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All downvoting does is enforce 'crowd-think'. You could never picture it today, but back in 2012, /r/politics was much more central then it was today (still lef
by ApolloFortyNine 9y ago
All downvoting does is enforce 'crowd-think'. You could never picture it today, but back in 2012, /r/politics was much more central then it was today (still left leaning, but you could actually find differing opinions). But soon after that election, anyone who disagreed would get downvoted into oblivion, and eventually those people stop posting. And what you're left with is today's /r/politics.
You can see this in a lot of topic related subreddits, if something is extremely popular, you'll get downvoted for calling out any faults. Eventually people just stop posting.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- TremendousJudge 9y agoThat happens with large enough communities everywhere, since the dawn of the internet. Eventually users move to smaller subs where there's more quality discussion
- cup-of-tea 9y agoIndeed. Downvoting simply shouldn't exist. It lets users feel like "mini-censors" and it turns out people really like censoring views they don't agree with or that make them uncomfortable. It's not just downvoting, though. Reddit also lets the moderators act like real censors and they are completely unaccountable. There is no way to visit a subreddit and know whether the discussion there is censored or not. So you have to assume it is.