be accepted and not shunned.