@darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml calls this below, disagreement without elaboration. That’s a really apt way to put the solution to the burnout you described above, that we often feel when we’re forced to engage with reactionary content when we don’t have the energy to at that moment.
I need downvotes to push down incorrect, idealist, frankly liberal opinions of which a not insignificant amount come from the aforementioned instance.
We either get rid of downvotes and adopt a more brutal moderation policy that sees any liberalism or idealism result in a removal and quick trip to a permanent ban which means more work for mods or we like communists accept liberals occasionally coming in with their little downvotes while utilizing them ourselves as a discipline measure to as a community hold to account liberal, idealist, reactionary, and otherwise wrong opinions that otherwise threaten to poison the minds of learning comrades.
I see this kind of poison frequently on hex bear and frankly it does not encourage anything but low effort, lower the bar emote spamming which does little to measure actual community opinion (a dozen idealists may upvote a bad comment while only 3 people bother to put down bear emojis which are clunky anyways and amount to discourse clogging “same” comments which add nothing.) Downvotes are the elegant solution and so far especially with our recent defederation from world the liberals are not near outnumbering us.
Democratic participation and discipline includes disagreement without elaboration especially when dealing with many opinions which are frankly unstudied and by people who otherwise should have no right to speak.
This missed the historical context for why downvotes were disabled on Hexbear in the first place. Moderators were trying to implement trans-friendly policies and features like pronouns, and reactionary weirdos kept downvoting the shit out of people who agreed with and wanted those features. Mods tried to ban based on upvotes and downvotes, but it didn’t work.
I think the assumption that any site’s general culture will be correct on an issue is a faulty one. Yeah, it’s going to be generally correct about international politics or Marxism or something everyone researched on the site probably (when it’s on Hexbear or Lemmygrad at least), but anyone who’s part of a smaller or more fucked over minority has to basically fight an uphill battle to even be listened to even with downvotes off. With downvotes on, someone asking for accommodations or sympathy in a radical or surprising way that other users haven’t seen before will just be shut down entirely. I think a good example of this is how I’ve seen people constantly make fun of others for stuff like not showering and, when people talk about how those with depression often do their best but can’t manage it and so making fun of someone for that can be hurtful, they were just ridiculed. If downvotes were enabled most complaints about ableism or more obscure forms of anti-queer oppression would be pushed to the fringes and ignored.
The main issue with downvotes are that they allow those with hegemonic beliefs to enforce them without considering why they hold those beliefs in the first place.
So ultimately, it’s a trade off between if you want to be open to more radical theory that people would have a knee-jerk reaction to and downvote, or be more closed to that theory but allow site members to enforce the popular opinion more strongly
So basically, the consensus here is that sometimes being responsible about shutting down bad ideas, is not explaining exactly how someone is wrong, but rather it means firmly exclaiming “Siddowwwn!! SIDDOWWWN!!” — Whereas I remember on Hexbear that there was more worry about how downvotes could disproportionately affect certain groups, and that this worry was a part of the decision to disable them. Hexbear’s emote spamming doesn’t necessarily prevent people from seeing what the community consensus is, like darkcalling suggests, because once one person has commented an emote, then everybody else can just upvote that. It is clunkier, yes, but it’s meant as a deterrent.
However, if I can be completely honest, I had been noticing for a while that on Hexbear there were people sometimes saying things that to me seemed really half-baked, or even like drunk-and-stoned “just say shit” comments, so I had honestly been questioning whether disabling downvotes did sometimes also have a detrimental effect on the Quality of Discourse. Not necessarily a super big impact, because you do notice that Bad comments get fewer upvotes and generally do get replies, even if they’re just something simple like “Are we sure about this?”, but it’s an impact nonetheless. There are after all eleven types of liberalism, several of which concern an attitude of not publicly coming forth with one’s criticisms, and it seems like a bit of a bad idea to assume that all self-proclaimed commies on the Internet have fully exorcised each of these eleven ghosts. It is very easy to think “I’ll let someone else handle this one” or “Well, a downbear seems a bit harsh for such a small issue, I have no ill will towards this person”.
Downvote-disabling definitely seemed like a good feature when I first came to Hexbear, because I’d had experiences previously of getting downvoted on Reddit and on my previous fediverse instances, which always left me thinking either “Huh? What? What’d I do wrong?” or “What’s-a matter you?” or “Ugh, these liberals are incapable of critical thought” — but in a sense I can see how it is a bit of a selfish, liberal perspective to not want to get “virtual glares” as if it’s others’ duty to educate me like I’m a little baby, or like my own ideas are always so important that they shouldn’t just be dismissed out of hand, rather than thinking about the health of the community as a whole.
I dunno, I guess downvotes enabled vs downvotes disabled is like the two emissaries of Java: equal in valor, at least until proven otherwise. Maybe the culture of Lemmygrad will make up for my previous issues with downvotes, but it’s still a change back to an old system which will require some readjustment, small as the difference actually is.
A bit of a tangent: I do a lot of posting in lib spaces, and if I get no downvotes I know I’m being a tailist. I’m not pushing their boundaries hard enough. The downvotes are important agitprop feedback.
u/muad_dibber’s comment six months ago in c/lemmygrad_court: Getting rid of downvotes the way Hexbear did
u/darkcalling’s comment:
This missed the historical context for why downvotes were disabled on Hexbear in the first place. Moderators were trying to implement trans-friendly policies and features like pronouns, and reactionary weirdos kept downvoting the shit out of people who agreed with and wanted those features. Mods tried to ban based on upvotes and downvotes, but it didn’t work.
I think the assumption that any site’s general culture will be correct on an issue is a faulty one. Yeah, it’s going to be generally correct about international politics or Marxism or something everyone researched on the site probably (when it’s on Hexbear or Lemmygrad at least), but anyone who’s part of a smaller or more fucked over minority has to basically fight an uphill battle to even be listened to even with downvotes off. With downvotes on, someone asking for accommodations or sympathy in a radical or surprising way that other users haven’t seen before will just be shut down entirely. I think a good example of this is how I’ve seen people constantly make fun of others for stuff like not showering and, when people talk about how those with depression often do their best but can’t manage it and so making fun of someone for that can be hurtful, they were just ridiculed. If downvotes were enabled most complaints about ableism or more obscure forms of anti-queer oppression would be pushed to the fringes and ignored.
The main issue with downvotes are that they allow those with hegemonic beliefs to enforce them without considering why they hold those beliefs in the first place.
So ultimately, it’s a trade off between if you want to be open to more radical theory that people would have a knee-jerk reaction to and downvote, or be more closed to that theory but allow site members to enforce the popular opinion more strongly
So basically, the consensus here is that sometimes being responsible about shutting down bad ideas, is not explaining exactly how someone is wrong, but rather it means firmly exclaiming “Siddowwwn!! SIDDOWWWN!!” — Whereas I remember on Hexbear that there was more worry about how downvotes could disproportionately affect certain groups, and that this worry was a part of the decision to disable them. Hexbear’s emote spamming doesn’t necessarily prevent people from seeing what the community consensus is, like darkcalling suggests, because once one person has commented an emote, then everybody else can just upvote that. It is clunkier, yes, but it’s meant as a deterrent.
However, if I can be completely honest, I had been noticing for a while that on Hexbear there were people sometimes saying things that to me seemed really half-baked, or even like drunk-and-stoned “just say shit” comments, so I had honestly been questioning whether disabling downvotes did sometimes also have a detrimental effect on the Quality of Discourse. Not necessarily a super big impact, because you do notice that Bad comments get fewer upvotes and generally do get replies, even if they’re just something simple like “Are we sure about this?”, but it’s an impact nonetheless. There are after all eleven types of liberalism, several of which concern an attitude of not publicly coming forth with one’s criticisms, and it seems like a bit of a bad idea to assume that all self-proclaimed commies on the Internet have fully exorcised each of these eleven ghosts. It is very easy to think “I’ll let someone else handle this one” or “Well, a downbear seems a bit harsh for such a small issue, I have no ill will towards this person”.
Downvote-disabling definitely seemed like a good feature when I first came to Hexbear, because I’d had experiences previously of getting downvoted on Reddit and on my previous fediverse instances, which always left me thinking either “Huh? What? What’d I do wrong?” or “What’s-a matter you?” or “Ugh, these liberals are incapable of critical thought” — but in a sense I can see how it is a bit of a selfish, liberal perspective to not want to get “virtual glares” as if it’s others’ duty to educate me like I’m a little baby, or like my own ideas are always so important that they shouldn’t just be dismissed out of hand, rather than thinking about the health of the community as a whole.
I dunno, I guess downvotes enabled vs downvotes disabled is like the two emissaries of Java: equal in valor, at least until proven otherwise. Maybe the culture of Lemmygrad will make up for my previous issues with downvotes, but it’s still a change back to an old system which will require some readjustment, small as the difference actually is.
A bit of a tangent: I do a lot of posting in lib spaces, and if I get no downvotes I know I’m being a tailist. I’m not pushing their boundaries hard enough. The downvotes are important agitprop feedback.
Interesting, I haven’t heard that term before, but that’s a good point. Are there any examples of your own tailism that you would like to share?
Examples of my tailism? But madam, a gentleman never tails.