Probably better to post in the github issue rather than replying here.
environment more hostile to discussion and honest exchange.
“Voting” and “discussion” are separate things. The old forums did not have voting but still had polarization, personal attacks, hellthreads, etc.
The problem is that Reddit/Facebook turned “voting” from a tool meant to measure “quality” (e.g, this post is relevant to the community, this comment does not add to the discussion) into a tool to measure “popularity” (I agree with this, so I vote up. I don’t like this, so I downvote).
Either get rid of voting altogether, or let’s bring back a culture where “votes” are meant to signal quality.
Redditors did that, rather than reddit I’d argue. Still the same result of becoming a far less useful heuristic though.
Not really sure how to “fix” a system like that, which depends on the masses to do something correctly. They… don’t.
What alternatives to votes would you propose to handle this better? Because I have no doubt the same thing will happen here too…
It’s just how people work, especially when things get heated. That said, perhaps that’s a poor example as a heated discussion isn’t necessary a helpful/constructive one…
We can fix that by having moderators that can establish clear guidelines and show enough authority and can be trusted by the community. And yes, if the guidelines include something like:
Downvotes are not for disagreement. It’s fine to downvote if the argument is false or deliberately misleading, but if someone is making a good faith argument that you disagree with, either make a constructive response or simply let it go
Then the mods would be completely justified to call out users who are drive-by downvoting.
But… we had those on reddit. I didn’t see many actual examples of the “moderator gone power crazy” stereotype that is so often echoed there (especially by people who fully deserved the moderator action they received).
The issue wasn’t that the rules were clear. The issue was that people refused to read them in the first place, and became hyper-defensive and obstinate whenever they were called out on it, even by moderators.
Or some self entitled 3rd party admin would do that just because they’d feel like people owed them explanations.
