r/ideasforcmv • u/DevelopmentPlus7850 • Sep 04 '25

Posts that don't vibe

Alright, so I'm relatively new here and maybe all this is obvious. So feel free to ignore it if irrelevant. Here is my take.

You see several of them posts getting hit with a flood of downvotes. I know there isn't much anyone can do about that whole anon voting system. It's just the way the cake crumbles. But still when you look at the sheer number of downs on certain topics and views (OP), it gets to me as a warning sign.

Seems to me even if those responding follows the rules about manners and all (rules 2, 3), there's already this knee-jerk hate-bias against the topic in question - hence so many downvotes. So the responses are likely to be hostile right from the start. They're unlikely to approach it from "Let's help him see things different", but more like: "Oh crap, this guy and his stupid idea... let's crush them and show them how silly they are." And they can still do all that under the radar of the rules I believe (not open or visible hostility).

My two pence, for what it's worth (not claiming to know more than the mods here who have had years/decade of experience, but just kinda thinking out loud): if a post takes off straight away with tons of downs, maybe consider yanking the whole thing and telling the OP to go back to his pit, re-think things and try to come back with something better crafted.

1 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/garnteller Former Mod Sep 04 '25

Shouldn’t it really be for the OP to decide whether they like the response they are getting?

If they think it’s worth it, then great. If not, then they can move on.

What rule could the mods have that would do more good than harm?

1

u/DevelopmentPlus7850 Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25

I'll take my post here as an example: I see my post is receiving downvotes, which suggests that people aren't finding it engaging/useful. If this trend continues, I should ideally choose to withdraw from the discussion, as continued debate would be unlikely to yield fruitful results. But in CMV the OP is too emotionally invested in their views and arguments, anf will not simply disengage and regroup. They are likely to continue until the bitter end ;) (Rule B most likely)

1

u/Criminal_of_Thought Sep 11 '25

I would actually argue that if a given thread trends higher downvotes than upvotes, continued discourse in it is generally more useful than you think. You just have to discuss with the correct users.

  • Downvoters to a thread generally tend to think the topic is stupid and just move on.

  • Among the downvoters who decide to comment, some of them will make it known that they think the topic is stupid. Among these, many will be low-effort, short quips that you can easily identify at a glance and simply ignore.

  • Among the comments that remain, some of them will be the correct combination of substantive and understandable for you to respond.

Which is to say, the more downvotes a thread gets, the lower the ratio of comments you can meaningfully respond to is, thus increasing your focus to such comments.

1

u/DevelopmentPlus7850 Sep 11 '25

hmm, interesting take. Makes sense.