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It has nothing to do with meanness. It’s community curation. Upvotes provide you a signal that some people like it. Downvotes provide you a signal that some pe
by kortilla 3y ago
It has nothing to do with meanness. It’s community curation.
Upvotes provide you a signal that some people like it. Downvotes provide you a signal that some people dislike it. They are completely different.
Downvotes prevent unpopular things that have a fervent user-base from sitting on top.
- hinata08 3y ago> Downvotes prevent unpopular things that have a fervent user-base from sitting on top It's the definition of an echo chamber, isn't it ?
- krapp 3y agoIf it is, an echo chamber isn't always a bad thing.
- kortilla 3y agoNo, because in the youtube case it doesn’t actually suppress it. It was an extra bit of information that you could use to determine if a video was likely misleading.
- pessimizer 3y agoYouTube is, at all times, pro-echo chamber. So this is not their motive.
- AlbertCory 3y agoPerhaps. And also allow a brigade to suppress opinions they don't like.
- kortilla 3y agoYoutube dislikes didn’t go into a combined score. So there was no suppression. As a viewer it was an extra signal.
- AlbertCory 3y agosorry, I meant HN here
- pessimizer 3y agoOn HN you can showdead, so it doesn't matter. You can still read even flagkilled stuff. It allows us to review the moderation and decide if we approve of it. There's even a vouching mechanism, which is absurdly parliamentary for web 2.0. edit: there are even mods running around saving stories that they think were unfairly judged.
- phailhaus 3y agoAnd upvotes allow a brigade to push their own narrative over others. Both can be "abused", but both are necessary for a healthy community. In fact, without downvotes, it's way easier for a brigade to control the narrative of a platform.