Using and navigating this site would be a huge pain in the ass without them.
I can understand getting rid of downvotes to reduce hostility, but removing votes as a whole is just a bad idea. Effort posts would immediately get buried under shitposts that only took a few seconds (Not saying those are inherently bad ofc., but there needs to be a balance).
Every post would just turn into a contest of "Who sees it and comments first", which would suck. I unironically do not want to return to the "First!" era of commenting.
Keep upbears because otherwise how am I supposed to know how funny I am
Yes, please do not get rid of upbears. There are too many useful things they provide and I honestly find it hard to fathom that people think it would make any kind of difference as far as reducing hostility. Hostility is in the content of the posts/comments themselves, not the fact that the number of people who "liked" something didn't match up with the poster's (or others) expectations.
I know one of the reasons expressed has to do with neurodivergent people and I can respect that to the extent that they say it effects them. But I am neurodivergent too and have pretty significant issues with communicating with people. (It's part of why I rarely post or comment even though I am on the site literally every day, sometimes for hours). For me, upvoting gives me a way to feel like I'm still participating in the conversation, still a part of the community, even if I feel too s****d or nervous to post, or if I just don't have anything specific to express. I like being able to give input, even if it's small, and even if it's anonymous. And it's not negative input, it's simply me feeling like I can say "yes! I agree!" or "wow, what an awesome meme," or even just "I laughed at that silly pun, thanks." I often really do want to express appreciation for something I see without having to "come out of hiding" and formulate the wording that I will keep telling myself is "dumb of me" or too over the top, or not enough, or whatever. I know I shouldn't fret about that kind of thing, but I do - and being able to upvote is the perfect way to feel like I'm still contributing at least a tiny bit without having to go through that worry every time I think something is good.
And there are tons of other reasons that I know other people mentioned even in threads that got nuked. Like it really does help me recognize a wrecker that I might not be sharp enough to recognize before the mods get to it. It also helps, especially in the megathreads to quickly tell if it's a thread I've read or not (which I know could bee fixed if we implemented a "already read" button or something, but we already have upvotes which I still think are good for other reasons obviously). On that last point, I feel like there are so many amazing things that could be getting worked on for the site as far as what the wonderful devs are spending their time on for free. Let's not request they work on something that would reduce the functionality and imo the enjoyment of the site.
Now I'm going to click post, walk away, and try (but fail) not to keep thinking about what I should have said instead and whether or not I should delete this comment.
keep the upvotes definitely. There's not even that many, only a few posts get more than 100 here, and usually those are always good content. My brain also loves seeing number go up and I want that sweet serotonin to keep flowing :monke-beepboop:
Oftentimes I like a post but either don't have the time/energy/desire to give a thoughtful response on what I liked about it, or I have literally zilch to add beyond "cool, I like what you posted", and in those cases I really appreciate being able to just click a button that, however insidious it might as a media institution, lets me communicate that their thoughts were valuable to me without disproportionate investment on my part.
Building off of that I think it's possible that removing upbears might make the site feel more negative, even if broad user sentiments haven't actually changed. People are more likely on average to complain about something they dislike than praise something they like, so removing the easy way to show concurrence or approval means the one person who REALLY hated my take is going to be more visible than the twenty people who liked it well enough but didn't want to comment about it. I think that would be bad ;_;
I use the upvotes to see what posts I haven't read in the megathreads.
Yeah, and the upvote does help with sorting. Maybe just hide the score?
Fr though having only upvotes and no downvoted was probably the best decision this site has ever made
Counterpoint. Abolishing up votes forces more people to navigate New
No, that’s stupid. As another poster said, first! Is all over places with votes and algorithms, and we need to engage with each other, not rely on the “content” that got aggregated to the top.
You can’t honestly tell me you only read the “top” few replies or posts and believe yourself to be getting a good idea of what’s going on. I certainly don’t consider my understanding to be complete when I do that and when I read everything I gotta at least scan the joke posts too.
So votes don’t save me from reading the shitposts and I am on a shitposting forum.
I also gotta take on your call for balance. I’ve been on forums that were just absolute chaos at all times, ones that upheld a very high standard of discourse and lots in between. There are certainly some small differences in form that encourage or discourage behavior, but what makes it happen is the users, the actual people who make the posts. Not some algorithm that figures out what newness/engagement quotient ought to be displayed to a user browsing the front page.
Here I’ve written all that dumb crap and didn’t even ask: how would a lack of votes make the site a huge pain in the ass for you?
Keep the upvotes and the algorith but remove the amount indicator?
that way we keep our ability to sort posts of comments, but we remove the vapid indicator of quality?
Hmm, you claim to be against upbears yet you have accrued several of them :very-intelligent:
