Make downvotes invisible

Traxicus·4/28/2016, 10:24:34 PM·5 votes·1,065 views

This mostly applies to all the harshly-downvoted concept posts, but I think it'd help the boards feel less toxic:

I propose that downvotes still do the same thing, but you can't downvote a post below 0. If a post has 5 upvotes and 20 downvotes, 0. If it has 20 upvotes and 5 downvotes, 15.

People that downvote without commenting aren't adding to the discussion. If a post is bad enough to deserve a wave of downvotes, it should probably be reported instead.

Edit: In response to the idea of requiring downvotes to leave a comment, that's solving the wrong problem. Yes, it's too easy to downvote without caring about the content. But the problem is with the idea of downvotes on these boards. People's original ideas and honest opinions get endlessly downvoted, making the value of a negatively-scored post completely indecipherable. Meanwhile, posts with a lot of upvotes can be content-less troll posts or posts designed to incite arguing. There's no point in publicly displaying a number correlated to the amount of times people have clicked one of two arrows as if it represents that post's value.

12 Comments

JayHog19924/28/2016, 10:28:45 PM3 votes

True that, sometimes I see downvotes on my topics and no explanation added...

Almost as bad as having said topics ignored, like a joke. :C

Elite4Runner5/8/2016, 9:59:17 PM3 votes

Thank you!!! I posted about this very same issue. I think downvotes should at least require a comment. Even if it is an extremely brief and meaningless comment, that at least tells me that the person didn't have a valid enough argument for their downvote to really matter. Maybe it would discourage those people from voting at all. If someone actually has something valid to say it could help you to see a flaw in your idea or at least the way you presented your idea. I think the main reason people are so against this is because they want to be able to downvote things without any accountability, and that is just counterproductive to the point of a discussion forum.

Fovere5/8/2016, 10:27:01 PM3 votes

Personally not a fan of the voting system either.

It's like post count on a forum, just encourages spam and attention/upvote-seeking behavior.

Although, it can be indicative when you see certain topics consistently up/down voted.

Neku215/6/2016, 4:54:49 PM1 votes

They should make it so that you actually have to Ohmy click and look and read the stuff before you can upvote downvote... rito plz xl cuz I'm having a problem with this as well...

Fovere5/6/2016, 6:37:42 PM1 votes

Sure, then people should have to justify upvotes as well.

Fovere5/8/2016, 10:20:56 PM1 votes

Either people have to justify their reasoning or they don't.

You don't get to apply different rules to people simply for thinking differently