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.

[–] shadowbert@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (10 children)

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.

[–] SteveFromMySpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

If users are the problem and the platform encourages/enables them to behave like that, then the problem is the platform. Redditors act that way because the system incentivizes it.

[–] shadowbert@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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...

[–] SteveFromMySpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I already said: upvotes only, remove downvotes, votes are public. If we don’t have downvotes public voting is not as important. But if we insist on keeping them, then yes it should be public

We also need people to be more accepting of stricter/heavier-handed moderation, which is a hard sell.

load more comments (7 replies)

load more comments (9 replies)