this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023

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Lemmy NSFW

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An update on our community regarding downvotes (lemmynsfw.com)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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?

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.
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 @[email protected] 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.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I absolutely fuckin hate this. It's almost the equivalent of YouTube removing the dislike button.

I am leaving this account behind because of this change, which is incredibly frustrating to have to do, since I had many saved posts and I already had been blocking the communities I don't like to see rather than downvoting their posts, so I have to redo all of this on a new instance.

Downvotes are an integral part of a voting system, and are especially critical in low population environments like this. I don't care how many "likes" a post has, what matters is the up/down ratio. Now lemmynsfw has lost that.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I just want to say that I think the admin here is awesome. You seem to really want to accommodate both users and posters. I decided to no longer post here because many of the users are negative. The downvotes felt awful even though I have a thick skin. That’s great they are disabled, but there are also negative comments. I have a thick skin, but I get treated better on other social media. There are great users here, but the trolls are too prominent for me. It seems like many users have high expectations yet don’t want “pros”. The stock images look like sex dolls. Idk. I just want to be treated well. Thanks for the users that supported me. There are awesome people here.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Hey Annabelle, don't leave yet.

I absolutly know what you are talking about. I also have had accounts on multiple platforms and agree with your assesment. Toxic and negative users all around. Whining about their "right' to downvote. For starters, from this thread its pretty obvious who the downvoters are. So i blocked them all. Those are 5 or 6 six jerks less to deal with. Dont wanna support the creators, you know the one who actually get out their comfortzone and contribute, not gonna see my content. Negative comment, blocked too.

But i really wanna support this instance and help make it thrive. There are wonderfull people behind the screens, with good intentions. Dont give up yet, take a break sure but come back to check for progress on this issue.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks @[email protected].

Question for you and admins here: Does blocking someone work here on LemmyNSFW work the same way now as on Reddit (i.e. they can't see any your content posts). Previously on Reddit before they made the change, blocking was only one way, which didn't work well.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Blocking is only one way here as well. If you block a user then their comments and posts will no longer appear for you. If there is a comment by the blocked user in a conversation it shows up as 'There is no record of this comment' the same as if it was removed by mod action or if it's the end of the comment chain you just can't expand it (At least on Jerboa). Blocked communities don't show in your feed and won't show up in a search if you try to manually go to it either.

Your own comments and posts will still show to the blocked user however.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Bummers - that what I thought... Reddit finally did something right when they made blocking both ways so that people you have blocked can't see you.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I actually prefer the one-way ban personally, but I'm not a poster generally. I would imagine that the people who are enough of a problem to require the two-way ban would just ban-evade with another account anyway.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Nah if i block someone, they can fuck right off. It means i dont wanna engage anymore and i dont want them to have the opportunity to comment and ruin the vibe in my comment section either. Or follow me around and downvote everything im doing.

Its my effort, my content and i wanna be able to disinvite them fully. They can go spew their negative bullshit somewhere else.

I had a few who indeed made other accounts to come back and annoy me again. Blocked those accounts too. Wake a mole and all. They give up after a while. And a new post wont trigger them to start the harrasment again cause they cant seeeeee them.

Can you put a community on private here?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Hi Annabelle, Wrt negative or harassing comments, you can report them for actioning by mods/admins. I am quick to ban trolls and toxic folks who don't add value to communities, and I believe most mods would agree with me and do the same.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Its not anybody specific. Maybe just a general culture. Maybe ill change my mind after i get some space

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I disagree that blocking users or communities covers everything. Upvotes are for good content, neutral (no action) is for most posts that you just scroll past, but downvotes are for 5 second clips without sound that technically don't break any rules of the community. But maybe other people might disagree, and that's good, in that case they can upvote and the net value of the post is clear. If not, the OP gets a clear signal that the number of downvotes is higher than the number of upvotes and they can fuck right off with those posts.

Especially if they also post other, high quality content, you can't expect me to just block the user who has done nothing wrong, or report their post that breaks no rules.

Or do you expect me to upvote literally everythingI scroll past (except the posts I would have downvoted)? I'll gladly do that if I can autmate it, otherwise ain't nobody got time fo that shit.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Yeah that's honestly been my biggest issue here is the fact that I can't properly filter out certain content/users because it technically fits the community or the user posts in many communities.

Like the hentai community is one of my most viewed yet people will post niche hentai stuff that I have no interest in whatsoever and even though there's already a specific community for that niche it's still not breaking the rules by being in the main community.

It's the same with users who post exactly the type of content I like while also posting content I abhor. I can't block them without also losing out on a lot of the content I actually want to see

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

get’s [sic] a lot of downvotes by people who simply don’t like that particular post.

That's literally the point of the downvote system. To downvote posts you don't like, or you feel are out of place.

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.

This seems to be the real issue you're trying to fight. It seems like only permitting downvotes on communities that the user has been a part of for greater than 1/2/7/30/pick-a-number days would be the proper solution. If people in a community are downvoting a post, then it means they don't think that post is worth sharing. No admin, moderator, community owner, etc. should be able to change that.

I am strongly against removing downvotes.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

get’s [sic] a lot of downvotes by people who simply don’t like that particular post.

That’s literally the point of the downvote system. To downvote posts you don’t like, or you feel are out of place.

Sorry, but I hard disagree with you on the "point" of the downvote system. A downvote, to me, is not the same as "liking" or "disliking" content. I only downvote content that is not correct for the sub, bad-faith, or troll content, and I would really urge others to do the same.

If you think of cause-and-effect, downvoting any time you dislike content is not a good system: Upvoting is the incentive to post that type of content, and downvoting is a disincentive to post that type of content. And Lemmy needs more content.

For example, I see Gonewild, every male poster getting downvoted to oblivion. But male nudity is not against the rules if properly labeled. As a straight male, I have no interest in seeing male nudity, so I don't upvote it, and it's not bad-faith or rule-breaking so I don't downvote it. But it's clear most people are downvoting it because they "dislike" it. But maybe there are some non-straight-male people in the sub who would appreciate it, and they don't see it because it's been buried. The eventual effect is that the community becomes more insular, with more unwritten rules.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I appreciate your verbalization of the issue at hand. I like to think of the vote system more along the lines of appropriateness upvote=appropriate/good, no vote=appropriate/neutral or not good, and downvote=inappropriate/broken/rule breaking.

Not interacting with a post has about as much of an effect on the non-chronological sorting as a downvote does so essentially you're just going out of your way to make someone feel bad if it's an appropriate fit for the community and you use it as an "Ew" button. This behavior becomes especially problematic when it comes to non-promotional OC.

It's not perfect, but I think removing the downvotes for a brief stint will have a pretty good impact on training user behavior to help facilitate growth until this place is at a point where there is enough core functionality to allow for better solutions.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

This is a Lemmy implementation problem - you need to vote to remove a post from your feed if you're hiding seen posts. I'd much rather ignore posts that fit but aren't for me, but there's no other way to mark them read.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

I fully understand why you guys did this and it is certainly a solution to the problem above.

That being said, I really do not like this change.

I would go into detail about the reasons why, but I feel like this topic has been hashed out a few times before. So everyone should know why people are for and against this change.

(I am only posting this comment because the other way to show disapproval has now been removed.)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Strongly agree with this decision to disable downvotes untill the community of active oc posters and commentors grows.

Look, i post nswf oc content because i like making and sharing my pictures. Gives me a thrill, i like the social aspect too. Alot of people here are focusing on the "user experience" but what about "posting experience"?

Its just not fun to post your oc content and immediatly get 5 downvotes cause some lurkers cant be bothered to customize their feed. Its driving active and contributing users away and is harming this relatively small community atm.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Its just not fun to post your oc content and immediatly get 5 downvotes cause some lurkers cant be bothered to customize their feed. Its driving active and contributing users away and is harming this relatively small community atm.

I can definitely see this being a much bigger issue for the Gonewild posters than anyone else, perhaps this change need only be applied to those communities?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

First, love what you are contributing/posting. The ai art, sharing prompts and even helping other user finetune the process. A+

Now onto the issue at hand, i wanna make clear that im def not supporting to get rid of the downvotes forever. I just think that atm they are harming this instance and should be disabled for a while untill we have more people who post original content or untill fediverse users have gotten into the habit of curating and browsing only in subscribed communities of interest as most redditors have learned to do, due to the sheer volume of content there.

I think the real problem is that alot of new users are used to reddit and how it works. Lemmy operates different, i had to figure it out and get used to it too.

On reddit gonewild, you post something and only users who sort through new get to see your post (new accounts of course, subscribers is something else) and vote on that post. Its a sorting process thats rather low profile, the more people like it, the more exposure it gets, you go from new to rising to frontpage. Users sorting new are different folks then users scrolling the frontpage. New page are people trying to sext or cam or are just lonely and wanna talk. You can thrive and have fun in just that section of the sub. Even if you never get the upvotes to get to rising or frontpage, its a fun experience. If you do get the upvotes for frontpage, along come the rude disrespectfull messages, its part of the internet and comes with high exposure. But at that point the poster already has 100's of nice messages and the self esteem boost that comes with reaching the frontpage. In other words the downvotes from that group are pretty harmless emotionally.

On lemmy new posts go up almost immediatly after posting so your exposure is biggest when first posting. If you get lots of upvotes you can keep that exposure longer. But as i just explained high exposure means rude assholes and on lemmy thats right at the start before the validation. Immediate bad repsonses and only the fun experiences later on or maybe never at all.

You have to realize that posters of nude selfies are putting themselfs out there, not a prompt or a (very beautifull) artpiece. The reactions/comments are way more personal and confronting. Its not always easy to deal with it and atm the downvotes on that content is leaving those posters with nothing. No fun experiences at all. So they give up and leave, or check this place see the negative comments and just never try.

For me personaly, its about building a community here, i dont post to sell or for validation (anymore). Maybe its a bit cheesy but when i first started in this world, i met some amazing and very helpfull people, it kinda changed my outlook on life. I wanna return that favour to the internet by helping to build something positive here.

Ok enough written. Im very interested on why downvotes are so important for you and your community. Cause not only gonewild is affected, every community that has nude oc content is experiencing this problem.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

"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, preventing them from being viewed by others almost at all."

Isn't that literally the point of down voting? To discourage posting that doesn't fit the community so that it isn't seen by as many people... ESPECIALLY since the focus on this instance is NSFW then more discouragement of posts that don't fit should be the goal so that users subscribed to those communities surface the appropriate things they want to see. You've removed users' agency to shape their communities and caused waaaaaay more work for moderators.

This also takes away our ability to down vote posts across the entire federation it appears?!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Agree that the point of down voting is to discourage posts that don't fit with the community, which means the the community is voting for what it does and does not want to see in a community.

Someone being passionate about something that doesn't fit with what the community wants to see getting frustrated should not over ride what the community has voted for. They should instead find or create a community that fits their passion and not try to change a community to fit their passion.