Imagine you make a really good post, but there's nothing to really add to it. If there weren't votes, it would look like that post wasn't even seen by anyone because no one responded. This would discourage posters and effectively kill the forum.

I can see an argument for removing downvotes, but removing votes entirely would be a huge mistake.

[–] Orion@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I don't think removing downvotes is a good idea either. You remember how everyone reacted when Youtube removed dislikes?

[–] Horse@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 2 days ago

it seems to have worked pretty well for hexbear, though i prefer to have both up and downvotes personally

[–] RedWizard@hexbear.net 3 points 2 days ago

Yeah, but most of that reaction was pretty lame. It was rooted in people being mad that they can't mass dislike something as a form of harassment. I honestly don't miss dislikes at all, I don't know that the usage as "this is not a good video" ever outweighed the usage as "as a chud, we collectively hate this person and their 'ideology' so we're going to utterly tank their like to dislike ratio". Besides, its been working fine on Hexbear if I'm honest.

[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 2 days ago

ditto, queermunist, ditto