👎 It's okay to downvote

in #steem6 years ago (edited)

There is a reason why flags have been renamed to downvotes on Steemit.com. It's part of the Steem game and we should feel comfortable using them. Especially, so people won't be horrified once (hopefully) a separate downvote pool (or another downvote incentive) is added on Steem.

I know, the feeling of removing "potential money" from another post/comment is weird and somehow counterintuitive, but imagine people on Reddit wouldn't downvote. Of course, the economy is completely different on Reddit than on Steem (you can't buy anything with your Karma). However, downvotes are part of this system. You can't have the one thing, without the other.

So ... it's okay to downvote! (really!)


PS: We should take the conversation about the Steem economy seriously, which has been started multiple times over the last years by different people (incl. @kevinwong & @trafalgar); and most recently by Steemit Inc (Improving the Economics of Steem: A Community Proposal).

It's important that we challenge our beliefs and dare to make changes & contest the status quo!

PS2: This is not an appeal to downvote mindlessly. Use it wisely.

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If a post doesn’t look interesting, I skip it. I won’t waste my time reading it just so I can downvote.

If you downvote without reading, isn’t that somewhat of a fraud? You’re being a jerk in that sense. Your reward for suffering bad content is a downvote. For most of us, we just move on to better posts without the suffering.

Posted using Partiko iOS

same, if someone wrote something on my blog that i didn't like i would down vote it most likely other wise just move on

I agree with your comment.
Same thing i would do.

You don't have to (nor should you) downvote everything you see. But downvotes are important to express your opinion. Even just a 1% downvote might be enough.

downvotes are theft vandalism

So tempted to downvote this post. I did like the proposal to give out a few downvotes for free, but then things could become more political here. Spam my post and its a guaranteed downvote regardless.

Posted using Partiko Android

There shouldn't be downvote option at all.

Posted using Partiko Android

I completely disagree. If you do not like my video, or if you happen to not like the type of music in it, you are free to ignore my post. (You don't throw a brick through a Store window because you don't like the merchandise on display, do you? Most normal people keep walking..) Since it takes a lot of work (days) to make such a video, I will no longer post them because of opinion flags or association flags. Flags have eliminated Steemit's use case for me, and by default, Steem along with it. Be sure to HODL, I'm out and off to making a 3rd Movie; that's a lot of content not coming to Steemit.

Good luck, cheers!

This isn't about posts. But rather about communicating on this platform.

And as I wrote in a previous comment; you shouldn't downvote every post you see.

I think stakeholders on STEEM dramatically overestimate peoples want to downvote. This isn’t reddit or YouTube, it’s fundamentally a different system and a different action with a different outcome here. The objective reality is you’re taking someone’s money(I know, it’s not yours until payout, but you know what I mean), and most people just don’t want to do that. I’m glad they put it in the right place because that makes sense, but I don’t think they will ever become a common thing amongst regular users. I could be wrong though, it’s still new.

Posted using Partiko iOS

I understand where you are coming from but I personally would never downvote anyone. I really believe in decentralized freedom of speech. If I don't agree I will comment.

Why must everything be against free speech always? Downvoting is nothing against free speech, it shows your disagreement with either a topic, how a topic is being presented or with the rewards a user is getting. Low quality content boosted to hot or trending could easily be downvoted to "where it belongs" this way and only users assured from their content would use their money to boost their content.
Besides that, with the downvote pool the community would had better ways to, for example, show their disagreement with conspiracy theories or other things. Right now you have a counter incentive to down vote since you factually lose money.

i hear you but for me I think people should be able to post whatever they want. I am not opposed "low quality" content. In my opinion that is how social media is shared and consumed these days. Instagram has trained users to share pics and vids that aren't "quaility" . I'm just against the idea that long form blogging is what should be posted on steemit. Medium is irrelevant as a growth platform and things like instagram, snapchat and twitter are still growing. I think that forcing "quality" content will be the end of steem. If I disagree with people I comment and engage but really it doesn't matter if I disagree or not regarding their opinion or posts.

I am not talking about forcing quality content, I am talking about balancing rewards positively to quality content. Rubbish content should get less rewards than quality content. Quality content should get more exposure than 1 photo posts. Flagging high valued low quality content has this as a result.
I am not opposed to low quality content, I am opposed to low quality content getting too much of the reward pool.

I get it but I think its too late. The wealth distribution is too skewed at this point in my opinion.

If you can prove me that the wealth distribution on steem was better any point, please do so. Although I doubt that it was better, and if it was better than probably during the "bull run", and thus, not sooo different to now.

I meant that it's too late. It was never good. But it was the whales wiping out people just because they didn't like them. I just think downvoting is unnessicary

We're on a Proof of Stake network, the idea is that the more stake someone has to lose in this network the higher the probability is that this person wants this network to succeed and the higher the probability is that he will do things that serve the community in these cases.

The issue with downvotes is that those are tools for protecting the platform from spam and abuse but some people tend to use them as a mean to bully small accounts. And when big players enter this silly game nobody dares to raise their voice, let alone taking serious measures to prevent or protect the victims.

I know the system is still under development, but downvotes are abused as much as the economic system in the platform. We have some sort of anti-spam initiative backed with lots of steem (steem cleaners) but I am yet to see a supported initiative to protect users from bullies.

Time will tell tho, I think that we still have time to dare and prove stuff.

Best regards.

unless you go out looking for trouble, not much reason to downvote... only used it when something inappropriate drifted into my steem stream, peace

EDIT: Current downvoting is a waste of resources!

I hadn’t thought of that. Does downvoting reduce your mana?

Posted using Partiko iOS

In that case, why bother? You’re right. If you’re just going to 1% downvote, why bother? Votes are money. So, I’m glad downvoting costs both parties.

Posted using Partiko iOS

hmm that's the arguement i do want some free down votes because i would downvote etherpunk. and i like the ideals behind the etherpunk account

I agree. That's why there needs to be a downvote-pool or other incentive to use it (important: not something that gives people an incentive to abuse it!)

While I understand why steem gets compared to reddit a lot, when it comes to downvotes there's a pretty big difference. On steem, it's public and anyone can see who downvoted which post, whereas on reddit it's hidden. That has its own problems but it does seem to do a pretty good job at keeping trash posts suppressed and allows "good" content to float to the top.

The reddit approach gets much more complicated when it comes to steem because this is a public blockchain and votes=money. Maybe if downvotes were changed to a type of "shadow" vote that is obscured on the blockchain and doesn't take into account the voting accounts stake in steem, with an option to do a public downvote that does use the accounts stake...

Just thinking "out loud"...