Several people in the community have expressed frustration in regards to the fact that any post that fits the community it's posted to but is slightly out of the normal post type like, for example, being more hardcore rather than softcore, get's a lot of downvotes by people who simply don't like that particular post.
We have also had complaints that particular types of posts as a whole get more downvotes even if they are in the appropriate community and are the normal type of post for a community. This especially appears to be happening to male content.
Additionally we are seeing posts with more downvotes than a community has subscribers, meaning people are downvoting content they don't even want to see in the first place.
We understand some may not like some content of a particular post or community, but downvoting posts discourages these posters who are actually passionate/interested in the topic of the community from posting again. Additionally, when posts are downvoted like that it can bury them in our instance and especially in other instances, preventing them from being viewed by others almost at all.
After some discussion amongst the moderators and admins,because of the reasons above, we've decided to disable downvotes at least for the time being.
What do I do if I dislike a post?
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We recommend those who would normally downvote a post they don't like just, instead, block the user who created the post, or, if the community is a topic you dislike, block the community. That way, you no longer see those posts, but don't effect those posts' visibility to other members of the community and instance.
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Additionally, you can view your "Subscribed" feed instead of "Local" so that you only see posts from the communities you are subscribed to.
What do I do if a post doesn't fit the community it's posted in or is spam?
- Please report the post, either the mods of the community or an instance admin will remove the post if necessary, as soon as possible. We have admins and mods online almost around the clock, so these types of posts should be removed quickly.
Potential future post filtering on lemmy:
- In the future it appears that lemmy may implement a tagging system similar to flairs on reddit. This request has piqued the interest of the lemmy devs, so keep an eye out sometime in the (maybe not so near) future for the implementation of that feature.
As @yay@lemmynsfw.com has said in the comments:
Downvotes should be used for posts you don’t like in your area of interest, and not for niche communities you don’t like.
When the RFC mentioned in the post is developed, we will be able to have a more refined home page, this way we can enable downvotes.
But for now, please block users/communities as it supposed to be.
Please put any comments questions and concerns in the comments below, we are of course always open to community thoughts and feedback, and want to work with you to keep this instance an enjoyable and entertaining place to post and browse.
I ran a forum with 30k active users before saying F that. One thing I learned during that adventure is that you can't force people to behave the way you want. It doesn't matter what you type, the up/down votes will mean exactly what the user wants. Trying to force conformity or censoring their contributions (down votes) will only end in frustration and lower user count.
tldr: Your team is behaving like it's their first moderating experience.
Another opinion from someone with 0 posts and 0 comments on lemmynsfw
That is what has been happening the past 6 months on lemmynsfw. I'm very glad a change is being now to right this ship.
I mean the account is 5 months old.. who cares how many comments and posts they have? Maybe they have the account to vote and mostly just lurk until now?
Unless you try making posts here you wouldn't experience first hand why people don't want downvotes. It's easy to criticize without having perspective of people who are submitting content. There's also some entitlement of people who want certain content who are doing nothing to get that content.
I get that but this whole thing is like forcing a safe space for people who put themselves out there and can't tolerate whatever comes with it. They should ignore the downvotes or just disable them themselves
Or people can just block the communities they don't want to see instead of down voting things that they don't like.
You don't like cocks? No problem just block those communities.
Don't go down voting those posts and ruining it for people who are making those posts and who trying to see those posts.
I'm with you there, that's what I do. But ultimately you can't dictate others experience or preference. If that's how they want to use the platform and it isn't breaking any laws, it is what it is.
Harden up buttercup. I'm on world so I don't have to worry about changes to lemmynsfw voting, but I agree with the others that removing downvotes ignores that the viewer knows what the viewer wants to see. If a certain type of content is being outright rejected by the community who are you to force them to view it? Downvotes help tell us creators what is and isn't working for the community and encourages us to lift our game.
Now go through my history and try that bullshit line:
I just looked at your posts, how about creating content instead of reposting it. They have bots for what you do, go let one of them do it so you can stop being sad that no one likes Amy Schumer.
I find your use of name calling disrespectful and your tone condescending. If you want to have a conversation with me do so in a respectful way.
That's rich. Coming from the person saying:
Maybe take your own advice instead of being a condescending hypocrite.
Me pointing that the feedback is coming from people who have no stake in getting their posts downvoted. Isn't the same as your name calling, condensing behavior. It seems like you are lashing out at me more than trying to get your points across.
You refusing to acknowledge my point because you intentionally ignored the content of my post is a you problem.
If you don't want to behave properly don't cry when you get treated the same.
Just as you have no stake in your posts being downvoted because you didn't create the content.
I'm refusing to acknowledge your points because of your uncalled for name calling. Until you apologize I have 0 interest in talking to you.
You have zero interest in talking to me because I pointed out your hypocrisy and you have no valid defence.
Pathetic and intellectually disingenuous.
I made my point very clear if you want to have a discussion with me do so without name calling.
If you're insulted by what you are then be different. It's obvious you're only interested in one side of the conversation, if a little push back is all it takes to shut down your opinions then they obviously lack validity.