So you have excluded the people who are casually reading the site and wish to filter out poor-quality comment. But the people who you wished to exclude won't be slowed one iota.
(I wouldn't usually say this but... I will greatly enjoy the irony if this comment gets voted down.)
Downvotes are a useful tool. If you can only ever upvote something, that is when the site-value is vulnerable to brigading - HN is probably not interested in lowering the signal-to-noise if farming accounts to upvote (and only upvote) is an option.
Also, a lot of downvoting on the internet is just "I disagree with you", or "I don't like what you're saying". It can be personal, and not necessarily useful to the original poster.
In other words, I disagree with you. Though I won't downvote (flag, I guess on posts) you. This time :)
[aside: I'm not some apologist for HN. I'd love to post my own pet-project [1] but I've linked to it too often in posts where I though it was relevant, and now HN won't accept any post with that URL. Caught by my own ignorance and actions, but it's still their right to run their site as they see fit]
1: (I'm assuming that HN-links are ok :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50151036#50151160
They will reduce or be discarded. If a system recognises that you don’t add value, then either such users will be forced to put in effort or simply be discouraged to pollute any post.
Platforms like Reddit suffer because you can coordinate with many users to push an agenda, since their is no accountability from users who only upvote or downvote. That’s why bot farm and coordinated campaigns thrive.
Unless someone is policing the downvote reasons and holding them to some academically or some other rigorous standard, "I think you're wrong" is ... just fine as a reason.
I don’t agree with this.
——
I could have ended there but If I don’t expand on “I don’t agree with this” and simply end it with a full stop, does it tell you anything? Neither it tells someone else anything. For such cases, you don’t engage.
There are a wide variety of people in this world, and they don't all operate along your own norms, or mine, or <insert random cohort>. People can do as they please. Seems to work out mostly fine.
I did get a laugh to see the irony in the end :)
Shouting “brigading” doesn’t do much to change that.
It also ignores the impact of upvotes, which can be used to the same effect, yet doesn’t receive the same request.
Even someone downvoting a post is expressing their opinion. Current Issue is, person downvoting is anonymous, provides no reason and can’t be held liable for their own action. This is ironic, if they also put themselves out there.
Inadvertently, down voters have a larger say in shaping a discussion even though their level of participation is minimal instead of someone who takes the effort to provide a well structured opinion.
This balance of power is skewed.
If downvoting means to disagree, one should know why.
If one wants to provide why, there are replies for that.
It’s a qualitative instrument, making it quantitative will change the use. Meanwhile, abuse always finds a way.
Downvoting is simply that, IMHO, nothing more and nothing less than "I disagree with you".
So why is it tied to a quality of a post? You can simply reply you don’t agree. But that takes effort, so you downvote. But if you reply, that has no measurable value to tie to the quality of a post, even though words carry more meaning.
So somewhere your disagreement to something is perceived differently if you reply vs if you just downvote.
Downvoting is not simply downvoting, friend.Upvotes don't help either, they're basically meaningless. If anything they need to remove upvotes so the effect of downvoting is even stronger.
Reddit is mostly an example for what happens when rules and moderators are bad.
Unfortunately it isn't the 1990s anymore. The internet is a sewer of bots and slop and rancid toxicity. You can't expect people to be civil anymore, or even sane. Just the baseline of common decency requires aggressive gatekeeping and moderation, and preferably keeping a community small and hostile to outsiders. I kind of hate it, it's elitist, but the alternative is everything turning into 4chan.
Why would you then trust them with a downvote or flagging button?
> If lobste.rs wasn't invite only and didn't have the invitation tree
Maybe, maybe not. We don't have the evidence. Anyway, it's easy to get an invitation.
Because at least a downvote is silent. Without a downvote that energy just bleeds into more argumentative and off-topic discussion.
The problem is people complaining about downvotes. People need to just accept them as the cost of doing business here and move on. Complaining is only going to get you downvoted more.
That will happen anyway.
> People need to just accept them as the cost of doing business here and move on
As they apparently must accept comments, but the latter at least have a clear author, even if hidden behind a pseudonym in most cases. By the end of the day, the quality of the forum seems to depend on the quality and presence of the moderators.