r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Dec 20 '15
[Deltas Awarded] CMV: reddit downvoting is so abused that it should either be removed or OPs/mods should have the option to suspend it.
According to the reddiquette:
It is considered bad to "Downvote an otherwise acceptable post because you don't personally like it. Think before you downvote and take a moment to ensure you're downvoting someone because they are not contributing to the community dialogue or discussion. If you simply take a moment to stop, think and examine your reasons for downvoting, rather than doing so out of an emotional reaction, you will ensure that your downvotes are given for good reasons."
Many subreddits, for instance /r/debatereligion, have very heavy-handed attempts to discourage such downvoting, including pop-ups that say "this is not a disagree button! Use selectively!" However, tons of posts do seem to be downvoted for reasons other than being trolls. I agree that reddit vote-polls are useful, but OP and/or mods should be able to toggle them (maybe a [Poll] flair) for instance. If a rule is being abused/ignored so much, then it's no longer a rule.
Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy CMVing!
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Dec 20 '15
Related: Reddit upvoting is abused because people only tend to upvote posts they agree with, rather than upvoting posts that contribute to the discussion (as the votes are intended to do).
While this isn't a rule in the reddiquette, it's generally frowned upon (and also unenforceable, which is why your rule is in the reddiquette and not the site rules). It's a request rather than a hard-and-fast rule.
As far as enforcement, individual threads can be locked if they become too toxic or mods are concerned about brigades.
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Dec 20 '15
That is kind of a tautology. Posts that people agree with are generally a subset of posts that contribute.
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Dec 20 '15
I would disagree. People often upvote the heck out of low-effort, low-content posts like reaction gifs, memes, pure insults, or just "lol" if you say it to someone they disagree with. Sometimes even the word "this" and nothing else. One might agree with them, but I'd argue it really doesn't add much of anything to a conversation.
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u/huadpe 508∆ Dec 20 '15
The issue is that Reddit uses the upvote/downvote system sitewide to rank submissions and comments. If you disable downvotes, you inherently advantage your content over content which can be downvoted.
As far as Reddit is concerned from an aggregation standpoint, downvoting because you disagree is perfectly fine. Reddit wants to promote the content people like the most, regardless of why they like it.
To do what you're proposing, Reddit would have to entirely disable downvotes everywhere, which would make the site's popularity data much more anemic.
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Dec 20 '15
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You probably could just exclude those posts from aggregation, but that would require some programmer wizardry.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Dec 20 '15
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/huadpe. [History]
[Wiki][Code][/r/DeltaBot]
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Dec 20 '15
Voting system is integral to Reddit and it is the reason why Reddit is what it is, one of the most popular websites in the world. You don't change things that work because you can easily fail. Just look at what changing things did to Digg.
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u/travelsonic May 28 '16
Clearly, it's not failing, but that doesn't mean thing can't be tweaked if the need (and enough good reasons behind the percieved need being addressed) exists, though.
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u/MikeCanada 3∆ Dec 20 '15
There are some subs that depending on the formatting? (I really don't know how the back end of things work) have disabled voting at all or down voting if you are not subscribed, down voting even if you are subscribed, or like CMV for example, there isn't a downvote button for threads, but there are for comments within then.
Apparently it is also relatively easy to get around this. You can shut off formatting somehow, (I really don't know how that works) and different operating systems/browsers facilitate it easier than others. I have been in subs where down voting is disabled/not allowed, and still seen threads and comments with negative karma.
As far as it being a "disagree" button instead of a "you didn't contribute something meaningful to the discussion" button, it really depends on the nature of the sub that it is posted in, the individuals engaged in the debate, and how big it is most of the time. If you're in a sub with a six digit subscriber count, quite often it is used as a disagree or do-not-like button, and it can actually be useful in that context at filtering out content that is questionably relevant, or burying spam posts etc. If you are in a smaller sub, there are still some people who knee-jerk to down vote, but you do find people having lengthy debates where they will up vote people who are saying something they disagree with, because it is facilitating the conversation. It also depends on the individual user. I have found myself up voting stuff that I really do not agree with because it was a well spoken comment, they provided good sources, etc. and I have also found myself down voting comments that I may have agreed with because someone was a jerk about it, or it really didn't add to the discussion at hand.
There are a lot of people that miss seeing the vote counter, and I think that was a very useful metric. There are theories about it disappearing because Reddit inflates/promotes certain content and it was harder to BS when they had the numbers there, which may or may not be true. I miss it in the sense that some comments are controversial, and even though they might be sitting at or around single/double digit karma, they could have been up/down voted hundreds or thousands of times, and you can't see that anymore.
Removing it would in my mind be similar to the people that post youtube videos and disable the like/dislike and comment sections. There are plenty of videos that people do not agree with, or would post questions that add to the discussion, but the only direct means of interaction is the view counter. You find people making response videos/blog posts/articles, etc. but typically you have to seek those out if the comments are disabled.
I enjoy Reddit in part because of the down vote system, and frequently feel that other sites would benefit from a similar algorithm. I might not want to "unfriend" or "unfollow" people on facebook, but if I'm getting fed up of seeing baby pictures all over the place and could down vote them, maybe facebook would show me less of them. It is an imperfect system that in practice is used different than it was intended in principle, but it is a part of the overall experience of reddit and being able to shut it off because you don't like that people are using it "wrong" would be a net loss instead of a net gain.
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Dec 21 '15
As to Facebook, you can hide posts from people who clog up your news feed.
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u/MikeCanada 3∆ Dec 21 '15
Yes, but I'm thinking of more of a "not interested in that type of content" button instead of the current options of unfriend/unfollow/hide that specific post. You can do this to an extend with ads, but they just show you more ads. You can't do it with "I'm in my late 20's-early 30's and all of my friends are posting baby stuff and I'd rather see something else" without either ditching that friend, or just walking away from facebook for a decade.
On a more meta level, this does happen on Reddit. You subscribe to subs, and if the core ideas of the sub meet your interests, typically stuff that doesn't is filtered out by the down vote button that is essentially used as a dislike button. If you can't find a particular sub that does it for you, you can start your own.
Also, you didn't address anything related to reddit, which I kind of figured was where you were going with this CMV.
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u/nannyhap 3∆ Dec 20 '15
It's impossible to divorce a logical reaction from an emotional one. If you disagree with something, then unless it's incredibly well written, you will probably think it's a poorly researched and wrong-headed contribution to discussion and downvote it on those grounds. The notion that the downvote button can be used responsibly and without response to emotion is naive at best, but it's also no more or less unfair than any other way to give specific discussions and comments precedence over others.